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12/03/2009

United Kingdom - Madoff ?laundered? money of London clients

The Wall Street Journal reports, citing government sources, that the London-based company owned by Bernard Madoff played a key role in the fraud orchestrated by him. The government claims that Madoff used the London-based structure to launder clients’ money. He transferred capital from New York clients to London, then shifted it back to the United States to support the operations of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, and also to his own personal gain.
12/03/2009

Germany - Robeco adds to sales staff

Robeco Deutschland has announced the recruitment of Doris Galle-Rostami as senior account manager providing client assistance to IFAs, brokerage networks, platforms, and banks. She will report to Kai Röhrl, head of third party distribution, and will be leaving Franklin Templeton Investment Services, where she had similar responsibilities to those she will be taking up at Robeco.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - BGI recruits a head of strategy for transition

David Gagnon, director of transition management for the Lehman Brothers group, and then vice president of Nomura International, has been recruited as director of transition strategy at Barclays Global Investors (BGI) in London. He will report to Lachlan French, head of transitions, Europe & Asia (ex Japan), Professional Pensions reports.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - Steven Cohen enters capital of Sotheby's

According to a declaration to the SEC, the hedge fund manager Steven Cohen has built up a stake over the past quarter of 5.9% in Sotheby’s, via the management firm S.A.C. Capital Advisors, based in Anguilla, Handelsblatt reports.
12/03/2009

World - Hedge funds may have to redeem 30% of their assets in 2009

Morgan Stanley reoprts that hedge funds may face redemption demands this year adding up to 30% of their assets, which would bring assets under management to USD950bn, their lowest level since 2004, Funds People reports. Redemptions are expected to be primarily to US clients in first half.
12/03/2009

Europe - AGI launches Allianz RCM European Equity Income

Allianz Global Investors (AGI) had initially planned to launch its fund Allianz RCM European Index in January. But after consultation with its shareholders, the objective and management process of the fund have been revised. The fund will now be renamed as Allianz RCM European Equity Income, and will be officially launched on 30 March. The product, a British-registered OEIC, will be managed by Neil Dwane, CIO Europe at RCM, and Joerg de Vries-Hippen, co-CIO European equities at RCM. A Luxembourg version of the fund will also be released. Unlike the Allianz RCM European Equity Income, the Allianz RCM European Equity Dividend will be invested throughout Europe, while the British-registered fund will concentrate on assets in continental Europe.
12/03/2009

Germany - DWS launches two new horizon funds

The horizon fund DWS Renten Direkt 2013, which attracted EUR700m in subscriptions in three weeks, has been closed to new investors, but DWS (Deutsche Bank) on 30 March will launch the DWS Renten Direkt 2014, for which subscriptions will be open until 27 March. In both cases, the funds will invest in 25 corporate bonds or Pfandbriefe, which will be retained until maturity.The management firm will also close the DWS Unternehmensanleihen Direkt 2014 fund to new subscriptions on 13 March. This horizon fund invests in corporate bonds and may place up to 20% of its portfolio in subordinate bonds and high yield bonds. The fund will be launched on 16 March.In both cases, DWS will charge a penalty of 1.5% which will remain in the fund in case of early withdrawal.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - Record deficits for defined-benefit pension funds

The roughly 7,800 defined-benefit pension plans (DB schemes) in the United Kingdom monitored on a regular basis by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) at the end of February showed a record deficit of GBP218.7bn, compared with GBP 190.6bn one month earlier, Professional Pensions reports. One year previously, shortfalls were limited to GBP67.1bn. Surpluses for funds which are not underfinanced fell to GBP9.4bn, compared with GBP13.5bn at the end of January 2009, and GBP42.6bn at the end of February last year.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - Matrix launches a wealth management affiliate

Matrix group has announced the launch of a wealth management division dedicated to high net worth private clients. The division, entitled Matrix Investment Management, will be led by the team which formerly reported to Mike Hollings, CIO of Ansbacher Investment Management. The team has been recruited specially for this purpose, Money Marketing reports.
12/03/2009

Switzerland - HSBC GAM to open a Geneva office

According to the 11 March edition of Ignites Europe, HSBC Global Asset Management is going to set up as an independent company in Switzerland. Currently, the firm is a division of the private bank. An office will be opened in Geneva in the next two months, says Heinz Hofmann, head of the Zurich office of HSBC GAM.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - JPMAM collected USD4.2bn from institutionals in 2008

