Vontobel Asset Management (Vontobel AM) a annoncé la nomination d’Andreas Faeste en tant que « senior relationship manager » en charge des investisseurs institutionnels afin d’élargir sa présence auprès de cette clientèle en Australie et en Nouvelle-Zélande. Dans le cadre de ses fonctions, l’intéressé se concentrera plus particulièrement sur la distribution des offres obligataires de Vontobel.Andreas Faeste, qui compte plus de 20 ans d’expérience commerciale sur le marché australien, a précédemment travaillé avec Voya Investment Management, Perennial Investment Partners et Deutsche Asset Management à travers sa propre société de marketing. Avant cela, il a occupé des postes à responsabilités chez ING Investment Management et IAG Asset Management.

Les fusions et acquisitions dans la gestion d’actifs en 2017 ont atteint des niveaux jamais vus depuis l’après crise financière, le marché étant sous forte pression pour se concentrer, rapporte le Financial Times fund management. La valeur totale des opérations annoncées s’est élevée à 40,9 milliards de dollars, soit un pic depuis 2009, tandis que le volume des transactions est tombé à son plus bas niveau depuis 2006. Cela reflète une tendance à avoir moins d’opérations, mais plus grosses entre acteurs de taille moyenne, selon des chiffres compilés par Dealogic pour le FTfm. Dans le monde, 781 opérations ont été annoncées l’an dernier, contre 853 l’an passé et 1.196 en 2011.

Belfius Investment Partners (Belfius IM), la filiale de gestion d’actifs du groupe bancaire belge Belfius, a recruté Maud Reinalter en qualité de gérante de portefeuille senior, a appris InvestmentEurope. L’intéressé a pris ses nouvelles au début du mois de janvier et elle sera chargée de gérer plusieurs fonds de fonds. Maud Reinalter arrive en provenance de Degroof Petercam, qu’elle a quitté en décembre 2017. Elle avait rejoint la société de gestion d’actifs belge Petercam en 2007 en tant qu’analyste et gérante de fonds de fonds avant d’être responsable de la sélection de fonds de 2012 à 2015, date à laquelle Petercam et Banque Degroof ont fusionné. En décembre 2015, à l’issue de la fusion des activités de sélection de fonds du nouveau groupe Banque Degroof Petercam, elle devient gérante d’investissement au sein du family office de Degroof Petercam.

La banque régionale publique Nord/LB envisage de céder sa filiale de gestion d’actifs Nord/LB Asset Management (Nord LB AM), rapporte le quotidien financier Börsen-Zeitung. L’acheteur pourrait être la banque privée M.M. Warburg, basée à Hambourg, croit savoir le quotidien. M.M. Warburg a récemment cédé ses activités au Luxembourg et indiqué souhaiter se développer en priorité sur le marché allemand. Nord/LB et M.M. Warburg n’ont pas souhaité commenté ces informations.

La société de gestion américaine PineBridge Investments, qui gère 88,6 milliards de dollars, a recruté Michael Karpik en tant que directeur des opérations. L’intéressé vient de State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) où il était CEO Europe, Moyen-Orient et Afrique. Chez PineBridge, Michael Karpik sera basé à New York et sera rattaché au CEO Gregory Ehret.

La régulation MIF 2 a une incidence crédit négative sur le secteur européen de la gestion d’actifs, indique Moody’s Investors Service dans un rapport publié aujourd’hui. L’agence de notation estime que MIF 2 va encourager les investisseurs à se tourner vers les fonds passifs, exacerber la concurrence et entraîner un mouvement de consolidation dans le secteur.

Jusqu’ici pôle d’expertise en gestion quantitative de Natixis Asset Management (NAM), Seeyond devient un affilié de Natixis Investment Managers, l’ex-Natixis Global Asset Management renommé dans le cadre du plan stratégique 2020 New Dimension. Seeyond conservera « son autonomie, sa philosophie et sa culture ».

La société de gestion 123 IM a annoncé lundi l’ouverture d’un nouveau bureau à Lyon en janvier, d’ores-et-déjà composé de 3 professionnels de l’investissement. L’objectif de cet ancrage local pour 123 IM est d’accélérer la croissance de ses investissements en Auvergne Rhône-Alpes et de renforcer sa présence aux cotés des entrepreneurs et des investisseurs d’une région comptant près de 8 millions d’habitants et 600.000 entreprises.

Nathalie Benatia, stratégiste senior, BNP Paribas Asset Management

Le gérant d’actifs américain, qui a enregistré un gain comptable de 1,2 milliard de dollars au quatrième trimestre, espère bénéficier d’un regain d’activité.

