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14/09/2010

Italians release few funds in other countries

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With very few exceptions, the proportion of sales of funds abroad by Italian fund management firms is near zero, Plus24, the money supplement of the newspaper Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. UBI, which manages a total of EUR21.3bn, and Bipiemme, which has EUR16.8bn under management, sell no funds outside the borders of Italy. Intesa Sanpaolo, with EUR115.8bn, sells only 3.6% of its funds abroad. The two most international firms, according to the table published in Plus24, are Pioneer, with a 14.2% market share, and Generali, with 16.09%.
14/09/2010

GAM launches a long/short emerging markets fund

GAM launches GAM Star Absolute Global Emerging Markets, an emerging market equity long/short Ucits III fund. The new, daily dealing fund will invest in emerging markets with a particular focus on the core BRIC economies and ‘new BRIC’ markets including Turkey, GCC, Indonesia, Egypt and other African and ASEAN economies. GAM Star Absolute Global Emerging Markets will be managed by inhouse investment director, Sean Taylor, responsible for GAM’s emerging and frontier markets funds.The fund will be allocated across three core themes; structural and domestic plays, cyclical ideas and new emerging market opportunities.
14/09/2010

ComStage launches four equities ETFs in Frankfurt

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On Friday, 10 September, the listings on the segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform from Deutsche Börse gained four lines, all equities ETFs from ComStage (Commerzbank group). The products, all Luxembourg-registered products which replicate FTSE indices, bring the total number of ETFs listed in Frankfurt to 697. Name ISIN code TERComStage ETF FTSE 100 Short Strategy TR LU0488316562 0.45%ComStage ETF FTSE 100 Leveraged TR LU0488316646 0.45%ComStage ETF FTSE 250 TR LU0488316307 0.30%ComStage ETF FTSE All-Share TR LU0488316489 0.35%
14/09/2010

Renaissance calls off plans to close RIEF and RIFF hedge funds

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Renaissance Technologies has ultimately decided to continue to manage the money of outside investors in its hedge funds Renaissance Institutional Equities and Renaissance Institutional Futures (USD6.5bn in total), which it had planned to close, but which have recently rebounded (+14% and +6% in the first eight months of the year), according to a letter from the co-CEOs, Peter Brown and Robert Mercer, to investors obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Renaissance is also planning to reduce commissions for REIF, the larger of the two funds.
14/09/2010

Invesco to launch financial sector ETFs

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Before the end of the year, Invesco PowerShares will launch ETFs based on each of the four Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) indices, for which fund managers will be required to obtain an exclusive license. The indices are the KBW Premium Yield Equity REIT Index, KBW Financial Sector Dividend Yield Index, KBW Global ex-U.S. Financial Sector Index and KBW Property & Casualty Index. As of the end of June, PowerShares indices had assets of over USD44bn.
14/09/2010

Paul Price to head international sales at MSIM

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Morgan Stanley announced on Monday, 13 September that it has appointed Paul Price as head of international sales at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM). Price, based in London, will be in charge of international sales and sales through intermediaries, relations with consultants and business development teams in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Price was most recently global head of institutional activities at Pioneer Global Asset Management.
14/09/2010

USD1m fine for Trillium

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has announced that it has fined Trillium Brokerage Services USD1m, and handed down fines and suspensions for 11 of its employees, for using an illegal high-frequency trading strategy, the Wall Street Journal reports. Nine traders jammed the market more than 46,000 times with illegitimate orders on equities between 2006 and 2007.
14/09/2010

Galleon insider trading: Robert Moffat Jr. sentenced

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Fromer IBM executive Robert Moffat Jr., one of the 12 people to plead guilty to complicity in insider trading at Galleon Group, was sentenced on Monday to six months in prison and a fine of USD50,000. Bob Moffat admitted that he had given tips on Advanced Micro Devices and Lenovo to Danielle Chiesi, who was a consultant for New Castle Funds. At the time, he was director of Lenovo.
14/09/2010

GLG reopens UK Alpha Select fund to subscriptions

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } After closing the fund in May with USD300m in assets, soon after it was launched on 19 February (see Newsmanagers of 3 May), GLG Partners has announced that it is planning to reopen subscriptions to its UCITS-compliant equity market neutral fund UK Alpha Select for a further USD250m, from 20 September.
14/09/2010

