After the success of the Bravo I Fund, with USD2.35bn, which has proven that it is possible to make a lot of money (34% per year) with NPLs, Pimco is preparing to launch the Bravo II (Bank Recapitalization and Value Opportunities), which is expected to raise USD4bn by a closing scheduled for February, Handelsblatt reports.The lead portfolio managers are Dan Ivascyn and Josh Anderson, who also manage the Bravo I.

The financial ratings agency Moody’s on 15 October launched a call for comments on proposed modifications to the ratings methodology for asset management firms. This would more systematically evaluate risk factors concerning alternative management firms, while also increasing the number of risk factors on the balance sheets of traditional asset management firms.

The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on October 15 published for public comment a consultative document on the Public quantitative disclosure standards for central counterparties. In order that the risks related to the use of central counterparties (CCPs) can be properly understood, CCPs need to make relevant information publicly available, as stated in the CPSS-IOSCO Principles for financial market infrastructures, published in April 2012. To provide guidance on what should be disclosed by a CCP and other financial market infrastructures, CPSS and IOSCO published a Disclosure framework in December 2012, primarily covering qualitative data that need relatively infrequent updating (for example, when there is a change to a CCP’s risk management framework). To complement that disclosure framework, the document now being published sets out guidance on the quantitative data that a CCP should disclose more frequently. Comments on the report are invited from all interested parties and should be sent by 13 December 2013.

Neil Woodford, a colossus in British asset management, is leaving Invesco Perpetual after a quarter century, the Financial Times reports. Shares in Invesco, its US parent company, fell 5% on the news. Woodford controls half of funds under management at Invesco Perpetual, and some financial advisers predict large-scale redemptions. He has GBP33bn in assets under management (more than any other British fund manager), and has one of the best track records around. The manager hopes to found a new asset management firm in April, once he has left his employer.

The British firm Hargreaves Lansdown has reported growth of 8% in its assets under administration of its first quarter 2013-2014 to the end of September, which have reached a total of GBP39.3bn, comapred with GBP36.4bn at the end of June, according to interim results released on 15 October. The firm calls the activity in first quarter “exceptional,” as this time of year is generaally very quiet. The number of active clients on the platform increased by 20,000 to 528,000. In the first quarter of the previous year, the number of clients increased by only 7,000.

At the 6th annual national ethical investment week in the United Kingdom (13-19 October), the extra-financial research agency EIRIS has determined at assets in “green” and ethical retail funds now total a record GBP12.2bn. They totalled only GBP4bn in 2001. EIRIS counts 80 funds, of which 10 have seen increases of more than 50% in their assets in the twelve months to the end of June 2013, while 23 have seen an increase in their total assets of 20% to 50%.Meanwhile, on the basis of a survey of 2015 adults, EIRIS has found that 18% of respondents would like their pension fund to be totally invested in shares in companies which do not contravene best practices in environmental, social and governance areas.For its part, Triodos Bank has determined that 17 million British citizens potentially hold assets which do not correspond to their ethical convictions. And only 20% of investors say they are aware of the exact percentage of their fund activities, pension fund or stocks and bonds that they hold are genuinely ethical or not.

Bruno Gatella, director of wholesale distribution at Clariden Leu and Credit Suisse Asset Management, on 1 Octber joined DJE Finanz, the Swiss affiliate of the Munich-based Dr. Jens Erhardt group (DJE Kapital) as director of fund distribution in Switzerland, finews reports. DJE Kapital manages about EUR10bn (as of 30 September).

