Investment Week reports that Cazenove Cpaital has recruited Louis Greening as a consultant for British distribution. In his new role, he will be in charge of developing relations with intermediaries, and strengthening relations with existing clients. Greening was previously at Skandia, where he was part of the team specialised in distribution.
Skandia Investment Gruop (SIG) on 15 January announced the appointment of the management firm Fifth Third Asset Management, a specialist in US large caps, to manage its US Large Cap Growth Fund, which has about USD80m in assets. The mandate was previously assigned to Wellington Management. The change in contractor is a sign of Skandia’s desire to adopt a more aggressive strategy on large caps, as Fifth Third AM predicts lower returns from US large caps in 2010, which will favour high quality shares.
Perella Weinberg has recruited a former JP Morgan Chase manager, William Johnson, who will be joining the firm as a partner and deputy head of the asset management unit. In his new position, Johnson, who has 25 years of experience in the asset management profession, will be in charge of developing the product range, for multi-manager investment strategies, private capital and hedge funds.
Sofia Merlo, 46, director of sales for private banking in France at BNP Paribas since February 2009, has been appointed as director of the private bank from 1 January 2010. She succeeds Marie-Claire Capobianco, who will now become head of BNP Paribas Wealth Management Networks, in charge of development of private banking activities in all countries where BNP Paribas has a banking network, a statement from the bank says. Merlo will aim to continue the development of the private bank in France; it currently manages EUR63bn and has 120,000 clients. She will report to François Villeroy de Galhau, a member of the group’s executive board, and head of the retail banking unit in France, and to Capiobanco.
Two asset management professionals, Lewis Sanders, CEO and co-CIO of Sanders Capital, and John Mahedy, co-CIO and director of research at Sanders Capital, are joining the advisory team for the largest actively-managed fund at Vanguard, the Windsor II Fund, which has USD35bn in assets. The Sanders experts will manage the fund’s large caps allocation, which accounts for about 8.5% of assets in the fund. Sanders Capital uses a traditional bottom-up approach to identify undervalued shares. The sub-fund will include 35 to 45 positions, with a turnover rate of 30% to 40% per year.
Brian Rogers, chairman and CEO of T. Rowe Price (USD400bn in assets) is worried that American investors who continue to snub US equities in favour of bonds or emerging markets equities are setting themselves up for a fall, the Financial Times reports. With an increase in interest rates on the cards, which could cut into the value of assets such as corporate bonds, and the rapid rise of emerging markets last year, Rogers predicts that investors would do well to buck the trend. In his opinion, emerging markets equities, high yield bonds and precious metals should be avoided.
BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced that, following the departure of Sean Simon, CEO and son of the founder of the fund of hedge fund management firm Ivy Asset Management, Ivy will now undergo a strategic re-examination to improve its position, the Wall Street Journal reports. In addition, Ivy, Mellon Global Alternative Investments (MGAi) and EACM Advisors will be put under the control of Phil Maisano, head of alternative investments. The grouping will create a fund of hedge fund management firm with assets of over USD8bn. The CEO of EACM, Bill Crerend, will become chairman, and assets at MGAI will be transferred to EACM. The New York Times reports that Ivy (USD7.2bn in assets) has also announced in a letter to clients that Peter Norris, CIO, has left the firm, and has been replaced by Fred Sloan, who joins the firm from its rival, Island Brook Capital. Lawrence R. Morgenthal, former managing director of Acom Partners, has also been recruited as COO.
Petercam has announced the appointment of Francis Heymans and Sylvie Huret as partners, from 1 January 2010. Since 2000, Heymans has been head of commercial development and marketing for asset management serving institutional clients, while Huret has been head of the financial and risk management unit at the gruop. From 18 January, the executive board at Petercam, which handles coordination and daily organisation for all the firm’s professions and functions, will undergo some changes. It will now be composed of Axel Miller, Pascal Minne, Sylvie Huret, Francis Heymans, Geoffroy d’Aspremont and Marc Janssens.
On Friday, TMW Pramerica Property Investments GmbH, a German affiliate of Pramerica Real Estate International AG, announced that last year it invested EUR325m to acquire real estate properties for its three institutional funds. The investment volume for the three funds represents about EUR2bn, and TMW Pramerica has announced plans to launch new “Spezialfonds” this year. Acquisitions in 2009 included a logistical property in Milan, a shopping centre in Lille, a supermarket property in Cologne, and offices in London, Paris and Seoul. The firm reopened its Weltfonds (DE 000A0DJ32 8) to subscriptions on 11 December, and on 31 December, its assets totalled EUR840.48m, down from EUR1.01bn before the reopening. Green management Pramerica Real Estate Investor, which is an affiliate of Pramerica Financial, has recently signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI). The move comes as the firm joins the Energy Star program by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pramerica’s objectives are to reduce the ecological footprint of its real estate portfolio, to improve its profitability through a reduction of operating costs, to increase the value of the properties through strategic management of energy and commodities consumption, and to improve the well-being of tenants, residents and employees, by making green living and working spaces available to them.