Investor collective asks stock exchanges to include sustainable reporting into listing rules

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } A collective of major investors, including Aviva Investors and the French national pension fund, the Fonds de réserve pour les retraites(FRR), are preparing to write to the directors of market authorities and stock market companies to call for sustainable development reporting to be added to the listing rules. The “call to action” comes as part of an initiative started by Aviva Investors last year to promote the United Nataions Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI). The initiative is supported by investors representing a total of USD558bn in assets under management. The objective of the collective initiative is to promote a market environment which requires businesses to evaluate the more or less responsible sustainability characteristics of their model, and which encourages them to submit a voluntary sustainable development strategy to a vote at their general shareholders’ meeting,” a statement released on Monday by Aviva Investors says. The members of the “call to action” initiative currently include Aviva Investors, the FRR, SNS Asset Management, Triodos Asset Management, Mn Services N.V., The Cooperative Asset Management, and Northwest & Ethical Investments. It is also supported by Ceres.
14/09/2010

Nexar Capital Group acquires Allianz Alternative Asset Management

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The alternative management firm Nexar Capital Group SCA, founded one year ago by former managers from SGAM AI, announced on 13 September that it has acquired Allianz Alternative Asset Management (AAAm) from Allianz France, its majority shareholder, and Allianz Global Investors Europe. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Since 1981, AAAm has offered its clients a full range of speculative funds of funds, led by Jean-François Vert, an expert in the sector, who will move to the Nexar platform along with the team from AAAm. The founding partners of Nexar, Arié Assayag CEO, and Eric Attias, CIO, have said that AAAm’s funds represent a valuable complement to the investment services of Nexar, and that the expertise of the European network of AAAm will come as an addition to the speculative fund of fund activities of Nexar, which are largely centred in New York. The strategic partnership which Nexar has concluded with the private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners, based in New York, has put it in a position to act as a consolidator in the fragmented fund of fund sector. “We are happy that the strong point of the Nexar team in solutions which generate alpha will continue to be recognised; the collaboration between AAAm and Nexar confirms our opinion that the sector is ready for consolidation,” says Jeff Greenberg, CEO of Aquiline.
14/09/2010

Invesco assets down in August

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Invesco, which has registered six Morgan Stanley funds in France and 13 other European countries (Invesco US Value Equity Fund, Invesco US Small Cap Growth Fund, Invesco Japanese Value Equity Fund, Invesco Japanese Equity Advantage Fund, Invesco Global Value Equity Fund and Invesco Global Small Cap Value Fund) following its integration of the activities of Van Kampen (see Newsmanagers of 10 September), has announced assets as of the end of August of USD573.8bn, compared with USD580.3bn one month earlier, and USD557.7bn as of the end of June. As of the end of May, before the integration of Van Kampen, assets under management totalled USD430bn. The management firm states that, excluding QQQ funds, long-term products show net subscriptions. The rising US dollar has resulted in a USD2bn reduction in assets in August. Meanwhile, Invesco says it completed its acquisition of the Australian equities management firm Concord Capital, with USD3.1bn in assets, last month.
14/09/2010

DNCA recruits two managers and looks to develop internationally

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } DNCA Finance has announced the arrival of two new managers, Rajesh Varma and Damien Charlet, and is extending its expertise internationally, a statement says. Varma will manage a new global fund whose equities allocation may range from 60% to 100% of the portfolio. Charlet, for his part, will be involved in the management and development of the flexible diversified funds DNCA Evolutif and DNCA Evolutif PEA, along with Xavier Delaye and Augustin Picquendar. Varma was previously a manager at Carmignac Gestion, specialised in Asian markets (China, India, Japan) for the full range, and in charge of two funds. Charlet had been at SGAM since 2006, where he managed diversified and Total Return funds.
14/09/2010

Landesbanken start process of selling off DekaBank

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Börsen-Zeitung reports that the Landesbanken which control about half of the asset management firm DekaBank have finally granted a mandate to Citibank to initiate the process of selling their stake. Nearly a year ago, DekaBank was valued by Deloitte at EUR4.5bn.
14/09/2010

