Nordea, which has EUR219bn in assets under management, has attracted criticism from former employees for failing to tell investors that Peter Eichler, manager of its North American Growth fund from July 2008 to October 2012, is under investigation in the United States, Financial Times fund management reports (an article had already been published on this subject by the newspaper). But Jakob Essen, head of equities at Nordea, responds that there are no plans to inform subscribers of the fund about the accusations against Eichler and Aletheia, the asset managemetn firm which he founded, and which has gone bankrupt. Nordea explains that the legal troubles and accusations concerning Aletheia had no impact on the performance of the fund. In the period when Eichler was manager of the fund, it lost 7%, while its benchmark index, the Russell 1000 Growth, was up 24%.

JP Morgan Asset Management will modernise its trading systems, Lee Bray, head of trading for Asia since April this year, has told Asian Investor. After examining trading and order exeuction systems, the modernisation of systems should be carried out during the next year. It will allow for better processing of block trades, Bray says.

Morgan Stanley has recruited two senior professionals for its team dedicated to bonds in Asia, Citywire reports. Geoff Kentrick and Kewei Yang, who had both previously worked at Nomura, the former in London, and the latter in Singapore, have joined Morgan Stanley at its Hong Kong offices. Kendrick is appointed as head of strategy for local fixed income and Asian currencies. Yang, who will report to Kendrick, will supervise interest rate strategies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Achim Küssner, CEO of Schroder Investment Management GmbH, has announced that Bernd Klapper, director of distribution for southern Germany at Threadneedle Investments Germany for three years, has been recruited to serve in the same role at Schroders. He will be more particularly responsible for retail clients, banking partners, brokerage pools, IFAs, funds of funds and wealth managers. In his new role, Klapper will report to Joachim Nareike, head of distibution at Schroders Germany.Before joining Threadneedle, Klapper was head of distribution at the SRI asset management firm Ökoworld Lux SA.

KKR and Permira, the funds which own the German media group ProsiebenSat.1, are selling 11% of capital, or 25 million shares, valued at EUR800m, through an accelerated order book construction procedure, according to Agefi. After the sale, KKR and Permira will retain a combined stake of 33% in ProSiebenSat.1.

The wealth management firm Partners Group has announced the sale of the Austrian firm AHT Cooling to the investment group Bridgepoint for EUR585m. Partners Group had invested in AHT Cooling in January 2007, with Quadriga Capital, for its clients, a statement released on 3 September states. The transaction is still subject to approval by the supervisory authorities. It is expected to be finalised in the next few months. Partners Group is aiming for a return on its investment of about 25%.

The Japanese government pension fund (GPIF), whose assets under management total about USD1.2bn, has awarded mandates for the management of foreign equities to eight fund managers, two of which are French firms, Amundi Japan and Natixis AM Japan (via Harris Associates Investment Trust). The details of allocations awarded, including amounts, have not been disclosed. The other managers selected are MFS Investment Management (Massachusetts Financial Services), Nillo Asset Management Japan (Intech Investment Management), BNY Mellon Asset Management (Walter Scott & Partners), Muizuho Asset Management (Wells Capital), Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Bank (Aberdeen Asset Management), and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Bank (Baillie Gifford Overseas). The pension fund is in the process of completing the award of external mandates for the management of Japanese equities. GPIF also announced before the weekend that in the first quarter of its 2013 fiscal year (April to June), it earned a net return of 1.85%.

In first half 2013, CCR Asset Management has announced assets under management up 12.28% compared with 31 December 2012, at EUR6.296bn. Assets primarily benefited from net subscriptions, and more secondarily to rising markets. Net inflows for asset management total EUR589.8m in first half 2013, largely due to strong inflows from the institutional segment, totalling EUR407.7m, and UBS private banking clients. Inflows from areas other than money market products total EUR315.4m, of which EUR189m are in diversified management, and EUR181m in fixed income. Equity funds attracted EUR49m.