Michael Mewes, credit manager at JPMorgan AM, says credit remains the major conviction of the firm in the allocation of its risk budget. Corporate bonds will continue to outperform in the next two to three years, but the high yield segment will perform best. In this area, default rates may return to 4-6% by the end of the year.
Les Echos reports that sovereign funds, some of which suffered setbacks due to the financial crisis, will continue to have a strong presence on the markets in 2010. Their influence and power remains as great, and continues to grow. Feared, courted, and carefully listened to, these funds will continue to exercise a heavy influence on the markets. On average, Europe and Asia each account for about one third of equities investments by sovereign funds, while the United States accounts for 20%, according to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) covering 17 of the largest funds.
London will become the western financial hub for emerging markets, predicts Savvas Savour, chief economist for the hedge fund Tosca. He predicts that the British capital will attract at least 100,000 new employees in the financial services industry in the next ten years.
On Friday, the Luxembourg asset management firm Sal. Oppenheim jr & Cie. S.C.A., the holding company for Sal. Oppenheim, was given a new commend structure, based on the model of the changes applied in December at Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. KgaA in Germany. Wilhelm von Haller has been assigned by Deutsche Bank to take over as chairman of the board at Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. VerWaltungs AG in Germany, and will also be chairman of the board at the new SOP Verwaltungsgesellschaft S.A. in Luxembourg, and a managing partner at Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. S.C.A. SOP Verwaltungsgesellschaft S.A. was founded to manage all activities of Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. S.C.A., and thus also of the Sal. Oppenheim group. Two other members of the board of directors of SOP have been appointed. They are François Pauly, CEO of Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. S.C.A., and Alfons Klein, a member of the board of directors at the Luxembourg bank. Von Haller states that Sal. Oppenheim will continue to function as an independent private bank. The managing partners at Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. S.C.A. and Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. KgaA have left the boards of directors at these entities. In addition, Friedrich Carl Jenssen and Dieter Pfundt have been withdrawn as managing partners.
Marshall Wace, one of Europe’s largest hedge funds, will on Monday unveil plans to launch an exchange-traded fund, says the Financial Times. The vehicle, to be named Marshall Wace Tops Global Alpha, will be listed on both the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges and will track an index designed to mirror the holdings of the six existing Marshall Wace Tops funds, hedge fund strategies currently only available to institutions and wealthy individuals. The ETF is expected to raise USD500m.
Using the new Target Date Metric (TDM) tool on 39 ranges of target-date funds, Russell Indexes has found a wide variance in performance, from 107.7% outperformance of the benchmark to underperformance of 31.8%. On average, however, the 39 product ranges posted average performance last year 36.4% above their benchmark indexes. Initially, performance rankings based on the TDM will be available only from Russell, but in the next few months, Morningstar will integrate them into its Morningstar Direct research platform, aimed at institutional investors. T. Rowe Price Retirement tops the one-year rankings, with outperformance of 107.7%, followed by John Hancock2 Lifecycle (106.8%), Oppenheimer Transition (94.8%), AllianceBernstein Retirement Strategy (71.7%) and Franklin Templeton Retirement Target (71.5%). On three years, only Franklin Templeton Retirement turned in outperformance (of 4.6%). American Century Lifesong and Wells Fargo Advantage show underperformance of 1.1% and 4.9%, respectively.
According to statistics from Strategic Insight, equities and bond mutual funds in the United States, including ETFs, last year attracted USD478bn in net subscriptions, of which an all-time record USD396bn went to bond products (traditional and ETFs). Total assets as of the end of December for all equities and bond mutual funds, including ETFs but not including variable annuity funds, represented a total of USD7.8trn. ETFs attracted USD144.4bn in net inflows, compared with USD176bn in 2008 and USD149bn in 2007. They finished the year with record assets of USD785.3bn, in 893 products, compared with USD535.2bn one year earlier, and USD613.2bn at the end of 2007.
The asset management firm La Financière Responsable, a specialist in socially responsible investment, has sought to measure the extra-financial performance of its fund, LFR Euro Développement (EUR29bn in assets), in the two years since its creation. To achieve this, the asset manager has focused on social and environmental criteria, although financial management also takes other aspects into account. For 40 indicators considered, 19 have been retained. For each indicator, LFR considered 103 companies, including those in the portfolio, and others in the universe of the CAC 30 and Eurostoxx indices, to provide a basis for comparison. The resulting “social footprint” findings were satisfactory to LFR.
Sur la base des résultats communiqués à BarclayHedge (nouveau nom de Barclay Group) par 1.335 hedge funds au 14 janvier, la performance moyenne de ces fonds est ressortie à 2,24 % pour décembre, ce qui porte le total pour l’année écoulée à 24,18 %. Un an auparavant, les 868 fonds ayant déclaré leurs résultats au 11 janvier 2009 faisaient état d’une perte moyenne de 21,29 %.Comme chez les autres fournisseurs de statistiques sur la gestion alternative, la stratégie d’arbitrage de convertibles est celle qui a affiché le gain le plus important, avec 53,87 % pour 27 fonds. Une seule stratégie est dans le rouge sur un an, equity short bias, avec une perte de 19,17 % (pour 7 fonds), dont 4,17 % pour décembre.La catégorie la plus nombreuse, avec 566 fonds, celle des fonds de hedge funds, affiche sur 2009 une performance moyenne de 10,44 %. Les 302 fonds equity long/short ont gagné 14,43 % et les 209 fonds marchés émergents se sont adjugé 44,50 %.