AGI abandons Riester and Rürup products

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 13 September, Allianz Global Investors (AGI) announced that as of 1 November, it will cease to sell its Riester and Rürup government-supplemented retirement savings products. It appears that the products were not destined for success, and that the volumes placed in the products figured only in the hundreds of millions of Euros for the Riester, and in tens of millions for the Rürup. Continuing efforts to promote the products under such conditions was not economically defensible, as Allianz and cominvest are already offering successful unit-linked products in Riester and Rürup vehicles, which invest in products from AGI, including the Allianz Fonds BasisRente and cominvest Riester-FörderDepot. However, AGI’s current savings policies will be maintained, and savings investors may continue to contribute to their policies.
14/09/2010

Northern Trust wins a USD1.2bn mandate

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The London borough of Wandsworth has awarded a mandate to Northern Trust to provide custody services on assets totalling USD1.2bn in its pension fund.
14/09/2010

Nick Gartside leaves Schroders

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Money Marketing reports that the head of international bond management at Schroders, Nick Gartside, has decided to leave the firm after eight years of collaboration to join JPMorgan Asset Management. Bhupinder Bahra and Frederick Bourgouin will take over his responsibilities for several products, including the Schroder/Schroder ISF strategic bond fund, Schroder ISF Global bond, and Schroder ISF global inflation bond. Gartside will remain at Schroders until the end of the year, to facilitate the transfer of responsibilities.
14/09/2010

Legal & General signs up to Principles for Responsible Investment

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Responsible Investor reports that the British management firm Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has become one of the most recent signatories to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI). Assets under management at LGIM total about GBP320bn, or over EUR385bn.
14/09/2010

CQS launches a credit hedge fund

London-based CQS Capital Management, one of the world’s most prominent credit hedge fund managers, has launched a new fund - CQS Distressed Opportunities - to invest in the debt of troubled companies, says the Financial Times.
14/09/2010

East Capital launches Special Opportunities Fund II

East Capital on Monday announced its forthcoming launch of the Special Opportunities Fund II, which will target investments in companies with a positive outlook for future operations but which, due to market or owner-specific reasons, can be acquired at valuations which are lower than those suggested by the companies’ fundamentals. In addition, the fund will also invest in distressed situations. It will invest in Russia and in all regions within Eastern Europe. The fund will target investments with a clear trigger for revaluation and with exit opportunities within a four-year period. When appropriate, East Capital will assume an active role in companies through board representation, or other means. The new fund follows the launch of the East Capital Special Opportunities Fund in the second quarter of 2009. East Capital Explorer AB, a Swedish listed entity investing mainly in East Capital’s private equity and semi-public equity funds, will invest EUR35m in the fund during the fourth quarter of 2010. The Special Opportunities Fund II is a Luxemburg domiciled, EUR denominated fund and will also be open to other institutional and qualified investors. The fund term is four years and the maximum fund size is limited to EUR100m.
14/09/2010

Petercam bets on high yield bonds in final phase

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In July, Petercam launched the Luxembourg-registered fund Petercam L Bonds Euro Short Term High Yield fund (LU0517222484 for E-class shares and LU0517222302 for F-class shares), which aim to generate attractive returns on a short-term investment (maximum 4 years), an advantageous configuration when returns on money markets are near zero. Without exposing investors to excessive risk, as defaults very rarely take place close to the maturity date, the fund aims to profit from a newly active primary market in high yield papers, which has led many issuers either to recall their responsibilities before maturity, or to refinance their capital structure at more advantageous conditions. In addition, money market funds are often not authorised to invest outside the investment grade category, while high yield managers focus on the 4-8 year segment, and therefore allocate only a small part of their assets to shorter maturity durations. In addition, Petercam remarks, trading desks no longer have large amounts of owners’ equity to trade on behalf of banks. The fund, a sub-fund of the Petercam L Fund Sicav, is managed by Bernard Lalière, without the constraint of a benchmark index, and hedged for currency risk. Management commission is 0.70%. Currently, assets total about EUR20m, while seed capital from the Petercam private bank has been a mere EUR2m.
14/09/2010

