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18/03/2009

Europe - DWS launches a fund which aims to outperform money markets

DWS (Deutsche Bank group) is launching the DWS Invest Sovereign Plus fund, which will aim for performance 100 basis points higher than the Iboxx Eurozone Sovereign, which measures returns on 3-5 year Euro zone government debt, Cinco Días reports. Management commission for retail shares in the fund in Spain is 1.2%.
18/03/2009

United Kingdom - Aviva to suspend securities lending to hedge funds

Aviva is planning to suspend securities lending to hedge funds, the Financial Times reports. The insurer believes it has been targeted by short-sellers, and that hedge funds are responsible for a 40% fall in its share price in 48 hours two weeks ago. The British group has also shared its concerns with other European insurers.
18/03/2009

Singapore - Clariden Leu recruits a new head for Asia

The Clariden Leu private bank (Credit Suisse group) on Tuesday announced the appointment of Jimmy Lee Kong Eng as ?head Asia.? In this position he will succeed Stefan Hausherr, who held the position in the interim, and who will remain as head operations and branch manager in Singapore. Jimmy Lee Kong spent four and a half years as head of private wealth management South East Asia/South Asia at Deutsche Bank in Singapore, with a team of 150 people under his responsibility.
18/03/2009

United States - BNY Mellon forms an advisory board for sovereign clients

David Jiang, head of BNY Mellon Asset Management for Asia-Pacific, and Hani Kablawi, head of Middle East & Africa, will be co-chairs of the new Sovereign Advisory Board at BNY Mellon, which will be composed of high-level executives representing the group’s various professions (asset management, asset servicing, issuer services, compensation activities, and treasury). The goal of the new board will be to ensure the best possible service to sovereign funds, sovereign pension funds, central banks, monetary authorities, and other government-controlled entities among the firm’s clients.
18/03/2009

United States - Heavy losses for CalPERS

In fourth quarter 2008, CalPERS (USD183.3bn in assets) posted losses of 13.7%, despite returns of 2.3% on its USD44.6bn bond portfolio, Global Pensions reports. Over one year, losses total 27.1%, and over three years, they total 2.5% per year.Documents examined on Monday by the board reveal that total risk for the fund has more than doubled in the past twelve months, to a total of 17% for the coming year.
18/03/2009

Spain - Flagship hedge fund from BBVA to become white-label product

BBVA has decided to close down its alternative management division. One of the firms affected, Próxima Alfa, has decided to negotiate with other managers to export its model as a white-label product under the brand name of the distributor. According to Expansión, the first fund concerned will be Próxima’s flagship, the Accurate Global Assets fund, managed by Narciso Vega and Igor Alonso. Assets in the fund fell to USD35.45m from USD100m when BBVA withdrew, but the fund has posted performance of 8.8% since the beginning of the year.
18/03/2009

Switzerland - Profits down at Partners Group

Partners Group, whose assets remained stable last year at CHF24.4bn, thanks to gross infows of CHF6.2bn, which compensated for outflows as well as for currency and market effects of CHF6.2bn, has posted net profits by IFRS accounting standards of CHF171m, compared with CHF255m in 2007, and CHF154m in 2006. Revenues increased 6% to CHF328m, while EBITDA increased 4% to CHF240m. Adjusted net profits, excluding the valuation of certain derivatives related to insurance policies, fell to CHF213m, compared with CHF228m.
18/03/2009

Spain - Epsilon to launch first fund of hedge funds

Epsilon Gestion Alternativa, the Spanish affiliate of Permal which received its license from the CNMV in September, will soon launch its first fund of hedge funds, which will be entitled BrightGate Capital, Funds People reports. The team includes four former managers from Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, and one veteran of Santander Securities.
18/03/2009