Dexia Asset Management has announced the launch of the UCITS IV Equities Global Optimum fund. The fund, which is aimed primarily at institutinoal investor clients such as pension funds, mutuals and insurers, may be exposed via a flexible allocation ranging from 0% to 200%. The portfolio is invested in global equities via derivatives, primarily options. The objective for the product is to “allow institutional investors subject to the constraints imposed by regulations to benefit from equity markets while limiting capital charge,” a statement says. “Let’s take the example of insurers: while traditional investment in equities implies an SCR of 39%, the management strategy used for the Equities Global Optimmum limits the SCR to less than 25% while seeking returns higher than those of the MSCI World hedged in euros with dividends reinvested,” says Nagi Nasr, head of alternative investment solutions at Dexia AM. Characteristics ISIN code: FR0011535897 (capi). Front-end fee: 1.00% Withdrawal penalty 1.00% Ongoing fees: 1.45%

Dexia Asset Management has announced the launch of the UCITS IV Equities Global Optimum fund. The fund, which is aimed primarily at institutinoal investor clients such as pension funds, mutuals and insurers, bay be exposed via a flexible allocation ranigns from 1% to 200%. The portfolio is invested in global equities via derivatives, primarily optins. The objective for the produc is to “allow institutional investors subject to the constraints imposed by regulations to benefit from equity markets while limiting capital charge,” a statement says. “Let’s take the example of insurers: while traditional investment in equities implies an SCR of 39%, the management strategy used for the Equities Global Optimmum limits the SCR to less than 25% while seeking returns higher than those of the MSCI World hedged in euros with dividends reinvested,” says Nagi Nasr, head of alternative investment solutions at Dexia AM. Characteristics ISIN code: FR0011535897 (capi). Front-end fee: 1.00% Withdrawal penalty 1.00% Congoing fees: 1.45%

Currently, La Financière Responsable has about EUR90m in assets under management, compared with EUR62m at the end of last year, and has posted net inflows of about EUR20m since the beginning of 2013. The “historic FCP” from the firm, LFR Euro Développement Durable, as of the end of September had EUR51.43m, and was 99.5% exposed to equities, of which 61.3% were French stocks. Since 31 December 2009, the fund has posted returns of 22.30%, compared with losses of 2.42% for the EuroStoxx 50 Price, and a gain of 11.06% for the EuroStoxx 50 Total Return, with volatility over 52 weeks of 12.59%, compared with 14.99% and 14.94%, respectively. The portfolio includes 35 positions and the turnover rate stands at about 33%. These results are consistent with the SRI strategy of La Financière Responsable, while on Tuesday, its chairman, Olivier Johanet, declared that “at the end of the day, SRI is a question of financial performance.” With that said, it needs to be demonstrated that extra-financial considerations are not counter-financial, and the difficulty for SRI or ESG managers is obtaining extra-financial information, and then enriching the data (LFR is now working with 63 indicators), and then take into account and justify extra-financial factors. Basic criteria (personnel, shareholders, companies, environment, partners, providers, clients, governance) allow for a eco-social footprint to be calculated, which is then used as a basis for financial judgements. In the construction of portfolios, capitalisation and weight biases are eliminated, stresses Stéphane Prévost, CEO.

State Street Global Advisors has suggested that it may double the number of ETFs which is manages in Europe, Ignites, a service from the Financial Times, reports. Scott Ebner, global head of product development at SSgA, thinks that there is room for about “100 ETFs” in the range from the company. SPDR, the ETF arm of the firm, currently has 52 products, compared with 13 when it restarted its European activities in 2010.

London-based asset manager Finisterre Capital has injected USD55m of seed capital into its new long/short bond fund dedicated to emerging market debt, the Finisterre Emerging Market Debt Fund, Citywire reports. It is an Irish-registered product which has a sales license in most European countries. The managers are Paul Crean, co-founder and CIO of Finisterre, and Christopher Watson.The portfolio will invest in all bond segments (government, corporate, high yield, hard or local currncies) with a more diversified long/short strategy and a lower turnover than for other hedge funds from Finisterre. It will also have a longer investment horizon.