Threadneedle rationalises product range

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The British management firm Threadneedle has announced that its Luxembourg fund US Mid & Small Cap Equities (USD5.57bn) will be liquidated. No further subscriptions have been accepted for the product since 24 August. Active and passive assets of the fund will be transferred on 23 September to the Threadneedle (Lux) American Select (USD5.34bn in assets as of 31 August). The merger was decided on for reasons of economic efficiency, as the excessively low level of assets rendered profitable operation impossible.
14/09/2010
Fonds

Renaissance renonce à fermer ses hedge funds RIEF et RIFF

Finalement, Renaissance Technologies a décidé de continuer à gérer de l’argent d’investisseurs extérieurs dans ses hedge funds Renaissance Institutional Equities et Renaissance Institutional Futures (6,5 milliards de dollars au total) qu’il avait envisagé de fermer mais qui ont rebondi ces derniers temps (+14 % et + 6 % sur les huit premiers mois de l’année), précise une lettre des co-CEO (Peter Brown et Robert Mercer) aux investisseurs que The Wall Street Journal a pu se procurer. D’ailleurs, Renaissance a l’intention de réduire les commissions sur le RIEF, le plus gros des deux.
Fonds
14/09/2010

Banco de Valencia renforce sa mainmise sur Nordkapp

Le comité exécutif de la CNMV a autorisé vendredi 10 septembre le Banco de Valencia à augmenter sa participation dans Nordkapp Inversiones et dans Nordkapp Gestión à 100 et 99,99 % respectivement. Dans un premier temps, la banque passe de 34,25 % à 87,97 % dans Nordkapp Inversiones, ce qui lui donne le contrôle de nordkapp Gestión.Le groupe Nordkapp gère 571 millions d’euros au travers de 28 sicav, cinq fonds d’investissement deux hedge funds de droit espagnol, deux fonds de pension et 900 mandats.
14/09/2010
Fonds

Threadneedle rationalise sa gamme

Le gestionnaire britannique Threadneedle a indiqué que son fonds luxembourgeois US Mid & Small Cap Equities (5,57 millions de dollars) sera liquidé. Aucune souscription n’est plus acceptée pour ce produit depuis le 24 août. L’actif et le passif du fonds seront transférés le 23 septembre au Threadneedle (Lux) American Select (5,34 millions de dollars au 31 août). Cette fusion a été décidée pour des considérations d’efficacité économique, le niveau trop faible des encours rendant impossible une exploitation rentable.
Fonds
14/09/2010
Fonds

Petercam mise sur les titres à haut rendement proches de leur échéance

En juillet, Petercam a lancé le fonds luxembourgeois Petercam L Bonds Euro Short Term High Yield (LU0517222484 pour la part E et LU0517222302 pour la part F) qui vise à générer une performance intéressante pour une duration courte (maximum 4 ans), configuration avantageuse lorsque le rendement du monétaire est quasi nul. Sans s’exposer à des risques excessifs, puisque les défauts ont très rarement lieu à proximité de l'échéance, il tire profit d’un marché primaire à nouveau actif dans le papier à haut rendement, qui amène nombre d’émetteurs soit à rappeler leurs obligations avant terme ou à refinancer leur structure de capital à des conditions plus avantageuses. De plus, les fonds monétaires ne sont souvent pas autorisés à investir hors de la catégorie «investment grade» tandis que les gérants «high yield» se focalisent sur le segment 4-8 ans et n’allouent donc qu’une faible partie de leur encours aux échéances plus courtes. En outre, remarque Petercam, les salles de marché ne disposent plus de montants importants pour le négoce en compte propre.Le fonds, un compartiment de la sicav Petercam L Fund, est géré par Bernard Lalière sans aucune contrainte d’indice de référence et sans risque de change (couvert). La commission de gestion se situe à 0,70 %. Actuellement l’encours avoisine déjà les 20 millions d’euros, alors que l’amorçage provenant de la banque privée de Petercam s’est limité à 2 millions d’euros. Le gestionnaire belge a mis sur le marché ce produit «revenu récurrent» en complément du Petercam L Bonds Higher Yield, qui a une approche «total return» et dont l’encours est proche du milliard d’euros.
Fonds

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