La société d’investissement britannique a décidé de dissoudre le fonds GLG Select Opportunities, rapportait vendredi Bloomberg de sources proches du dossier. Spécialisé dans l’achat de dette de sociétés en difficulté, ce fonds ouvert en 2015 est géré de New York par Himanshu Gulati, qui avait auparavant travaillé chez Perry Capital. Le motif de cette décision reste inconnu, le fonds ayant gagné 11% sur les neuf premiers mois de l’année 2017 et 7,1% entre la date de son ouverture et le 30 septembre dernier.

Le FRR a lancé le 21 février 2017 une procédure d’appel d’offres restreint visant à sélectionner plusieurs prestataires de service d’investissement capable d’assurer une gestion d’adossement de flux ou « cashflow matching » en investissant majoritairement dans des titres financiers émis par l’Etat français, tels que des Obligations Assimilées du Trésor Français (OAT) et des Bons du Trésor. A l’issue du processus de sélection, le FRR a décidé de sélectionner les offres d’AXA IM et Amundi. A titre purement indicatif, le FRR estime que le montant global des encours donnés en gestion pour le mandat, pourra être fixé à cinq milliards d’euros. Les mandats seront attribués pour une durée de cinq ans reconductibles pour une période d’un an.

Dans le cadre du développement de Placium, structure en charge de l'activité financière K&P Finance, le cabinet de CGP souhaite recruter un conseiller financier spécialisé en majeurs protégés. Une spécificité sur laquelle s'est beaucoup développé K&P finance depuis quelques années.

Seeyond était jusqu’ici le pôle d’expertise en gestion quantitative de Natixis Asset Management, elle-même affiliée de Natixis Investment Managers. Seeyond a pour ambition de doubler ses encours à horizon 2021 et de renforcer son développement à l’international.

A la tête de 28 milliards d’euros d’encours, Anne Courrier, directrice des partenariats stratégiques et des investissements chez Malakoff Médéric, pilote l’allocation d’actifs des différentes institutions du groupe de protection sociale. Dans un souci de diversification, le groupe paritaire s’est fortement renforcé dans l’immobilier en doublant ses investissements en 4 ans ainsi que dans la dette privée qui pourrait voir sa part s’accroître. Malakoff Médéric entend également renforcer sensiblement sa politique ISR en définissant des objectifs et des engagements plus précis.

In Germany, investment funds recorded fresh inflows to the tune of EUR 10.7 billion in November, with the lion’s share of EUR 7.8 billion having been contributed by open-ended retail funds, said The German Investment Funds Association BVI. Year to date, the total new business of open-ended funds amounted to EUR 138.8 billion while closed-ended funds brought in EUR 2.3 billion. Institutional investors withdrew EUR 16.9 billion net from discretionary mandates.With inflows amounting to EUR 4.2 billion, equity funds top the sales chart within the open-ended retail fund segment. Equity ETFs account for EUR 2.3 billion while actively managed funds account for EUR 1.9 billion. In November as well, the new business of balanced funds continued to be dominated by products that invest equally in equities and bonds; these funds recorded EUR 1.2 billion in inflows and managed assets totalling EUR 125 billion. This equates to a 48 per cent share in the balanced fund volume totalling EUR 261 billion. By comparison, five years ago, products that invest equally in equities and bonds had a share of 54 per cent in the assets of balanced funds. In contrast, equity-oriented balanced funds grew their share from 21 per cent to 26 per cent as a result of rising markets and inflows during previous years.

ABP takes the next step in its sustainable and responsible investment policy with the decision to exclude the products tobacco and nuclear weapons from its investments. ABP has reached this decision after extensive consultation at board level, based on the insights shared by participants, employers, and various special interest organizations. The pension fund aims to sell within one year all investments (a total of approximately 3.3 billion euros) in tobacco and nuclear weapons manufacturers. ABP is also introducing a new assessment framework. This assessment framework serves as a new instrument for ABP’s Board of Trustees to review its investments, in addition to the instruments we developed previously. As well as existing assessment criteria, this offers the ABP Board of Trustees a further set of criteria that may result in product exclusions in the following cases: - if the product is by definition harmful to people; - if our influence as a shareholder cannot change anything about that fact; - if it has no harmful effect if the product would no longer be there; - if a worldwide treaty exists for the purpose of eliminating the product. These four criteria enable uniform and consistent assessment of all products. Also based on this new assessment framework, ABP decided to exclude manufacturers of tobacco and nuclear weapons. This implies that ABP is selling its existing investments in man ufacturing companies, associates, and producers elsewhere in the same chain. The fund will also refrain from investing in such products and companies in the future. In the past, healthy returns were achieved on tobacco and nuclear weapons. However, ABP bel ieves that the outlook has changed. Additionally, ABP sees options for excellent returns on other investments. This is why the fund expects that missed profits, if any, due to this decision will be very limited. Together with its pension provider, APG, ABP will implement this new decision in its sustainable and responsible investment policy. Profile ABP is the industry - wide pension fund for employers and employees of government and educational institutions in the Netherlands. ABP has 2.9 million participants and 405 billion euros in available assets (as at November 30, 2017)