Philipp Orth, Nadejda de Lousanoff and Umberto Prandi have been recruited for the institutional sales team at Pimco for the German and Austrian markets, and will report to Frank Witt, executive vice president and head of institutional customer relationships for Germany and Austria.The first of these becomes vice president and CRO. He had previously been director of customer relationships at Vescore. De Lousanoff joins from Banesto, where she had been head of distribution of structured products in Germany and the Scandinavian countries for the Spanish firm Santander. She is appointed as head of clients at Pimco.Lastly, Prandi is leaving Infineon Technologies, where he had been manager for mergers and acquisitions, to become a client adviser at Pimco.

According to NDR info radio, the Landesbank of Schleswig-Holstein and Hambourg, HSH Nordbank, in August sold its division HSH Real Estate for a symbolic one euro. That includes real estate funds with assets of EUR2bn and properties valued at EUR320m. A spokesperson for HSH Nordbank declined to comment on the reports, Fondsprofessionell says.

Specialist advisers manage nearly two times as many assets on average than advisers overall, according to a study carried out by Cerulli Associates in “The Cerulli Edge – Advisor Edition” (Fourth quarter). As of the end of June 2013, assets under management by specialists represented about 29% of total assets for advisers. “The great majority of financial advisers are generalists. Only 15% of advisers carry out their activities for a single client category, institutionals, corporate retirement programmes, or high net worth (HNW) investors,” says Bing Waldert, director at Cerulli. According to Cerulli, specialists clearly limit the market for an adviser but improve the degree of success in the development o the activity. By targeting a very small market and setting up a range of services which is tailored to it, advisers have more chances of winning requests for proposals when they are competing with a generalist.

Assets under management in sovereign wealth funds are approaching the USD6trn threahold, according to statistics communicated by the SWF Institute.In October this year, assets under management in SWFs totalled USD5.9998trn. Of this total, slightly over USD3.500trn were in sovereign funds depending on oil and gas resources.

Syed Elias Alhabshi, senior advisor at Threadneedle Investments in Singapore since September 2011, has been appointed as chairman for Malaysia by UK asset manager Threadneedle, which is planning to offer Sharia-compliant products to institutional investors (sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers, government and semi-government entities, businesses and charities).Mohd Farid bin Kamarudin (CEO of Malaysia) is also taking over the duties of senior fixed income fund manager, and will be based in Malaysia. He will report to Clifford Lau, head of fixed income Asia Pacific, Alhabshi and Andrew Chan, chief administrative officer, Asia Pacific. He will be responsible for putting Sharia-compliant investment capacities in place. He will be a senior member of the global investment team. He had previously been executive director and head of sukuks and alternative investments at AMIslamic Funds Management in Malaysia.Lastly, Sabrina Wong has been recruited as a fixed income analyst in Malaysia, and will report to Mohd Farid bon Kamarudian and Clifford Lau. She was previously a fund manager at Investec Asset Management, and also at Bank Negara.

The bank Syz & Co was placed under investigation at the beginning of October in France, a spokesperson or the Genevan private bank, Ricardo Payro, confirmed the Swiss agency ATS on Monday, confirming reports on the website of the Geneva Tribune and 24 heures. The affair is related to a labour conflict following the dismissal of a French employee in July 2009. “this is simply a further procedural step, without any ultimate decision or prejudice. It is an old case, which is limited to rather technical questions of labour law and which concerns only one old employee responsible for selling investment funds to instituitonal clients,” says Payro.

After an average loss of 0.54% in August, hedge funds covered by the BarclayHedge index in September posted average returns of 2.09%, bringing gains to 7.28% for the first nine months of the year. In September, only equity short bias (3 funds) has seen losses, of 3.55%, while the decline since the beginning of the year is 19.84%. However, equity long bias (202 funds) stand out with gains of 3.63% in September, and 15.23% for the first three quarters, while remaining behind the healthcare and biotech strategy (20 funds), whose performances total 4.27% and 20.93%, respectively. The 27 Pacific Rim funds have gained 17.20% in the first nine months of the year, but “only” 2.62% in September.