World - Assets in Latin American funds down by one quarter in 2008

According to Fund Pro rankings published by Funds People, assets in funds domiciled in Latin America fell to less than USD600bn at the end of December, from a peak of USD745bn twelve months earlier. The top two actors are Brazilian: Banco do Brasil and Bradesco have respective assets under management of USD94.9bn and USD65.4bn, and respective market share of 17% and 11.7%.Santander and BBVA are in fourth and ninth place, with USD48.2bn and USD14.6bn. BNP Paribas is in 17th place, with USD5.82bn.
18/03/2009

Germany - Carsten Maschmeyer quits as head of AWD

The founder and now co-chairman of the board at AWD, Carsten Maschmeyer, has decided to quit his job as head of the German financial services provider. He will join the board of Swiss Life, a company in which he owns an 8% stake, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. In his new role, he plans to focus on development of strategy and internationalisation.
18/03/2009

France - Three new appointments at Lazard Frères Gestion

Lazard Frères Gestion has announced three appointments as part of a reconfiguration of its activities. François de Saint-Pierre will become head of private management activities at the management firm. Saint-Pierre, who joined the group in 1993, became a managing partner at Lazard Frères Gestion in 2003, and then a managing partner at Lazard Frères Paris and Managing Director of Lazard LLC in 2007. He will work to continue and accelerate the development of private management activities, particularly in areas such as the organisation of wealth, asset allocation, and the investment process. Matthieu Grouès will assume the newly-created position of director of management at Lazard Frères Gestion. He will retain his responsibilities as head of strategy and asset allocation. His mission will be to coordinate and develop institutional and collective management in a manner that is coherent with Lazard Frères Gestion’s macroeconomic scenario. Régis Bégué has been director of research at the equities management firm since 1 January 2009. Before that, from 2005 he was in European equities management as an analyst, in charge of the pharmaceuticals, utilities and automotive sectors. His mission will be to maintain the good track record the firm has established over the past 10 years, while continuing to improve the investment process and enrich the product range.
18/03/2009

Germany - iShares lists seven new ETFs on Deutsche Borse

On Tuesday, Deutsche Börse admitted seven new ETFs from iShares (a brand from Barclays Global Investors, or BGI) onto the XTF segment of its Xetra electronic trading platform. Three are bond products, while the other four are based on equities indexes. All of them are German-registered products.The new products include the iShares JPMorgan $ Emerging Markets Bond, ? Covered Bond et Global Inflation-Linked Bond. D’autre part, iShares fait coter trois ETF de petites capitalisations : S&P Small Cap 600, MSCI Japan Small Cap and MSCI AC Far East Ex-Japan Small Cap.The seventh new product is the iShares S&P Emerging Markets Infrastructure, whose underlying index includes the 30 largest companies involved in the development of infrastructure in emerging countries. With these new ETFs, the total number of products available on the XTF segment comes to 420.
17/03/2009

Canada - Michael Sabia appointed as president and CEO of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CAD120.1bn in assets as of 31 December 2008) has announced the appointment of Michael Sabia to the board of directors, as ?president and chairman of the board.? The appointment has been approved by the government of Quebec. Sabia will assume his new responsibilities immediately. He was previously president and CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) from 2002 to July 2008, and replaces Fernand Perreault, who has held the position in the interim since the departure of Richard Guay in early January.
17/03/2009

France - Sycomore AM hires two managers/analysts

Sycomore Asset Management (EUR1.8bn in assets under management) has announced the arrival of Edouard Petitdidier and Ouissem Lahouar as managers/analysts in its Absolute Alpha team.Petitdidier and Lahouar will be in charge of managing a new fund called Sycomore Neutral Quantessence. The quantitative market neutral long/short product will soon be made available to institutional investors.Petitdidier is the former head of quantitative management at Systeia and the former co-head of systematic management at Barep. Lahouar was previously an IT systems consultant specialised in asset management, who worked for Systeia, Axa IM, CPR AM and Groupama AM to develop quantitative management tools.
17/03/2009