UBS Wealth Management a annoncé que Vinay Gandhi, qui avait rejoint JP Morgan Private Bank début novembre après avoir quitté Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, a été nommé managing director et country team head India intenational Asia. Basé à Singapour, il est subordonné à Andreas Reber, regional market management of India Indochina and global investors APAC.Chez ses deux précédents employeurs, Vinay Gandhi était chargé de la gestion de fortune pour le compte de la diaspora indienne et pour la région Asie du Sud.Le groupe suisse souligne que l’embauche de Vinay Gandhi fait suite aux recrutements récents de Carlo Grigioni, vice chairman, wealth management & Swiss bank comme head of ultra high net worth (UHNW), Asia Pacific, de Daniel Harel comme head of UHNW, South Asia ainsi que de Yeong Phick Fui et Kurt Kumschick comme senior advisors UHNW South Asia et enfin de Reto Marx comme managing director, UHNW country team head for South Asia.
D’après les statistiques de VDOS Stochastics relayées par Cinco Días, les fonds de pension individuels ont affiché l’an dernier une performance de 6,10 %. Les souscriptions nettes ont porté sur 513 millions d’euros et l’effet de marché sur 2,81 milliards, si bien que l’encours à fin décembre ressortait à 51,63 milliards d’euros. Les trois premiers opérateurs n’ont pas changé : BBVA Pensiones est premier avec une part de marché de 16,62 %, devant Santander Pensiones avec 15,11 % et Vida Caixa avec 14,98 %.
Dans le cadre du FCP luxembourgeois du gestionnaire indépendant espagnol Adepa Asset Management, la société de gestion Alpha Plus, également espagnole, commercialise un fonds de fonds, le Alpha Plus Global Macro Fund, lancé le 1er décembre 2009.Ce produit global macro «unconstrained», conforme à la directive OPCVM III, offre une liquidité journalière ; il géré par Daniel Alonso-Pulpón assisté d’Edwin Voerman et Javier Montoya. Le nouveau compartiment avec des classes de parts en euros (LU0471596360) et en dollars (LU0471596444) s’adresse aux investisseurs désireux de ne pas courir trop de risques directionnels et d’accéder à des gérants ayant montré leur capacité à générer une surperformance stable.La souscription minimale est fixée à 100 euros et la commission de gestion se situe à 1,20 %.Le fonds est disponible sur les plates-formes Inversis, Allfunds et Tressis. Le FCP est enregistré auprès de la CNMV
Si, en moyenne, les fonds de valeurs mobilières distribués en Espagne ont affiché une performance de 4,9 %, en ligne avec celle de 2006 qui était la plus élevée depuis les 5 % de 1999, 12,9 % d’entre eux ont produit des gains inférieurs à l’inflation qui, avec 0,8 % a été la plus basse depuis 1962, rapporte Cinco Días. Selon les statistiques de l’association Inverco, 6,8 % des fonds ont accusé des pertes, parmi lesquels, curieusement, 18 % d’obligataires court terme et 15,6 %, de fonds «globaux».A l’autre extrême, on compte 8,5 % de fonds dont la performance a dépassé 30 % et seulement 2,8 % qui ont battu les 50 %. Le meilleur a été l’ETF du BBVA répliquant le FTSE Latibex Brasil, avec 123,6 %.
Citywire révèle que Raphael Kassin fait son retour dans la gestion d’actifs, six mois après avoir quitté Credit Suisse, avec un nouveau fonds Ucits III basé à Luxembourg. Le gérant spécialisé dans la dette marchés émergents lance un fonds en partenariat avec Reyl Asset Management. Il commencera avec 50 millions de dollars de seed money.
Selon Les Echos qui cite l’agence Interfax, Vladimir Potanine, l’oligarque russe partenaire de la Société Générale dans Rosbank, envisage d’entrer au capital de la banque française. «Nous avons le plan stratégique de devenir actionnaire de la Société Générale d’ici à quelque temps et nos partenaires français sont bienveillants à l'égard de cette idée.», a-t-il déclaré à l’agence. Mais Vladimir Potanine a fixé des conditions : il faudrait d’abord que tous les actifs de la Société Générale en Russie soient fusionnés, a-t-il précisé. La banque française détient 64,7% de Rosbank, ainsi que la banque de détail BSGV et les sociétés DeltaCredit et Rusfinansbank.
A l’occasion d’un atelier portant sur la multigestion alternative lors de la conférence annuelle d’OFI, Frédéric P. Lebel, directeur général délégué d’OFI MGA s’est arrêté sur les nouveaux horizons de ce type de gestion et notamment sur les nouveaux thèmes, les marchés générateurs d’opportunités et les nouvelles sources d’alpha pour l’alternatif. Dans ce cadre, Frédéric P. Lebel a confirmé que OFI MGA allait lancer, au cours du premier trimestre 2010, un produit latino-américain.