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } Jörg de Vries-Hippen, CIO for European equities at Allianz Global Investors, is predicting that dividends paid by European companies (of the MSCI Europe index) will total a record EUR323bn in 2018, nearly EUR23bn (7.7%) more than in 2017. He is convinced that dividends are only one reason why European equities are particularly attractive. “For a long time, outlooks have not been as promising as they are at the start of 2018. The European economy is doing well, and corporate profits can be expected to continue to develop positively. This situation will have a positive impact on dividend payments and distribution ratios at companies. Overall, we are predicting that profits will grow by about 8%, or slightly less if the strength of the euro persists. Last year, 80% of profits were distributed in the form of dividends, an all-time record. This means that companies do not want to grow at any price. More attention is being paid to the interests of shareholders and the way that profits are used at companies,” de Vires-Hippen remarks. In Europe, Portugal (with 4.47%), followed by Spain (4.07%), and lastly Finland (4.02%) were the countries where the average dividend returns were highest in 2017. The United Kingdom, which has traditionally been the largest in terms of volume for investors seeking dividends, took fourth place (3.98%). In Germany, the average dividend returns totalled 2.51% in 2017, and totalled 3.04% in France. According to de Vries-Hippen, manager of the Allianz European Equity Dividend fund, where he privileges companies that pay high dividends, “these averages are an important reference, and are extremely revealing about the valuation of each market. In my opinion, the decisive factors are dividend levels and the way in which a company may be expected to convert expected cash flows into a sustainable dividend policy. on nearly all the European stock markets, we can now find companies which satisfy our quality standards on the basis of two factors. At the present time, companies in the oil, telecommunications and insurance sectors are particularly attractive from the dividend viewpoint.” Although the average annual returns from equities may be negative over a five-year shareholding period, dividends paid regularly contribute positively to the performance of equities, according to a new study by Allianz Global Investors (“Capital Income: Dividends.”) Over the long term, dividend payments represent about one third of their total performance, according to experts at AllianzGI. The contribution of dividends to total annual performance is the highest in Europe (38.2%), followed by North America (31.0%) and Asia-Pacific (ex Japan) (28.9%). “For years, dividend returns in Europe have been two percentage points higher than German 10-year Bunds,” says Hans-Jörg Naumer, head of the Capital Market Analysis team.

Agefi, a leading French professional press publication and the owner of NewsManagers, has acquired 100% of capital in the Indinvest company, an independent group specialised in professional information in the asset management industry.Indinvest, launched in 2011, has in fewer than five years become the leading media provider for the French community of professional investors, and especially institutional investors, from the website www.institinvest.com, and major events such as the Couronnes Instit Invest, a national investors’ day entitied Journée Nationale des Investisseurs, and also to asset manager selectors, with the website www.distribinvest.com, and the Coupoles Distrib Invest.Following the acquisition of the “pure player” asset management news website NewsManagers, the specialist in recruitment of young financial professionals Wall Finance, and the French language activity of Dow Jones, the new acquisition addresses a specific strategic goal at Agefi, namely to diversify activities, while strengthening its stature in its core areas, and also creating a leading participant in the field of asset management in France, and to accelerate its development in continental Europe in the next three years.Following the announcement of Brexit, at a time when the European Union is acquiring an integrated body of rules, a European continental asset management market is emerging, which it is important to address, and this is one of the major objectives of the Agefi group.Aurélien Lafaye, founder of Indinvest and deputy CEO at Agefi, says: “I am delighted at the merger of our ideas, our teams and our expertise, as part of a project which makes sense for investment professionals. This passionate challenge will allow us to bring communities of professional investors closer together. We will continue to serve all of our clients with the same proximity and quality standards.”“We are delighted with the acquisition of Indinvest and the arrival of Lafaye as deputy CEO, and we congratulate his teams for their achievements; for Agefi, this is a new step in the development of the company, in a bid to increase its range of information and services in France, and to increase its presence serving European investors,” Philippe Mudry, CEO of Agefi, and François Robin, deputy CEO of Agefi, say in a statement.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } The private bank Lombard Odier is selling off most of its properties in Geneva, specifically in the rue de la Corraterie. The firm has sold several buildings located on this artery in the city centre, and is retaining only its historic headquarters, at number 15. In total, 10 properties have been sold to Axa Winterthur. The transaction totals nearly CHF300m, the insurance company says in a statement. The sale is not a surprise. Lombard Odier has decided to transfer its activities to Bellevue, to new headquarters to be constructed. Until this is completed, which is slated for 2021, the private bank will continue to be based in the rue de la Corraterie.