United States - Courts to freeze assets of Ruth Madoff

Die Welt relays reports in the New York Post that the court of New York will this week freeze the assets of Ruth Madoff, to prevent the wife of Bernard Madoff from fleeing the country or withdrawing any of the USD93m currently in her name. Prosecutors are also planning to press criminal charges against Mrs. Madoff.
17/03/2009

India - TCI sells shares totalling one third of what it bought in 2008

Hedge Week reports that the British hedge fund TCI has sold Indian equities totalling INR115bn (USD2.2bn) since the beginning of the year, which corresponds to one third of the equities it bought in 2008, many of which were banking sector shares. The sales apparently represented a significant capital loss compared with the acquisition price of the shares.
17/03/2009

World - iShares may attract actors seeking to enter ETF market

Barclays confirmed on Monday that it is in discussions with certain financial sector actors who may be interested in acquiring its iShares business, lending confirmation to reports in the British press over the weekend. The British establishment says the discussions were ?part of a regular examination of the group’s portfolio of activities? and that ?no decisions have been taken about any affiliates.?iShares is the division of Barclays Global Investors dedicated to ETFs. As of the end of 2008, it managed USD324.84bn worldwide, with 361 funds, which amounts to a 45.7% market share, according to statistics from Barclays Global Investors. That makes it by far the largest actor in the ETF market, far ahead of State Street Global Advisors (20.5%), Vanguard (6.4%), and Lyxor (4.7%). Its market share is dominant both in the United States and in Europe.This position makes the business attractive to potential buyers, particularly at a time when ETFs are a rapidly-growing segment of the market. Some specialists in the sector suggest that iShares may be attractive in particular to banks which are seeking to enter the ETF market, particularly as ?the cost of access to the ETF market is high,? according to one professional. But, of course, any interested buyers will have to be solid enough to be able to pay the price.The British press is estimating the sale price of iShares at about GBP5bn. But according to some analysts, one may expect a price as low as GBP2bn, as the profession is currently under pressure.
17/03/2009

France - EDRAM recruits Michel Dinet

Michel Dinet, who since October 2008 has been head of sales to private clients at HSBC Assurance, where he was involved in the creation of a business unit to serve IFAs working with the HSBC group, is now becoming head of partnerships for France at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EDRAM), where he replaces Bruno Zarraya. The partnerships team in France includes four other members, reporting to Philippe Cormon, director of distribution.
17/03/2009

United States - GMAM becomes Promark Global Advisors

General Motors Asset Management (USD132bn in assets) has announced that it is adopting the name Promark Global Advisors, as part of an expansion of its activities beyond the GM group and to other countries beyond the United States.
17/03/2009

Germany - Managers seek salvation through innovation

Management firms in Germany are looking to innovative products as a potential way out of the crisis, as investors are putting an increased amphasis on security over tax or performance concerns.BlackRock, for example, has launched an absolute performance product, the BSF Absolute Return Strategies Fund, which invests in 50 to 100 European equities, but may increase these positions to 100% if necessary. Since mid-June, the strategy has generated performance of 12%, says Andrej Brodnik, CEO for Germany.Allianz Global Investors (AGI), for its part, is betting on horizon funds, and has recently launched the Allianz Pimco Unternehmensanleihen 2013, a corporate bond fund.Union Investment, meanwhile, has announced the launch of two guaranteed funds on Monday.DWS (Deutsche Bank) estimates that guarantees come at a high price, and has chosen instead to launch a bond horizon fund maturing in 2014, which will aim to generate performance higher than that of bunds.
17/03/2009

United Kingdom - Prospect of iShares sale boosts Barclays share price

Barclays shares rose 22.7% on Monday, after the bank confirmed that it is in negotiations to sell iShares, the Financial Times reports. The market is hoping that the firm will be able to avoid government intervention. Barclays may retain a stake in iShares, the FT reports.
17/03/2009