The data provider Morningstar on 3 September published the first issue of its Financial Services Observer, a research work which evaluates the competitive movements in the wealth management sector in the United States, responses provided to developments in the sector in the wake of the financial crisis, and the best-positioned firms to profit from the new situation. The study funds that the strongest financial services firms are those which work for ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients, with over USD20m in investable assets, and firms which offer a range of financial products which is difficult for the competition to reproduce. These firms, such as Northern Trust and Morgan Stanley, also have strong brands and good reputations, as well as high transfer costs. The high net worth client segment, which means investors with total assets of USD1m to USD20m, is increasingly competitive. US households in this segment control over 50% of US investable assets, and the wealth controlled by this segment is expected to increase at an annual pace of 7.3% until 2015. But it is also increasingly difficult to stand out in this segment with an original product range. Morningstar estimates that Raymond James is well-positioned to do well in this segment, due to its specific business model based on advisers. In addition to major trends in this sector, the study offers specific analyses of 10 firms: Ameriprise Financial, Bank of America, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, PNC Financial Services Group, Raymond James Financials, TD Ameritrade, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.

Allianz Global Investors has assigned its BRIC Stars fund, with USD568m in assets, to its emerging market affiliate based in San Diego, following the departure of Michael Konstantinov, Citywire reports. The California-based team has eight members, and is led by Kunal Ghosh. It currently has USD1.2bn in assets under management in emerging market equity funds. Allianz has also extended the universe of its BRIC fund, which may now invest up to one third of its assets in global emerging markets in countries other than the BRIC countries.

The asset management firm Zencap Asset Management, which invests in the universe of credit opportunities emerging from the crisis of 2007-2009 and banking deleveraging, on Tuesday, 4 September announced that this summer it launched a fund which aims to invest in real estate mezzanine debt in Western Europe. The contractual FCP invests in the mezzanine segment, a statement says. While many real estate operators are seeing perfectly healthy transactions blocked due to a lack of financing, the new fund aims to fill the void which exists between equity investors and senior debt provided by banks or senior real estate debt funds. In practice, the strategy of Zencap Asset Management is to focus on small or mid-cap companies, which are meeting with the most difficulties in financing new projects, and to form partnerships with them which highly align interests, to aim for mezzanine returns of about 10%. The first investment made by the fund in August is in a primarily residential real estate development in Germany, in partnership with a local specialist operator. The fund from Zencap Asset Management provided mezzanine debt, to fill the gap between the available banking debt and the contribution of owners’ equity from its partner. In addition to this fund, Zencap Asset Management, which is a division of the OFI group, has 6 funds under management specialised in investment in private debt: structured / securitised debt, regulatory captial transactions, and real estate debt.

Real estate management operations at Bankia, which had previously been provided by its affiliate Habitat, will be sold for a total of at least EUR40m, and at most EUR90m to the US private equity firm Cerberus, according to a filing to the CNMV cited by Cinco Días. Habitat has real estate assets under management of EUR12bn, and Cerberus will also inherit EUR36.6bn in Bankia real estate assets under management, which have been transferred to the “bad bank” Sareb. Real estate properties in the strict sense will remain the property of Bankia.The transaction allows Bankia to transfer a total of 457 personnel to Cerberus, and thus to achieve a part of its plan to cut 4,500 jobs.

The London Stock Exchange is now offering shares denominated in US dollars in the MSCI Japan Index UCITS ETF from db x-trackers, which already offers shares in pounds sterling and euros. Assets under management in the ETF total about GBP750m. It should be noted that Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management has recently launched its first ETF on the London stock exchange, the db x-trackers DAX Ucits ETF (DR), which offers exposure to the German benchmark index, the DAX.

Fidelity Worldwide Investments announced on September 3 that effective from 1 January 2014 the OEIC Fidelity South East Asia Fund and the Fidelity Special Situations Fund will change fund managers.Teera Chanpongsang is appointed as manager of the UK-domiciled OEIC Fidelity South East Asia Fund (GB0003879185, GBP2,133m). The transfer of management to Chanpongsang will allow Allan Liu, the current manager, to focus on the management of Fidelity Funds South East Asia (USD4,689m), the Luxembourg domiciled sister fund to Fidelity South East Asia. Chanpongsang joined Fidelity as a research analyst in 1994. He will be replaced on the Fidelity India Focus Fund (USD1.6bn) by Tim Orchard, head of equities ex-Japan.Fidelity Worldwide Investment has also announced the appointment of Alex Wright as portfolio manager of the Fidelity Special Situations Fund (GB0003875100, GBP 2,846m). This follows a decision by current manager Sanjeev Shah to step down from fund management after 17 years in the industry, and over five years managing Special Situations. Alex Wright will remain portfolio manager of Fidelity Special Values PLC and comanager of Fidelity UK Smaller Companies Fund alongside Jonathan Winton.Shah, who has managed the Fidelity Special Situations Fund since 1 January 2008, will step down from fund management before taking on a new role six months later within Fidelity’s PM Academy, focused on developing new investment talent.

