Fidelity Investments a annoncé que Jacques Perold, COO of asset management depuis fin mai, a été nommé asset management chief en remplacement de Michael Wilens qui succède lui-même à Scott David comme patron de la filiale spécialiste des plans d'épargne retraite 401(k) en tant que head of workplace investing client management organization.Avant de revenir chez Fidelity pour y diriger à la fois FMR, Pyramis et Strategic Advisers, Jacques Perold a été president de Geode Capital Management depuis que cette dernière avait été filialisée par Fidelity en 2001.
Une centaine de salariés de Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) seront transférés à State Street Corporation parce que cette dernière a obtenu de MSIM le mandat de règlement des transactions, d’administration de portefeuille, de reporting et de réconciliation pour environ 300 milliards de dollars d’encours sous gestion.
Quatre des ETF de Claymore Securities représentant seulement au total environ 35,7 millions de dollars d’encours sur les 2,5 milliards gérés en ETF par le groupe vont être fermés et liquidés, a indiqué Christian Magoon, président de la société. Ces produits, «trop peu suivis» Claymore/Morningstar Manufacturing Super Sector Index ETF, Claymore/Morningstar Information Super Sector Index ETF, Claymore Services Super Sector Index ETF et Claymore U.S.-1 - The Capital Markets Index ETF cesseront d'être cotés à la clôture du 11 décembre sur la plate-forme Arca du New York Stock Exchange.
National Industries Group, un important conglomérat koweitien, a attaqué en justice Carlyle Group devant une cour locale, affirmant que la société américaine de private equity a présenté sous un faux jour le Carlyle Capital Corp, un fonds de dette publique qui a fait faillite en mars 2008, rapporte le Financial Times. NIG avait investi 50 millions de dollars dans ce fonds qui était vendu comme un produit sûr investi principalement dans des MBS notés AAA.
According to Citywire, Michael Sieghart is to join Ithuba Capital in his native Vienna after spending twelve years at DWS in Frankfurt. He was managing the DWS Invest European Equities and the Gottlieb Daimler Aktienfonds DWS funds.
Northlight Capital, a hedge fund which is being set up by a team of traders including Cyril Armleder, former head of GLG’s credit fund, aims to draw attention to its launch with a shake-up of the traditional operating model. Half of its annual performance fees will be reinvested into the fund and will remain locked in until clients withdraw their capital.
Les Echos reports that the financial stability council (Conseil de stabilité financière, or CSF) is working with 30 major banks and insurers to draft recovery plans in case of bankruptcy. However, the list, which was published yesterday in the Financial Times (see Newsmanagers of 30 November), is not a complete list of businesses considered at risk by the CSF. They are the participants in an FSB working group on “cross-border crisis management.” “The FSB does not have a list of systemic risks,” the organisation appointed by the G20 to coordinate reform of the financial system stated yesterday.
Aberdeen Asset Management is looking to acquire smaller firms in the hedge funds industry next year, says Financial News, citing the asset manager’s chief executive, Martin Gilbert.
About 100 employees of Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) will be transferred to State Street Corporation, as it has been awarded a mandated by MSIM for transaction settlement, portfolio administration, reporting and reconciliation for about USD300bn in assets under management.
Fidelity Investments has announced that Jacques Perold, COO of asset management since late May, has been appointed asset management chief, replacing Michael Wilens, who in turn is succeeding Scott David as head of the 401(k) retirement fund specialist affiliate as head of workplace investing client management organization. Before returning to Fidelity as head of FMR, Pyramis and Strategic Advisors, Perold was president of Geode Capital Management, beginning from 2001, when the firm was acquired by Fidelity.
On 24 November, Vanguard reopened the Vanguard US Futures Fund, a sub-fund of the Vanguard Investment Series (UCITS). The fund was closed in December 2008 to protect subscribers from the diluting effects additional investments would have had on the value of ABS and corporate bonds in the portfolio. In conjunction with its reopening, the fund has changed its bond strategy, and will now focus on very short-term bonds, with an average maturity of less than six months. The bond manager has also been changed: the new manager is David Glocke. But the objective is still to earn pre-tax returns in line with those of the S&P 500 index. With this in mind, the fund is invested primarily in exchange traded futures and other equities-based derivatives.
In third quarter 2009, Italian open-ended pension funds posted net inflows of EUR218.1m, compared with EUR203.4m in second quarter and EUR218.9m in the corresponding period of last year, Assogestioni reports. Since the beginning of the year, net inflows have totalled EUR693.4m. Assets as of 30 September represented nearly EUR5.8bn, compared with nearly EUR4.66bn at the end of 2008, and EUR4.58bn at the end of September last year. The three largest actors in the sector by assets as of the end of September 2009 are Gruppo Intesa Sanpaolo, with more than EUR1.4bn and net subscriptions of EUR30.9m in third quarter, Arca, with nearly EUR846m and EUR40.9m in net inflows in July-September, and Allianz, with EUR398.3m and EUR17.2m in in net inflows.
