La Financial Services Authority (FSA) a publié mercredi un document consultatif sur l’opportunité d'étendre aux gérants de fonds et aux intermédiaires comme les IFA l’obligation de respecter son code des bonnes pratiques en matière de rémunération. Cette consultation de place sera close le 18 juin. D’une manière générale, le code fait obligation aux établissements financiers de mettre en place des politiques de rémunération qui soient compatibles avec une gestion efficace du risque. Il s’agit aussi d'éviter les conflits d’intérêt qui pousseraient les gérants ou les CGPI à vendre au client le produit le plus chargé sans tenir compte de l’intérêt de cet investisseur.

Heiner Flassbeck, chef économiste de la Conférence des Nations unies pour le commerce et le développement (Cnuced),veut en finir avec la spéculation. " La guerre contre la spéculation excessive passe par de nouvelles règles qui encadrent le marché financier et ses produits fictifs. La Cnuced recommande aussi la mise en place d"un système monétaire qui interdise la spéculation sur les devises», rapporte Le Temps. La Cnuced demande par ailleurs de nouvelles règles pour limiter la financiarisation des marchés de produits de base et demande à l"ONU, «seule institution universelle et crédible», de réformer la gouvernance mondiale

Selon Les Echos, les avocats français ont choisi d’intensifier leur action contre UBS au Luxembourg. Orrick Rambaud Martel et Wan Avocats assignent au fond UBS, au 24 avril, par l’intermédiaire du cabinet luxembourgeois Thewes & Reuter. Le premier cabinet se concentre sur UBS et le conseil d’administration de Luxalpha, le second sur UBS et Ernst & Young, l’auditeur de Luxalpha. UBS, dépositaire de la sicav luxembourgeoise Luxalpha liée à Madoff, n’a toujours pas cédé aux demandes de remboursement des investisseurs floués, depuis le 11 décembre, date de l’arrestation du courtier américain, et ce malgré sa mise en cause par la Commission de surveillance du secteur financier (CSSF).

Selon Les Echos, la polémique sur la levée du secret bancaire au Luxembourg a envenimé l’atmosphère à l’ouverture du Conseil européen qui doit préparer une position commune des Vingt-Sept pour le sommet du G20.

Le comité technique de l’Organisation internationale des commissions de valeurs (OICV) vient de publier un document soumis à consultation jusqu’au 30 avril sur la supervision des hedge funds. Le rapport propose un certain nombre de recommandations sur les approches possibles pour réduire les risques réglementaires liés aux hedge funds. La présidente du comité technique, Kathleen Casey, souligne au passage que la crise financière que nous traversons n’est pas une crise des hedge funds et que les régulateurs eux-mêmes ont au contraire reconnu la contribution de ces véhicules d’investissement en termes de liquidité du marché, formation des prix, distribution des risques ou encore intégration du marché. Toutefois, rappelle Kathleen Casey, les hedge funds ont pu jouer un rôle d’amplificateur de crise par le biais de leurs stratégies de trading, le recours au levier et la nécessité de liquider des positions à bref délai.Dans ses recommandations, le groupe de travail sur les entités financières non régulées, qui a préparé la consultation, évoque notamment l’enregistrement/autorisation des gérants de hedge funds avec une liste non exhaustive des informations que pourraient exiger les régulateurs (organisation, actifs sous gestion, business plan, offre de services, investisseurs visés, commissions, stratégies, ?). Mais il est aussi question des contreparties qui devraient disposer d’un contrôle rigoureux de la gestion des risques en matière d’exposition aux hedge funds. Le groupe de travail estime que les régulateurs devraient pouvoir accéder à l’information non publique sur les hedge funds contreparties des banques et des prime brokers. Pour la surveillance et la supervision proprement dite, le groupe de travail décline une dizaine d’exigences qui vont de l’information aux investisseurs en passant par la gestion des risques et les structures de rémunération.Au total, une batterie de propositions impressionnante qui doit toutefois être appliquée de façon uniforme au niveau mondial. L’OICV relève aussi que certaines de ses recommandations doivent être retravaillées avec le Comité de Bâle et d’autres régulateurs et que dans le domaine de la régulation des hedge funds, il faut renforcer #l’expertise et les ressources réglementaires#.