JPMorgan Asset Management has announced that last year in the United Kingdom it registered subscriptions of USD4.2bn from institutional investors, and that it signed on 23 new clients, including three local governments, bringing assets to USD15.4bn, Hedge Week reports. The strategy which attracted the largest inflows was funds of hedge funds, with 12 new clients, compared with 6 in 2007; inflows to this strategy totalled USD473m, bringing assets to USD755m.
12/03/2009

United Kingdom - Vanguard will have to fight an uphill battle

In an interview with Ignites Europe on 11 March, Todd Ruppert, CEO of T Rowe Price, claims that Vanguard is going to have trouble conquering the UK market. The major obstacle to the firm’s growth in the country is that British IFAs, who are the primary channel of distribution in the UK, still work with a commission-based system.
12/03/2009

Norway - A black year for the Oil Fund

In Norwegian Kroner, assets in the Government Pension Fund - Global, formerly known as the Oil Fund, increased to NOK2.275trn (about EUR257bn) at the end of December, compared with NOK2.019trn one year earlier, thanks to increased oil revenues and the weakness of the Norwegian currency, whose positive contributions amounted to NOK384bn and NOK506bn, while capital losses on the portfolio of 23.3% wiped out NOK633bn in assets under management (EUR72bn). Losses totalled about 40% for the equities portfolio and 0.5% for the bond portfolio.Allocation to equities were increased to 50% from 40%, and will continue to be increased to 60%, as decided in 2007. In total, the fund holds shares in 7,900 foreign companies, with the largest positions being Shell (NOK15.2bn) and Nestlé (NOK14.9bn). In bonds, the largest position is on Schätze from the German federal government, which account for nearly NOK95bn.
12/03/2009

Spain - 90% of ?Madoffed? clients accept Santander offer

As of Wednesday this week, the percentage of clients of the Santander private bank who lost money in the Madoff affair due to having invested in the Optimal Strategic US Equity fund who have accepted the settlement offered to them by the bank came to 90%, Cinco Días reports. However, institutional clients of Santander, who have not been offered any compensation package, are demanding EUR1bn from Santander in a lawsuit filed in Miami, according to the law firm Labaton Sucharow.
12/03/2009

Spain - Outflows for hedge funds from Banco Madrid and Crédit Agricole

17 of the 19 hedge funds which disclose information about their results to the Inverco association of management firms saw a contraction in their assets in the first two months of the year, Funds People reports. Aside from products from BBVA and UBS which are in the process of being liquidated, the worst affected funds were the fund of hedge funds Copérnico from Banco Madrid, which lost 99% of its assets (to a total of EUR21,000 at the end of February), and the CAAM Multiestrategia Alternativa, whose assets fell 67.38% to EUR2m.Among single hedge funds, the Mosaic Iberia from Pictet and the Foncaixa Privadas Ideas lost 74% and 30% of their assets, respectively.
12/03/2009

Asia - ING IM selects RBC Dexia for administrative services

The firm ING Investment Management Asia-Pacific of Hong Kong has retained RBC Dexia Investor Services as its preferred provider of administrative services and as nominee to distribute ING Luxembourg funds in the Asia-Pacific region, where ING IM managed USD88.73bn at the end of December. The number of funds entrusted to RBC Dexia IS is increased with the move from 4 to 11, with more than 300 classes of shares on the Kong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysian, and Philippines markets.
12/03/2009

Spain - Investors bet on bonds

VDOS Stochastics reports that Spanish investors are beginning to put risk back into their portfolios. Although until recently they had preferred money market funds and savings accounts, they are now buying long-term bonds in the form of government bonds or corporate debt, Expansión reports. In the past few months, a net total of EUR500m have flowed out of money market funds, while net allocations to bond funds have represented nearly EUR300m, which is partly due to decreased returns from savings accounts, says Joaquín González-Llamazares, head of fixed income at DWS Investments.
12/03/2009

France - SGAM climbs on horizon fund bandwagon

Société Générale Asset Management (SGAM) on Wednesday announced the launch on 16 March of the French-registreed FCP fund SGAM Invest Target Fund, a horizon fund which will include two sub-funds, ?Credit 2012,? which will mature in three years (on 25 May 2012), and ?Credit 2014,? which will mature in five years (30 May 2014). The products will aim to capture the potential currently offered by investment grade-rated corporate bonds, which are offering historic record premiums.The two sub-funds will provide sectoral diversification and offer active management of the selection of assets in the portfolio throughout the life of the fund. Initially, explains Eric Brard, director of fixed income management, the portfolio will include a sizeable dose of financial sector assets.Liquidity reporting will be on a daily basis. To limit the volatility of the assets throughout the life of the fund and to optimise prospects of returns, front-end fees (2%) and exit fees (on a decreasing scale, from a maximum of 4% between 29 May 2009 and 28 May 2010) will be put in place after the initial subscription period which will run from 16 March to 19 June 2009 for each sub-fund. Management commission for retail shares will be a maximum of 1.25%. The credit team at SGAM which manages these products includes five managers, with an average of 14 years of experience, along with ten credit analysts and 3 dedicated traders.
12/03/2009