Cheyne Capital, one of the largest hedge funds in Europe, has settled a case with one of its former executives, Jan Lernout, who was suing for more than GBP1m, the Financial Times reports. As a senior partner in the CLO division, Lernout, who joined the firm in June 2007, was entitled to a share in the firm’s profits.
For the fiscal year ending 30 September, Aberdeen has announced an increase in its assets under management to GBP146.2bn, compared with GBP111.1bn one year earlier. The UK asset management firm benefited from its acqusition of Credit Suisse, which represented an increase of GBP35.1bn in AUM. However, it has seen net outflows of GBP7.042 for the year as a whole. Despite the increase in assets, revenues fell 2% to GBP421.9m. Operating profits totalled GBP95.7m, compared with GBP100m in 2008. Operating margins also fell from 23.2% to 22.7%, while pre-tax profits came to GBP85.1m, compared with GBP95.1m last year. Commenting on these results, Roger C. Cornick, chairman of Aberdeen, said the new fiscal year has started well. He says the “survivors” in the asset management industry will be the firms “which can stand out due to their performance above all, but also through diversification of their sources of revenue, through a wide range of products and distribution channels.”
Gartmore asset management group has valued its IPO on the London Stock Exchange at between GBP730m and GBP870m, says the Financial Times. The price range values its equity at between 11 and 14 times its forecast earnings of GBP64m in 2010. This compares with valuations of 14 to 16 times next year’s earnings at its listed rivals such as Man Group, Schroders, Bluebay Asset Management, and Henderson.
Railpen, one of the UK’s biggest pension funds with assets under management of EUR18.7bn, was supposed to send out on Monday detailed questionnaires to probe the extent to which managers mandated to run money for the fund take climate change seriously, says Financial Times Fund Management. Devised in collaboration with HSBC and Linklaters, the 77 questions will be freely available to any other asset owner that wants to quiz its advisers and managers.
Thomson Reuters has acquired the Swiss firm Asset4 AG, based in Zoug, for an amount which has not been disclosed, but which is thought not to be terribly high due to the presumed financial difficulties of the target firm. Asset4 claims to be one of the world’s leading providers of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data to professional investors and business executives. Thomson Reuters says the transaction marks a further step in its integration of ESG criteria into its mainstream research. Among the existing clients of Asset4 are Banque Sarasin, Storebrand and Société Générale.
Four ETF funds from Claymore Securities with assets totalling only about USD35.7m, out of a total of USD2.5bn managed in the group’s ETFs, will be closed and liquidated, Christian Magoon, president of the firm, has announced. The products, “too lightly followed” by investors, are the Claymore/Morningstar Manufacturing Super Sector Index ETF, Claymore/Morningstar Information Super Sector Index ETF, Claymore Services Super Sector Index ETF and Claymore U.S.-1 - The Capital Markets Index ETF; they will cease to be listed on the Arca platform from the New York Stock Exchange at the close of trading on 11 December.
Les Echos reports that Constantinos Antoniades, a Goldman Sachs veteran who spent 11 years int he fixed income department of that firm, is preparing to launch a new multilateral trading system dedicated to the over-the-counter convertible bond market. The system, entitled Vega-Chi, is awaiting a license from the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the British market regulator, as a multilateral trading facility. The executive director fo Vega-Chi is planning to list 165 bonds on the European market, with a total issue volume of over USD100bn, Nearly 140 clients may be interested in the range on the new platform in Europe, more than half of whom are French entities.
According to sources familiar with the matter cited by the Börsen-Zeitung, Gartmore is planning to issue shares in a price range of 250-330 pence per share at its IPO. This values the firm at about GBP800m, with the asset management firm Hellman & Friedman the largest shareholder, and would mean the IPO would raise about GBP400m.
The weekly newsmagazine Sonntag reports that last Thursday, the CEO at UBS openly stated in a speech to the Business Club of Zurich that the major banks may have no choice but to move their headquarters out of Switzerland if the Swiss regulatory authorities require them to restructure themselves as holding companies. This would require firms such as UBS to break up into individual national companies in each country, with a firm in command as the central holding company, which would make it possible, in case of need, to save only the Swiss activities, while leaving the national subsidiaries to go bankrupt. This proposed arrangement is favoured by the Swiss national bank, the populist party of Christoph Blocher and Nicholas Hayek. This would mean that foreign affiliates would need to have much higher levels of owners’ equity, which would be very costly for them.
On 24 November, UBS Luxembourg launched a sub-fund denominated in Singapore dollars of its Sicav UBS (Lux) Equity Fund, entitled Singapore (SGD) P-acc. The product (LU0403317604) is managed by UBS Global Asset Management, and invests primarily in larger Singapore businesses, with the objective of outperforming the MSCI Singapore Free index. Front-end fees are 2% and there is an “all-in fee” of 1.8%, while minimal subscription is set at EUR500.