EFG International has announced that Christian Flemming has been appointed chief operating officer and a member of the executive committee, effective 15 January 2018. Mark Bagnall, EFG’s current COO, will assume the role of chief technology officer, and Peter Fischer will step down as head of strategy. Christian Flemming (1975) will be joining EFG International as new Chief Operating Officer, effective 15 January 2018 and subject to regulatory approval. In his new position, he will be a Member of the Executive Committee and report directly to CEO Giorgio Pradelli. Christian Flemming will be responsible for further improving EFG’s operational efficiency as well as the continuous development of the bank’s overall servicing platform. Christian Flemming was Head of Finance at Banco BTG Pactual S.A. and before that Chief Operating Officer at BSI until the acquisition by EFG. He also worked at Banco BTG Pactual S.A. as Chief Operating Officer of the Investment Banking division and, amongst others, was a member of the Board of Directors of Banco BTG Pactual Chile. Before joining BTG Pactual, Christian Flemming worked in Investment Banking for Pátria Banco de Negócios and as a consultant at Stern Stewart & Co in São Paulo. Also as of 15 January 2018, Mark Bagnall, who has held the role of Chief Operating Officer at EFG since January 2011, will assume his new role as Chief Technology Officer and remain a Member of the Executive Committee. Given the increasing importance of technological development, Mark Bagnall will be heading all global IT functions and focus on driving forward EFG’s IT systems and digital strategy, which are crucial to the bank’s long-term success. Before joining EFG in December 2008, Mark Bagnall previously worked at Merrill Lynch from 1998 to 2008 in London and Geneva. Furthermore, Peter Fischer has decided to step down as Head of Strategy and a Member of the Executive Committee, effective 15 January 2018. Since joining EFG in June 2015 and taking on the role as Head of Strategy in January 2016, Peter Fischer played a vital role in leading and ensuring the success of the BSI integration process. In 2018, he will take over new responsibilities focusing on post-integration optimisation and on further implementing certain strategic projects aimed at enhancing EFG’s efficiency and competitive offering.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } The private equity firm KKR on 10 January announced that it is closing its Real Estate Partners Americas II fund with USD2bn. The vehicle is dedicated to opportunistic, added-value real estate investments, mainly in the United States. The fund has about USD230m in capital originating from the balance sheet and employees at KKR. The Real Estate Partners Americas II fund is the successor to Real Estate Partners Americas, the first real estate fund from KKR, which completed a round of fundraising with USD1.5bn in December 2013. Since the launch of its dedicated real estate platform in 2011, KKR has invested more than USD5bn in capital in over 60 real estate operations in the United States, Europe and Asia. The real estate team at KKR has over 50 investment professionals.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) on 11 January announced the recruitment of Matthieu Lucchesi to the newly-created position of head of public affairs. Lucchesi will be based in Paris, and will report to Philippe Ditisheim, head of public affairs, governance, and coordination of group functions at BNPP AM. In this role, Lucchesi will work to represent BNPP AM and to increase its visibility serving French, European and international organisations and regulatory bodies. Lucchesi joins from the French financial regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), where since September 2016, he had been director of the asset management regulation division. Lucchesi holds a masters’ degree in business law from the Université Paris II Panthéon Assas and Harvard Law School, and began his career in 2011 as a lawyer at the New York bar at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, before joining the AMF in 2012.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } Amadeis has recruited Arthur Mennechet as senior consultant. Mennechet has five years of experience in asset management. He began his career in 2013 as a fund analyst at Morningstar Frence, responsible for qualitative ratings for mutual funds investing in European equities. In 2016, Mennechet joined the management consulting firm A2 Consulting, and was responsible for several missions related to operational issues at asset management firms (internal controlling, liability management, quality of data, reporting, MiFID 2). At Amadeis, Mennechet will assist institutionals throughout their investment process.