UBS a publié jeudi l"ordre du jour de son assemblée générale du 15 avril, qui marquera la fin du mandat d"à peine un an de Peter Kurer comme président du groupe. Et il sera peut-être question d"une nouvelle augmentation de capital, rapporte Le Temps. La direction compte demander à ses actionnaires d"approuver la création d"un capital autorisé, qui permettrait d"émettre jusqu"à 293 millions d"actions. #UBS pourrait ainsi lever 3 milliards de francs#, selon Dirk Becker, analyste chez Kepler Capital Markets.

Selon L"Echo, le procès pénal de la banque Citibank Belgium, à qui des clients ayant acheté des produits Lehman Brothers reprochent des infractions à la loi sur les pratiques du commerce et sur l’information et la protection du consommateur, devrait débuter fin mai. L’enquête judiciaire devrait être clôturée pour la fin du mois de mars.

Bank Medici a annoncé jeudi avoir communiqué la veille à l’Autorité de surveillance des marchés financiers (FMA) que son conseil de surveillance a pris la décision de rendre la licence bancaire de l'établissement «madoffé».De fait, précise un communiqué sur la page d’accueil du site Internet, la fraude Madoff a causé un dommage important à la banque et, dans l’environnement actuel, il n’est pas possible de développer une activité bancaire substantielle nouvelle qui puisse compenser celle qui a été perdue. Bank Austria (groupe UniCredit) a annoncé pour sa part que la participation de 25 % dans Medici a été dépréciée à 1,5 million d’euros. Pour sa part, le Standard affirme que l’exposition réelle de Medici à Madoff serait non pas de 2,1 milliards d’euros mais de plus de 3,6 milliards, dont 2,5 milliards sur le fonds herald USA et 1,1 milliard pour le Thema International.

Rothschild a recruté comme head of investment banking à Francfort l’un des deux patrons de la banque d’investissement pour l’Allemagne chez UBS, Martin Reitz, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. L’intéressé sera responsable de l’activité en Allemagne en étroite collaboration avec Hans Lotter et Dirk Pahlke (fusions-acquisitions) ainsi qu’avec Heinrich Kerstien (conseil en restructurations). La Börsen-Zeitung précise néanmoins que Martin Reitz sera le «primus inter pares» de la banque d’investissement en Allemagne et qu’il prendra ses nouvelles fonctions le 1er août.

Selon L"Agefi suisse, UBS demandera à ses actionnaires de créer un capital conditionnel et un capital autorisé lors de l"assemblée générale du 15 avril. Le premier doit servir de garantie à la BNS, le deuxième donner la flexibilité de lever d"éventuels nouveaux fonds. Le capital conditionnel portera sur un montant maximal de 10 millions de francs. L"opération sur le capital autorisé porte sur une somme maximale d"un peu plus de 29,3 millions de francs.