Less than one week before elections, the Norwegisn minister of oil has proposed the creation of a real estate fund alongside the USD750bn sovereign fund, the Wall Street Journal reports. The minister suggests taking 10% of the Norwegian sovereign fund and putting it in a new vehicle to be dedicated exclusively to real estate. Currently, the fund can allocate up to 5% of its assets to real estate, but it is far from achieving this level.

The Swiss Bankers Association called on September 3 for the clean money strategy to be dropped. The industry wants to help to shape international standards in future, and comply with them."We bear the sole responsibility in the coming years for acting in such a way that we live up to our responsibility to clients, staff, the economy, society and the next generation of bankers,» said Patrick Odier, Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), at the annual media conference before the Swiss Bankers Day in Zurich.He noted that banks had adapted their strategy to the new operating environment: «Our strategy can be summed up in the words tax compliance, international standards, growth through open markets and fair competition."The SBA also clearly rejects an excessive Swiss finish to regulation.Patrick Odier expressed optimism for the future, based on the good economic starting point the banks enjoy, and the fact that developing and expanding new business areas such as asset management, trade financing and renminbi services will allow the financial centre to grow over the long term.

The open-ended real estate fund DEGI Europa (DE0009807800), whose liquidation was decided in October 2010 and is expected to be completed by 30 September 2013, sold a property located in Hoofdorp, in the Netherlands, to PPF Real Estate on 30 August. The sale totalled EUR47m, although the expert valuation of the property had been at EUR53.9m.As a result, the net asset value of the DEGI Europa fund is reduced by 20 cents to EUR24.81, according to Aberdeen Asset Management Deutschland. The liquidity share of the fund has increased as a result of the most recent sales to 27%, while leverage rises to 13.3% from 12.2%.

The 34% rise in share prices at Nokia, following the announcement of the firm’s acquisition by Microsoft, caught several hedge funds with short positions, the Financial Times reports. The Finnish group was one of the most shorted shares in Europe, with 11.9% of its capital lent, acording to Markit. Short positions, which are typically hedge funds, borrow shares to shareholders at the hopes of buying them back at a lower price later. Investors with major short positions include Discovery Capital Management, Viking Global Investors, Blue Ridge Capital, Lone Pine Capital and Maverick Capital, according to Bloomberg.

At its sixth annual ETF-Forum, a meeting between primarily institutional investors, issuers and experts, Deutsche Börse announced that assets in the over 1,000 ETFs listed on the XTF segment of its Xetra electronic platform now total a record of over EUR210bn, 20% more than one year ago.Martin Reck, managing director, cash market at Deutsche Börse, says that XTF has a market share of 32% in Europe, which puts in in first place on the continent. Xetra puts about 220 partners in contact with over 4,000 traders in 18 countries. On average, trading volumes for ETFs in Frankfurt total about EUR11bn, with about 70% of these orders coming from aborad.

La rémunération de l’administrateur le mieux payé du pôle européen de Pimco – dont le nom reste inconnu - a reculé de 30 % en 2012 à 20,9 millions de livres, malgré une hausse du bénéfice avant impôts de l’activité de 54 % à 22,93 millions de livres, rapporte Financial News. Pimco a ouvert un bureau à Londres en 1998 et compte sept administrateurs qui ont reçu au total 50,24 millions de livres, contre 57,1 millions en 2011.