Germany - Deutsche Borse lists its first hedge fund ETF

On Wednesday, Deutsche Börse admitted two ETFs from db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) to trading on the dedicated XTF segment of tis electronic trading platform Xetra. These include the first ETF to replicate a hedge fund index. The db Hedge Fund Index ETF, a German-registered product, reproduces the evolution of the db Hedge Fund Index via a portfolio of futures contracts. The index, in turn, is composed of the sub-indices dbX-THF Equity Hedge Index, dbX-THF Event Driven Index, dbX-THF Credit and Convertible Arbitrage Index, dbX-THF Systematic Marco Index and dbX-THF Equity Market Neutral Index. Management commission is 0.90%. The second new fund is the db x-trackers Russell 2000 ETF, which replicates the Russell 2000 index of the smallest US small caps, which make up the small end of the Russell 3000. Management commission is 0.45%. The XTF segment now lists 413 ETF funds.
12/03/2009

United States - Stanford refuses to cooperate with investigators

Sir Allen Stanford is refusing to cooperate with US federal investigators into an alleged USD8bn fraud which bears his name, the Financial Times reports. Stanford is claiming protection under the fifth amendment. It has also emerged that the heads of Stanford’s management firm were concerned about the precision of financial information about the state of the group a few weeks before US regulators made their move.
12/03/2009

World - Billionaires lost 50% of their wealth in 2008

According to the 23rd annual rankings by Forbes magazine, there are now only 793 billionaires in the world, compared with 1,125 last year, Les Echos reports. As of 13 February 2009, ?The net total value of members of the 2009 rankings came to only USD2.4trn, down from USD4.4trn in 2008,? the magazine says. Indian and Russian billionaires have been the hardest-hit by the crisis, severely affected by the volatility of commodity prices.
12/03/2009

Germany - Real estate: a refuge for investors

In a period of high turbulence on the office real estate markets, ?Germany may appear as a save haven for investors,? say researchers at the IW institute in Cologne, cited by Les Echos. Office properties in Germany, traditionally more stable than those in other countries, have not seen significant increases in rents as the English-speaking countries have. The German federal system and regional diversification contribute to make the German market less volatile.
12/03/2009

Switzerland - New CIO for Julius Baer

Venkatraman Anantha-Nageswaran (known as ?Dr. Van) has been appointed as chief investment officer at Julius Baer, effective immediately. He will assume this new role while retaining his responsibilities as regional CIO for Asia-Pacific, which he has held since 2006. He will report to Boris F. J. Collardi, CEO Investment Solutions Group at Banque Julius Baer.
12/03/2009

France - Petercam to open a French asset management company

While many management firms are scaling back their operations in France, the Belgian management firm Petercam will launch a French asset management firm during 2009, and will recruit two portfolio managers in Paris.The decision expresses a desire to further develop activities serving French institutional investors, as these clients are increasingly making use of dedicated funds to manage their assets. ?In the next few years, we estimate that 80% of calls for offers will concern dedicated funds, compared with 55%-60% today,? says Ives Hup, sales & account manager for France, Monaco, and Greece.
12/03/2009

United States - CalPERS calls for more regulation of markets

Les Echos reports that CalPERS and several US pension funds with a combined total of more than USD900bn in assets have teamed up to call for increased regulation of the markets. They have five demands: ?increase transparency; increase the independence of regulators; assign more importance to the voice of shareholders; identify issues that may pose risks for financial markets, and preserve the liberty of institutional investors in their investment decisions,? the newspaper says.
12/03/2009

United States - Stanford CIO calls for dismissal of legal administrator

Laura Pendergest-Holt, CIO of Stanford Group, has asked a judge in Dallas to relieve a legal administrator of his duties, after a search of her home which she claims was illegal. She accuses lawyers sent by the administrators of having entered her home without advance notice, and of having ?gone through her underwear and personal possessions,? the Financial Times reports.

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