Contraints de s’adapter à un cadre réglementaire qui devient de plus en plus stricte, les acteurs du marché des contrats dérivés de protection contre le risque (CDS) s’engagent pour la création d’outils communs de marché. La Fédération bancaire française (FBF) et l’Association française des marchés financiers (Amafi) ont ainsi récemment transmis aux autorités françaises leurs différentes propositions, parmi lesquelles la création de chambres de compensation sur les grands produits dans chaque zone monétaire, «avec priorité aux CDS».Le projet de mise en place d’un cadre adapté à une chambre de compensation commune ne pourrait que difficilement se réaliser sans la participation des principaux acteurs sur ce marché. En février, les neuf plus importantes maisons du secteur des CDS (Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley et UBS) ont donc répondu aux souhaits de l’Union européenne et se sont engagés à utiliser une chambre de compensation centrale basée en zone euro et ce, d"ici à la fin juillet 2009. Elles ont par ailleurs proposé de dialoguer avec la Commission européenne et les régulateurs pour préparer un certain nombre de détails techniques. En attendant, la nature stratégique du secteur suscite un certain nombre de convoitises, le marché de la compensation des CDS étant évalué à 60.000 milliards d’euros. LCH.Clearnet Limited, basée à Londres, qui pourrait être achetée par la chambre américaine DTCC, a fait savoir qu’elle prévoit de se lancer sur la compensation des CDS en zone euro d’ici fin 2009, par le biais de LCH.Clearnet SA, la branche française du groupe. Eurex, la filiale de dérivés de Deutsche Börse est pour sa part à la recherche de partenaires potentiels sur ce créneau. Des discussions seraient d’ailleurs en cours entre le groupe allemand et LCH.Clearnet SA, rapportaient récemment Les Echos. Les acteurs en provenance des Etats-Unis et de Londres ne veulent pas laisser passer la manne de revenu en provenance de la compensation et sont eux aussi sur le pied de guerre. The IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), qui a ouvert début mars sa plate-forme de compensation pour les credit-default swaps (CDS) aux Etats-Unis ICE Trust, veut rééditer le modèle en Europe, en lançant avant fin juin une chambre de compensation baptisée ICE Trust Europe, qui sera régulée par la FSA britannique.

US federal authorities are now planning to extend their investigations to include lawyers and accountants in Switzerland and the United States who are thought to have advised UBS on the best financial tricks to avoid having to expose its American clients, the New York Times reports on its website. The investigation will focus on three people.

Intesa Sanpaolo has decided not to pay a dividend, Il Sole - 24 Ore has learned. The decision is reported not to be related to results, as the firm is expected to turn a profit, but rather to a decision to give more priority to strengthening the group’s financial underpinnings. In addition to this, the firm is expected to receive up to EUR4bn in funds from the Italian government, via a bond issue.

Eric Le Coz, chief strategist at Carmignac Gestion, explains in an interview with Die Welt that the Carmignac Patrimoine fund, which has earned 10% returns since the Lehman bankruptcy while the Dax has lost 40%, continues to have a highly defensive orientation. About 80% of the portfolio is invested in bonds, mostly in various government bonds. The issuers include, in large part, France, Germany, and to a lesser extent the United States. The average duration of government bonds in the portfolio has been reduced to account for risks related to rising government debts.In addition to this, the fund is invested in corporate bonds.The 20% allocation to equities is covered by contracts on indices, meaning that the final proportion of equities in the portfolio is close to 0%. This percentage will not increase until Carmignac concludes that the financial system and real estate markets in the English-speaking countries have stabilised.

Bank Medici announced on Thursday that one day earlier it notified the Austrian financial market surveillance authority (FMA) that its supervisory board had taken the decision to discontinue the banking license of the ?Madoffed? establishment.A statement on the firm’s website says that the Madoff fraud caused significant damage to the bank, and that in the current environment, it is not possible to develop substantial new banking activities that would be able to compensate for those which have been lost.Bank Austria (UniCredit group) has announced that its 25% stake in Medici has fallen to EUR1.5m in value, for its part, the Standard estimates that Medici’s real exposure to Madoff was not EUR2.1bn, but more than EUR3.6bn, of which EUR2.5bn belonged to the Herald USA fund, and EUR1.1bn to the Thema International fund.

cominvest Asset Mangement, which passed into the ownership of Allianz Global Investors (AGI) on 1 January 2009, on Thursday announced the closure of eight funds, including three Luxembourg funds (CB World Funds EURO STOXX 50 Basket A, CB World Funds EURO STOXX 50 Basket cominvest I and CB World Funds USA DJI 30 Basket A) on 31 May. Five German-registered funds will be liquidated in second half: on 30 September, the GlobalMastersFund and the cominvest Incofonds will close, and then on 31 December, cominvest will close the cominvest GreatSelection 50, the cominvest Kommunal-Corent, and a product from Main Kapital entitled MK Asia-Pazifik.The management firm has also announced that on 15 March, it will merge the six horizon funds of the cominvest-Life-Liberty range with two classes of shares in the Commerzbank allstars-anlage Chance P.