Les classements ne mentent pas. Au mois d’août , les marchés ont connu une période heurtée qui a sensiblement rebattu les cartes en matière de gestion. Ainsi, en tête des trois catégories actions « full invested », que ce soit sur la zone euro, l’Europe ou à l’international, ni la gestion value, ni la gestion « blend » ou encore la gestion quantitative n’est parvenu à prendre le pas sur les autres. A une exception près : celle de Tobam qui repose sur une large diversification des portefeuilles et qui a pris l’ascendant dans les classements dans lesquels la société de gestion était présente. Avec, au passage, des performances positives sur la zone euro et l’Europe tandis que l’Eurostoxx NR a reculé sur le mois de 0,96 % et le Stoxx 600 NR de 0,51 %. A l’international, le portefeuille de Tobam a cependant fini en légère perte, le Stoxx 1800 NR ayant baissé pour sa part de 1,32 %.Plus en détail, sur la zone euro, un seul portefeuille a fini dans le vert avec celui de Tobam (+1,83 %) : celui d’ING (+0 ,33 %). Le troisième - celui de Fédéral Finance – perd 0,25 %. Sept portefeuilles sur dix-huit seulement dont Roche-Brune AM (-0,21 %) et le quant Swiss Life AM (-0,88 %) sont parvenus à battre l’indice. En bas de classement, EdRAM ferme la marche (-1,97 %), ce qui représente un écart entre le premier et le dernier de près de quatre points de pourcentage. Le choix de valeurs explique l’essentiel du classement car un grand nombre de portefeuille n’était pas exposé au marché en totalité.Sur l’Europe, le scénario s’est répété peu ou prou. Tobam (+2,88 %) a devancé Fédéral Finance (+2,29 %) et l’indice amLeague Low Beta (+0,69 %). Deux changement notables cependant : l’univers d’investissement plus large a permis à sept portefeuilles de progresser en août. Par ailleurs, treize portefeuilles sur 24 ont battu l’indice de référence de la catégorie. D’une façon générale, les portefeuilles de bas de classement – ceux de Aberdeen AM (-2,79 %) ou La Francaise AM (-2,34 %) se singularisent par un indice beta proche de un. Une fois de plus, mieux valait « jouer » la diversification. Par ailleurs, cette catégorie marque l'écart de performance entre le premier et le dernier, le plus élevé. Plus de cinq points de pourcentage les séparent. Enfin, au sein du mandat « global equities », Tobam (-0,25 %) a cédé sa première place à Petercam dont le portefeuille est également le seul a avoir progressé (+0,06 %). Huit portefeuilles sur treize ont ici battu la référence de la catégorie, avec cette fois, en bas de tableau, Swiss Life AM (-2,63 %). Moins de 2,7 points de pourcentage séparent le plus performant et le moins bon au classement. A noter que des portefeuilles qui ont été assez nettement exposés au cours des trois derniers mois au marché, affichent des résultats sur un mois proches de ceux de portefeuilles ayant opté pour une gestion résolument différente. A l’image de celui d’AllianceBerstein en troisième position (-0,63 %) dont l’indice beta ressort 1,06, tandis qu’il est de 0,87 pour le deuxième Tobam...

Allianz Global Investors (AGI) travaille sans relâche pour sortir de l’ombre de sa société sœur Pimco, observe le Financial Times fund management. Au premier trimestre 2013, les souscriptions nettes hors groupe ont atteint 3,1 milliards d’euros, contre 500 millions d’euros au premier semestre 2012. Elizabeth Corley, le directeur général d’AGI, attribue dans une large mesure le retournement de la collecte à la réorganisation du groupe, qui doit conduire à la réduction de ses entités juridiques de 35 à 14. En Europe, le processus est pratiquement bouclé et d’ici à mars 2013, la société n’aura plus qu’une seule entité.Cela a permis à AGI d’investir dans de nouvelles capacités, comme les infrastructures et la dette émergente, et de renforcer certains domaines comme l’obligataire asiatique et le multi-classes d’actifs.

Mohieddine Kronfol et son équipe, à Dubaï, ont été chargés par Franklin Templeton Investments de gérer le nouveau Franklin GCC Bond Fund, un compartiment de la sicav luxembourgeoise qui sera investi principalement en obligations d’Etat, d’agences étatiques et d’entreprises des six pays du Conseil de coopération du Golfe, rapporte Funds Europe.Le portefeuille pourra aussi comporter des obligations d'émetteurs moyen--orientaux et d’Afrique du Nord, ainsi que dans des titres émis par des institutions supranationales comme la BIRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development).