The widespread use of “value at risk” to measure the risk exposure of funds is a “time bomb” which could provoke a serious crash on the markets, according to Jeremy Monk, chief investment officer at Akro Investicni Spolecnost in Prague, cited by Financial Times fund management. He estimates that in the case of a fall on the equity markets and a rise in volatility, fund managers would have to sell equities, which would exacerbate the fall.

The British firm Liontrust has acquired North Investment Partners as part of its planned development in multi-asset class management, FundWeb reports. The head of North Investment Partners, John Husselbee, is expected to lead the new multi-asset class team at Liontrust. Paul Kim, formerly of LV=, will join the team as senior manager.

Henderson has hired Rob Gambi as chief investment officer. He will focus on the leadership and development of Henderson’s investment capabilities globally, including its growing resources in the US and Asia. Rob Gambi joins from UBS Global Asset Management where he was a group managing director and global head of fixed income with responsibility for over USD230 billion. In addition he was a member of the executive committee of UBS Global Asset Management.Previous to this he was head of equities and head of fixed income at AMP Asset Management (AMPAM) and Henderson. He will report directly to Henderson CEO Andrew Formica and sit on Henderson’s executive committee. He will start at Henderson in 2014.

At a time when the position of London as the major foreign offshore centre for the Chinese yuan outside Hong Kong has recently been strengthened, the Chinese and British authorities have announced three major agreements during a visit to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Les Echos reports. Firstly, Chinese banks will be allowed to operate in the City as branches. The second agreement signed by the British delegation is an additional quota for direct investment in Chinese publicly-traded equities for British companies. Its maximum has been set at GBP8.2bn. Lastly, the two countries have agreed that the pound becomes the fourth currency, after the US dollar, the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen, to be allowed to be traded directly with the yuan, on markets in Shanghai and in licensed offshore centres. A timeline has not yet been set.

Turenne Capital Partenaires, société de capital développement indépendante qui accompagne en fonds propres des sociétés de croissance et qui gère plus de 450 millions d’euros, a annoncé le 15 octobre le recrutement de Caroline Pradeau en tant que secrétaire générale.Avant de rejoindre Turenne Capital, Caroline Pradeau a passé 11 années à l’Autorité des marchés financiers au sein de la Direction de la gestion d’actifs. Elle s’est spécialisée dans le domaine du non coté (capital investissement notamment mais également immobilier et épargne salariale) ce qui lui a permis de participer à la rédaction d’une partie de la doctrine externalisée de l’AMF suite aux évolutions législatives et réglementaires (Directive UCIT IV, AIFM notamment). En 2011, elle prend la responsabilité d’un pôle de 10 personnes au sein de la Division des Agréments et du suivi afin d’assurer le suivi de 200 sociétés de gestion de portefeuille ainsi que leurs produits.

Caceis a annoncé le 15 octobre le lancement de «Collateral Express», une solution destinée aux acteurs du buy-side, dans le cadre de leurs opérations de dérivés OTC. Totalement intégrée à l’offre d’Asset Servicing de Caceis, cette solution traite les opérations de dérivés OTC de ses clients en s’assurant que chaque étape de leur cycle de vie respecte les nouvelles réglementations. Avec la mise en place de ces réglementations telles que EMIR, Dodd-Frank, Bâle III, entraînant une systématisation du collatéral et des exigences accrues sur sa qualité et sa liquidité, Caceis a développé son expertise dans la gestion du collatéral, souligne un communiqué.Sa solution propose l’accès aux plates-formes électroniques d’affirmation pour la réduction des délais de confirmation ; la valorisation indépendante, quotidienne et systématique de tous les instruments OTC, qu’ils soient simples ou complexes; la réconciliation régulière avec les contreparties en fonction des périodicités définies par les régulateurs.Elle inclut aussi l’accès aux chambres de compensation via des membres compensateurs; le reporting des transactions aux Trade Repositories dès J+1; le calcul et la réconciliation régulière des appels de marge; la gestion du collatéral titres et cash; le reporting unifié des opérations compensées et bilatérales.Le collatéral devenant une ressource essentielle mais de plus en plus rare, Caceis offre également, via sa salle des marchés, des solutions d’optimisation. La transformation, la substitution, le financement et le réinvestissement du collatéral ainsi que la maximisation du collatéral titres peuvent être proposés à tous ses clients, en fonction de leur situation et de leurs règles d’investissement.Autre point important, Caceis, en adéquation avec les recommandations du comité de Bâle sur la gestion des marges pour les dérivés non compensés (BCBS-IOSCO), assure la conservation du collatéral vis-à-vis de la contrepartie en toute sécurité. Ce dispositif permet de garantir une ségrégation scrupuleuse du collatéral et la fluidité de sa circulation.