Pensions & Investments reports on Thursday that the SEC has filed a lawsuit in a New York court against David Loglisci, former CIO of the pension fund New York Common Retirement Fund (USD138.4bn in assets), and Henry Morris, a political advisor, for accepting bribes totalling several million dollars from private equity firms and hedge funds between 2003 and 2006. The payments were intended to incite the pension fund to invest in the funds concerned. Morris alone is claimed to have pocketed USD15m in kickbacks.

Mihir Worah, manager of the Pimco Real Return Fund (PPRIX, USD11.28bn), says projected buybacks of US Treasury bonds by the Fed will increase the appeal of bonds which offer protection against inflation, the Wall Street Journal reports. By buying these TIPS, the Fed is seeking to avoid the threat of deflation. On Thursday, the break-even rate for 10 years, which is the spread between normal Treasury bonds and TIPS, stood at 132 basis points; it has risen by 10 bp since the announcement of the Fed’s buybacks on Wednesday, and it was negative at the end of last year, when deflationary fears were at their peak. The Pimco (Allianz group) manager predicts that the TIPS break-even rate will stabilise somewhere in the 100-150 bp range in the next months, and will top 200 bp in 12 months. The PPRIX returned 7.46% for the three months to the end of February, compared with 4.64% for the benchmark, the Barclays Capital U.S. TIPS Index.

Handelsblatt reports that the latest fund from TPG, which raised USD19bn, has suffered losses of nearly half a billion dollars on its stake in Washington Mutual (WaMu). In total, the private equity investor invested USD1.35bn one year ago, from three funds, but the investment lost virtually all of its value when WaMu was bailed out by JP Morgan in September.

M&G Investments, an affiliate of the insurer Prudential, has posted net subscriptions of EUR3.6bn in 2008, while gross inflows totalled EUR17bn.?In open-ended fund activities, the group has experienced strong inflows to bond products (EUR1.5bn, compared with EUR200m), which have offset a slowdown in inflows to equities funds, which declined from EUR1.8bn in 2007 to EUR700m last year,? according to a statement.Due to the falling markets, M&G has nonetheless seen a decline in its assets of 15% to EUR148.5bn. Profits totalled EUR239m, an increase of 12% compared with the previous year.

F&C Investments has added a product to its range available in Germany, entitled F&C Active Return (see Newsmanagers of 20 October 2008). The fund aims to generate outperformance, after fees, of 200-400 basis points over the risk-free rate. The product is a sub-fund of a Luxembourg-registered Sicav and is managed by Stephen Crewe and Chris Childs of F&C Alternative Investments, and has daily net asset value reporting and a simple fee structure, which differentiates it from hedge funds. Shares are available in pounds Sterling and in Euros for institutional investors, and in exclusively in Euros for retail investors. The managers will use three main strategies: first, they may use options as part of a market neutral approach; secondly, they may play volatility; lastly, they may bet on variance, correlation, and implicit dividends.For retail investors, front-end fees may be up to a maximum of 5%, and management commission is 1.5% (1% for institutional investors).

HSBC Global Asset Mangement, Banco Real Asset Management and Unibanco Asset Management are part of a group of managers who will send a letter to all companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange, Bovespa, to make them aware of the commercial, financial and publicity risks associated with slavery and indentured labour, Responsible Investor reports. The letter encourages publicly traded companies to sign up to a Brazilian national pact to eliminate slavery, which is being promoted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Ethos, and the NGO Reporter Brazil. Managers are also calling on businesses to require their suppliers to adhere to the pact and to set up monitoring mechanisms.

The hedge fund Weavering Macro Fixed, managed by Weavering Capital, went into liquidation on Thursday night, the Financial Times reports. The fund’s primary asset was a USD637m position on derivatives placed with an offshore firm controlled by the founder and CEO of the fund, Magnus Peterson.

Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), wants to put an end to speculation. ?The war on excessive speculation will bring new rules to rein in the financial markets and their fictitious products. The UNCTAD also recommends that a monetary system be put in place that prohibits speculation on currencies,? Le Temps reports. The UNCTAD is also calling for new regulations to limit financial speculation on commodity markets, and is asking the United Nations, ?the only universal and credible institution,? to reform global governance.

In 2009, Crédit Agricole Asset Management tops the rankings of management firms by Amadeis, followed by Société Générale Asset Management, with which it will soon be merging. The eighth edition of the rankings is based on a survey conducted in January and February 2009 of 60 French institutional investors and distributors representing more than EUR500bn in assets.The two firms were also at the top of the list in 2008, although at that time SGAM was the leader.This year, the rankings puts affiliates of banking groups in all three top spots, with BNP Paribas in third place. The firm is appreciated for its money market management, while CAAM is top for Euro fixed income. Independent management firms are not absent from the rankings, with four such firms in the rankings by asset class. La Française des Placements is well-liked for its diversified management, Sycomore for Euro zone equities, Carmignac Gestion for international equities, and HDF for alternative management. UFG-Sarasin is in first place for SRI management, and Axa IM finishes first for marketing and sales.In the first months of 2009, investors have shown a strong interest in corporate bonds: three quarters of them are planning to increase their allocations to this area in 2009, Amadeis reports. 45% of respondents are planning to increase their allocation to equities. The crisis has strengthened interest in ETFs for 38% of investors in ETFs, and in responsible investment for 29%.

More than one out of two institutional investors (54%) say they are prepared to reconsider their investments in Luxembourg-registered funds, according to an Amadeis survey of 60 French institutional investors and distributors representing more than EUR500bn in assets. The Madoff scandal has affected funds of this type. Similarly, 50% of investors say they are now wary of alternative management.In addition to the Madoff fraud, the crisis has also affected the behaviour of institutional investors. Although the vast majority of institutional investors (81%) are happy with their relationships with management firms, 19% of investors are now unsatisfied with their providers, compared with 10% in 2008 and 3% in 2007. Poor performance is a leading cause of this dissatisfaction.However, the crisis has strengthened interest in ETFs for 38% of investors and in responsible investment for 29%.

Alessandro Profumo, CEO of UniCredit, has stated that he is open to the idea of reducing the bank’s stake in its asset management affiliate Pioneer Investments, Ignites reports on 19 March, citing Reuters.

The multimanagers Mark Harris and Craig Henderson will join Henderson Global Investors (HGI) once the acquisition of New Star by HGI has been completed, which is expected in early April. According to Investment Week, the two new recruits will join Bill McQuaker, director of multi-management at HGI. Harris predicts that Robert Jeffree, who manages the Asian multi-management portfolio, and Brad Housom, an analyst, may also join HGI.However, Clare Bryant, who manages the European multi-management portfolio, has left New Star for Merer Consulting.

In an environment in which net redemptions topped USD150bn in the period under review, 778 hedge funds were liquidated in fourth quarter, compared with 344 in third quarter, according to Hedge Fund Research (HFR). In total, Hedge Week reports, the number of liquidations in 2008 as a whole reached a record 1,471, 70% more than the previous record (848) in 2005. The number of funds of hedge funds liquidated also set a record last year, at 275.Meanwhile, the number of new hedge funds launched fell to 659, its lowest level since 2000. 2008 was also a record year for the range of different performances, with a difference of nearly 100 basis points separating the top and the bottom tenths of the scale.

Société Bancaire Privée SA (formerly known as Société Financière Privée SA) on Thursday announced that its losses in 2008 were limited to CHF0.5m, compared with CHF6m in 2007. Other details of the firm’s annual results will be released in April, in time for the firm’s general assembly on 23 April. Since 2007, SBP has been majority owned by Banca Profilo, a firm based in Milan.In a statement, the firm said it had ?continued restructuring efforts in 2008, which allowed it to consolidate its position in the area of Private Banking and to ensure a healthy basis for future development.?