Achim Küssner, directeur général de Schroder Investment Management GmbH, a annoncé que Bernd Klapper, directeur de la distribution pour l’Allemagne méridionale chez Threadneedle Investments Allemagne depuis trois ans, a été recruté pour exercer les mêmes fonctions chez Schroders. Il sera chargé plus particulièrement de la clientèle retail, des partenaires bancaires, des pools de courtiers, des CGPI, des fonds de fonds et de gestionnaires de fortune. Dans ses nouvelles fonctions, l’intéressé sera subordonné à Joachim Nareike, directeur de la distribution de Schroders Allemagne.Avant de rejoindre Threadneedle, Bernd Klapper avait été directeur de la distribution chez le gestionnaire ISR Ökoworld Lux SA.

Le fonds immobilier offert au public DEGI Europa*, dont la liquidation a été décidée en octobre 2010 et qui doit s’achever le 30 septembre 2013, a vendu à PPF Real Estate Holding le 30 août un immeuble situé à Hoofddorp, aux Pays-Bas. La cession a porté sur 47 millions d’euros alors que la valeur d’expert de cet actif se situe à 53,9 millions d’euros.De ce fait, la valeur liquidative de DEGI Europa baisse de 20 cents à 24,81 euros, indique Aberdeen Asset Management Deutschland. Quant au quotient de liquidité du fonds, il a augmenté grâce aux dernières cessions à 27 % tandis que le levier passe à 13,3 % contre 12,2 %.* DE0009807800

L’activité de gestion immobilière de Bankia, exercée jusqu’à présent par la filiale Habitat, va être cédée pour un montant d’au moins 40 millions d’euros et d’au maximum 90 millions au fonds de private equity américain Cerberus, selon une notification à la CNMV citée par Cinco Días. Habitat gère des actifs immobiliers de 12 milliards d’euros et Cerberus héritera également de la gestion des 36,6 milliards d’euros d’immeubles Bankia transférés à la «bad bank» Sareb. Les immeubles proprement dits demeurent propriété de Bankia.Cette transaction permet à Bankia de transférer au total 457 personnes à Cerberus et donc d’alléger d’autant son plan de réduction d’effectifs portant sur 4.500 emplois.

Morgan Stanley vient de recruter deux professionnels senior dans son équipe dédiée à l’obligataire en Asie, rapporte Citywire.Geoff Kendrick et Kewei Yang, qui travaillaient tous deux chez Nomura, -le premier à Londres, le second à Singapour-, ont rejoint Morgan Stanley dans ses bureaux de Hong Kong.Geoff Kendrick est nommé responsable de la stratégie taux locaux et devises asiatiques. Kewei Yang, qui est rattaché à Geoff Kendrick, supervisera les stratégies de taux d’intérêt dans la région Asie-Pacifique.

Utilisant son contingent de Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII), le français BNP Paribas a acheté au premier semestre et en juillet 2,58 millions d’actions de Bank of Nanjing, ce qui porte sa participation dans la banque chinoise à 14,89 %, rapporte Z-Ben Advisors.

La banque Crédit agricole (Suisse) propose désormais de prendre en charge les traitements de la compatibilité, a-t-elle indiqué le 3 septembre dans un communiqué.Cette offre, proposée par le segment Banque privée de l'établissement, vise également à produire des états financiers compatibles avec les directives de l’Autorité fédérale de surveillance des marchés financiers (Finma) et à préparer des rapports destinés à la Banque nationale Suisse (BNS) et des audits internes, précise la filiale suisse de la banque française

Itaú Asset Management a lancé lundi le premier ETF qui sera coté au Chili, rapporte le Financial Times fund management. Deborah Fuhr, associé fondateur d’ETFGI, estime que ce lancement est une première importante pour le marché des ETF au Chili, car les produits actuellement disponibles sont des ETF venant des Etats-Unis ou d’Europe. Cela sera plus intéressant d’un point de vue fiscal et en termes de risque de change.