Le gestionnaire londonien Finisterre Capital a injecté 55 millions de dollars d’amorçage dans son nouveau fonds obligataire long/short consacré à la dette émergente, le Finisterre Emerging Market Debt Fund, rapporte Citywire. Il s’agit d’un produit de droit irlandais qui bénéficie d’un agrément de commercialisation dans la plupart des pays européens. Les gérants sont Paul Crean, co-fondateur et CIO de Finisterre, et Christopher Watson.Le portefeuille sera investi dans tous les segments de l’obligataire (souverain, entreprises, haut rendement, en monnaies «dures» ou locales) avec une stratégie long/short plus diversifiée et un taux de rotation plus bas que pour les autres hedge funds de Finisterre. Il aura également un horizon d’investissement plus long. Si l’on en croit l’agence Reuters, Finisterre a lancé ce véhicule coordonné afin de conserver un client assureur qui menaçait de se désengager d’un fonds offshore existant en raison des nouvelles règles renchérissant les investissements dans les produits non régulés.Solvabilité II prévoit en effet des fonds propres supplémentaires à compter de 2016 pour un investissement dans un hedge fund offshore. En conséquence de quoi, Finisterre, qui gère quelque 1,75 milliard de dollars dans trois fonds offshore, a lancé un nouveau fonds Ucits dans lequel son client a transféré ses fonds.Le nouveau véhicule coordonné sera un peu moins performant, il utilisera un peu moins de levier et affichera aussi une moindre volatilité. La commission annuelle sera de 1,5% et non de 2% comme c’est souvent le cas avec les hedge funds et la commission de surperformance sera limitée à 15% (au lieu de 20%).

State Street Global Advisors a laissé entendre qu’il pourrait doubler le nombre des ETF qu’il gère en Europe, rapporte Ignites, un service du Financial Times. Scott Ebner, le responsable mondial du développement de produits chez SSgA, pense qu’il y a de la place pour environ «100 ETF» au sein de la gamme de la société. SPDR, la succursale ETF de la société, affiche actuellement 52 produits, contre 13 lorsqu’elle a relancé ses activités européennes en 2010.

Après le succès du Bravo I Fund de 2,35 milliards de dollars, qui a prouvé que l’on peut gagner beaucoup d’argent (34 % par an) avec des créances douteuses, Pimco s’apprête à lancer le Bravo II (Bank Recapitalization and Value Opportunities) qui devrait parvenir à lever quatre milliards de dollars d’ici au «closing» programmé pour février, rapporte le Handelsblatt.Les gérants principaux seront Dan Ivascyn et Josh Anderson, qui gèrent aussi le Bravo I.

Ben Williams-Thomas a quitté Northern Trust pour rejoindre l’équipe de relations avec les investisseurs institutionnels de BNP Paribas Securities Services (BP2S), rapporte Funds People.

M&G Investments a enregistré en Italie son fonds M&G Short Dated Corporate Bond, rapporte Bluerating. Le fonds est investi à 80 % dans des obligations d’entreprises investment grade à duration courte (0-3 ans).