National Industries Group, a prominent Kuwaiti conglomerate, is suing the Carlyle Group in a local court, alleging that the US private equity firm misrepresented the safety of Carlyle Capital Corp, a public debt fund which collapsed in March 2008. NIG invested USD50m in the fund, which was marketed as a safe vehicle that would invest largely in triple A mortgage-backed securities
On Friday, Funds People reports, Schroders was the first management firm in Spain to notify the CNMV that it will be suspending calculation of the net asset value of one of its funds invested in Dubai and registered for sale in Spain, for at least two days. The fund is the Middle East sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Schroder International Selection Fund (SISF).
Alternative Asset Management has launched the A2m Lion Fund, a multi-strategy fund which takes advantage of decorrelations between currency markets and equities futures. Underlying managed accounts have total assets of over USD170m. The fund will only invest in proven strategies characterised by low volatility. Investors will be able to select the Lion Fund straight, the Lion Fund + with leverage of 2.5, or the Lion Fund + leverage + 100% capital protection. The firm, which offers managed accounts, is seeking investors in an effort to raise USD40m for the launch of its new fund.
Investment Week reports that the Eclectica fund from Hugh Hendry will launch an absolute returns fund on 31 December of this year. The fund, Eclectica Absolute Macro, will comply with the UCITS III directive, and will invest in international equities, international fixed income, commodities ETFs, and currencies. It will replicate the Hendry global hedge fund, and will aim for annualised returns of 10% compared with money markets. Front-end fees may total up to 5%, while retail commissions are set at 1.75%. For private clients, minimal investment is set at GBP5,000.
Fidelity International is planning to launch two new products for Trevore Greetham, head of allocation and multi-asset specialist. Alongside the firm’s GBP238m strategic multi-asset class fund, the two defensive multi-asset class growth funds will invest in bonds, cash, commodities, equities, and real estate. The defensive fund will have a larger proportion of its assets invested in bonds and cash than the strategic fund, with an overall target of 50% invested in British bonds, 25% in cash, 15% in UK and international equities, 5% in international real estate, and 5% in commodities. The growth fund will invest more in equities, commodities, and real estate. The overall target allocation will be 20% in British bonds, 5% in cash, 50% in UK and international equities, 10% in international real estate, and 15% in commodities. Minimal investment for the two funds is GBP1,000, while front-end fees will be 3.5%, and other charges will be variable.
Das Investment reports that the real estate fund management firm iii-investments (an affiliate of HypoVereinsbank or HVB, Unicredit group) has announced that it has no plans to liquidate its Euro ImmoProfil and INTER ImmoProfil funds in the near future. The funds sold 54 properties in early October for EUR1.4bn, and since then they have undergone net outflows of EUR1.1bn, bringing their total assets down to about EUR600m. The announcement follows an article in Die Welt online which claimed that HVB, which is the largest shareholder in the fund, was planning to close them down. The Euro ImmoProfil stands out with losses of 3.5% since the beginning of the year, due to a high proportion of older buildings in the portfolio (38% are more than 15 years old), and a high vacancy rate (13% as of the end of September).
In October, money market funds underwent net redemptions of EUR1.87bn, bringing total net outflows to EUR24.67bn for the segment YTD. It is hardly surprising that since then, the German BVI association of asset management firms has preferred to foreground the fact that equities funds have seen their strongest net subscriptions since the year 2000, with EUR11.31bn. In the first ten months of the year, open-ended securities funds have seen net outflows of EUR3.16bn. Despite this, the sector has seen total net inflows of EUR10.63bn, compared with net outflows of EUR17.99bn, as institutional funds, which underwent net redemptions of EUR1.37bn in October, have posted net subscriptions of EUR11.27bn in January-October, compared with EUR11.36bn in the corresponding period of last year, and particularly since net redemptions from open-ended funds were limited to EUR640m, compared with nearly EUR29.45bn in the first ten months of 2008.
In the first ten months of the year, open-ended securities funds have seen net outflows of EUR3.16bn, according to statistics from the BVI association of asset management firms. However, the four largest promoters of ETF funds (excluding Lyxor Asset Management, Société Générale group) posted significant net subscriptions: Barclays Global Investors (BGI) attracted EUR326.56m for its iShares products, while Commerz Derivatives Funds Solutions attracted EUR1.12bn for its ComStage ETFs, db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) attracted more than EUR4.37bn, and ETFlab (Deka) placed EUR1.52bn worth of shares in its funds. Of the four major asset management firms, only DB/DWS (EUR134.16bn) has posted net subscriptions (of EUR1.93bn) in January-October, but only thanks to net inflows to db x-trackers. Deka (savings banks, EUR105.33bn) has posted net outflows of EUR6.4bn, while Union Investment (co-operative banks, EUR82.9bn) has seen net redemptions of EUR1.47bn. Lastly, Allianz Global Investors (AGI, EUR76.34bn) has seen net outflows of EUR2.06bn.