Spain - Arcano recruits former head of private banking from Nmás1

The financial group Arcano has recruited Iñigo Susaeta, former CEO of Nmás1 Patrimonios, has head of the wealth management advising division at Arcano Investment Advisors, Expansión reports. Currently, Arcano Investment Advisors has 150 families as clients with average assets of EUR100m. The objective is to extend this base by 5 to 10 families per year, with each family having net worth of over EUR20m. According to an Arcano study, there are 400 such families in Spain.
17/03/2009

France - Banks received USD20bn from AIG

Les Echos reports that the US insurer AIG, which has so far received more than USD170bn in public assistance, paid out more than half of this to banks, much of it to French banks. Société Générale got USD11.9bn between 16 September and 31 December 2008, while BNP received USD4.9bn, and Crédit Agricole SA USD2.3bn, via its investment bank Calyon.
17/03/2009

France - AGI launches a consumer protection SRI fund

On Friday, 13 March, Allianz Global Investors France added a product to its SRI product range with the launch of the French-registered international equities FCP fund Allianz Citizen Care SRI, a thematic fund which aims to approach new challenges related to the protection of citizen consumers.The thematic fund, which was launched with EUR10m in seed capital, aims to participate in the expected increase in demand for new products and services related to consumer protection needs, while the SRI approach aims to protect the fund against emerging risks which may endanger the performance of businesses, such as rising legal accountability.
17/03/2009

Germany - Union Investment adds two products to its range of guaranteed funds

Union Investment (cooperative banks) will launch two funds on 6 May which wil be added to its range of 40 guaranteed products with a total of about EUR8.1bn in assets as of the end of February. The new funds will be available in Germany.The UniGarant: Best of Assets Konservativ (2015) will cover the equities and bond markets of the Euro zone and the Euro-denominated money markets, while the UniGarant: Europa (2016) will be focused solely on the European equities markets.Subscriptions are open from this Monday until 30 April. In both cases, front-end fee and management commission are set at 4% and 2%, respectively, with an exit fee of 2% for withdrawals before the maturity of the fund (27 March 2015 and 25 March 2016).Union emphasizes that for the Konservativ 2015 the basket of shares will be weighted at maturity, with 50% for the market that shows the best performance, 30% for the second-best, and 20% for the third-best.
17/03/2009

United States - Gold manager at BlackRock takes a sabbatical

Citywire reports that Graham Birch, the manager of the BlackRock World Gold fund, will be taking a leave of absence from early April until the end of the year. Evy Hambro, who co-manages the BGF World Gold Fund with Birch, will be responsible for this gold fund and the BlackRock Gold & General fund until Birch returns.
17/03/2009

United Kingdom - American Century to launch a range of UCITS III funds

The independent manager American Century Investments (USD70bn in assets) has announced that it will soon be launching a range of UCITS III-compliant funds to distribute its growth strategies in Europe.Ben Williams, vice president, institutional business development, will move to the new American Century office in London. He will be joined there by Peter Bracket and Sigrid Johann as vice-presidents.Brackett spent three years as co-head of global consultant relations at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), while Johann was business development manager at Wellington Management International in London, serving pension funds, private banks, and family offices in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.The new team will focus on financial intermediaries and institutional investors in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and the Middle East, and will report to Michael Green, senior vice president of international.
17/03/2009

Germany - Sarasin sets out to conquer Scandinavian institutional market

The Swiss bank Sarasin (Rabobank group) has announced that it has begun serving the institutional markets in the Scandinavian countries via its Frankfurt-based affiliate Bank Sarasin AG, which is the European hub for the group. Aris Prepoudis, managing director of institutional clients at Banque Sarasin in Switzerland, has been appointed to the board at Bank Sarasin AG.Prepoudis now counts the Swedish Eric Gelfgren as part of his team. Gelfgren joins Sarasin from Mercer, where he was European head of responsible investing. Sarasin has also recruited a Danish team member, Thomas Huuson, who was previously head of client relations at Nordea Invest.

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