Hedge fund Verrazzano Capital is returning cash to external investors as Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Rambourg turns the Paris-based asset manager into a family office, said Bloomberg. “The funds are at their absolute peak performance,” Rambourg wrote in a statement to Bloomberg on Tuesday announcing the decision. “In my 23rd year in the business of managing money all day, every day, I’ve decided to embark on a new life path.”A “decent chunk” of the family office’s assets will be invested in Verrazzano fund manager Youssef Benhaddouch’s concentrated European long-only fund, Rambourg said. The remainder will be invested in funds “across an array of asset classes” as well as in private equity with “a firm focus on innovative, socially responsible and impactful investments,” he said.Verrazzano’s European Opportunities Fund gained 1.7 percent in the 11 months through November, while the European Focus fund was up 3.3 percent, according to an investor letter. The firm has over $600 million in assets. Rambourg said he plans to focus on activities including philanthropy and training for the Berlin marathon. His hedge fund name was inspired by New York’s Verrazano-Narrows bridge, starting point of the city’s marathon.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } The pan-European platform Iznes, developed by the blockchain specialist SETL, has made its first transfer operations on buy and sell orders for shares in OPC funds managed by OFI Asset Management on behalf of Macif and Matmut clients, the French asset management firm announced on 11 January. “This first success is the fruit of a successful collaboration between OFI Asset Management, SETL and various participants, including Société Générale Securities Services, as OPC fund share depository, and Caceis, which acted as market-maker and custodian for the investors concerned,” OFI AM says in a statement. These first transactions “prove that the Iznes solution can be deployed without impact on other professional processes, both for the asset management firm, and for the client,” the asset management firm says. The Iznes platform was created in September 2017 at the initiative of SETL and four French asset management firms: OFI AM, Groupama Asset Management, la Financière de l’Echiquier and Arkea Investment Services (see NewsManagers of 15 September 2017).

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } At a presentation of its provisional results, the British asset management firm Jupiter Fund Management (Jupiter) has announced that its assets under management have exceeded GBP50bn, and now total GBP50.2bn as of the end of December 2017. Assets are up 24% compared with GBP40.5bn in assets under management as of the end of 2016. This strong growth is largely due to commercial activities. Over 2017 as a whole, Jupiter has earned net inflows of GBP5.5bn, including GBP600m in fourth quarter, compared with GBP1bn in 2016. “2017 was marekd by constant progress at Jupiter,” says Maartin Slendebroek, CEO, in a statement. “The strong performance of investments has allowed us to generate positive returns after deductions for commissions paid to clients. The continuation of our diversification strategy generated GBP5.5bn in incoming net inflows, with GBP5.1bn to mutual funds.” In this environment, the asset management firm is particularly optimistic about the future. “In 2018, we expect to continue our trajectory of 2017, by continuing our commercial diversification and our investments,” says Jupiter.

A l’issue de l’exercice 2017, les actifs sous gestion de Rathbone Brothers se sont inscrits à 39,1 milliards de livres contre 34,2 milliards de livres à fin décembre 2016, soit une progression de 14,1%, a annoncé hier le gestionnaire d’actifs britannique. Sur l’ensemble de l’année 2017, la société de gestion a enregistré une collecte nette de 2,1 milliards de livres, après 1,7 milliard de livres de souscriptions nettes en 2016.A fin décembre 2017, son pôle « Investment Management » affiche 33,8 milliards de livres d’encours, en hausse de 11,9% sur un an. Cette entité a réalisé une collecte nette de 1,2 milliard de livres, indique à celle de l’année 2016.En parallèle, son pôle « Unit Trusts » a atteint le niveau record de 5,3 milliards de livres d’encours à fin 2017, soit un bond de 32,5% par rapport à fin 2016. Sa collecte nette a atteint 883 millions de livres sur l’ensemble de l’année 2017, contre 554 millions de livres en 2016.

Santander Asset Management (Santander AM) a nommé Tom Caddick en tant que nouveau directeur des investissements pour ses activités au Royaume-Uni, a appris Citywire Selector. L’intéressé officiait précédemment en qualité de responsable des solutions multi-asset à l’échelle mondiale au sein du bureau londonien de la société de gestion espagnole, poste qu’il occupait depuis novembre 2013. Selon le site d’information britannique, Tom Caddick a été officiellement promu en octobre 2017 mais l’annonce n’a été faite qu’en interne.