Après les départs récents en février de Chrisitan Wrede, le managing director, puis en juin de Klaus Mühlbauer, le directeur de la distribution, Fidelity Allemagne a confirmé à fondsprofessionell que Marion Dreßler quitte le poste de head of corporate & marketing communications Germany & Austria.En attendant qu’un successeur permanent lui soit trouvé, Marion Dreßler sera remplacée par Ellen Posch, head of Continental Europe Marketing à Luxembourg depuis le 1er juillet 2012 (lire Newsmanagers des 9 juillet et 16 octobre 2012).Pour l’instant, Fidelity Allemagne ne paraît pas avoir trouvé de successeur pour les postes de directeur général et de directeur de la distribution.Das Investment a rapporté pour sa part dans l’après-midi de mercredi que Stephan Volkmann, directeur private wealth et private banking, quitte également l’entreprise, avec effet immédiat.

Le gestionnaire alternatif new yorkais Direxion (6,5 milliards de dollars au 31 mars) a annoncé l’introduction sur NYSE Arca des ETF Direxion Daily Japan Bull 3x Shares (acronyme: JPNL) et Direxion Daily Japan Bear 3x Shares (JPNS). Il s’agit de produits à effet de levier triple en positif et en inversé, répliquant le MSCI Japan Index qui couvre les actions de sociétés japonaises cotées à Tokyo, à Osaka et à Nagoya, ainsi que sur le Jasdaq.Le taux de frais sur encours pour ces deux fonds se situe à 1,08 %.

L’assemblée générale constitutive de la société Erasmus Gestion, au capital de 600 000 euros, s’est tenue le 6 juin 2013. Elle a élu son Conseil de Surveillance qui a porté à sa présidence Bernard Tixier – Jean-Pierre Gaillard et désigné Jean-François Gilles comme président du Directoire, rapporte L’Agefi Actifs. L’Autorité des Marchés Financiers a agréé la société Erasmus Gestion en qualité de société de gestion de portefeuille (n° GP- 13000021) avec effet au 12/06/2013. Aux côtés des fondateurs le groupe La Française détient 30% du capital et Financière de l’Echiquier 4%. Les deux fondateurs de la société étaient déjà depuis 2010, via leur société de conseil Legica, conseillers du fonds FCP Mon PEA géré par la Française AM.

Van Eck Global a annoncé le 26 juin l’admission à la négociation sur la plate-forme NYSE Arca du Israel ETF, sous l’acronyme ISRA. Il s’agit du dernier-né de la gamme Market Vectors, qui comporte ainsi 53 références.Le fonds s’efforcera de répliquer l’indice BlueStar Isarel Global index (BLST), qui se compose principalement de sociétés cotées sur la Bourse de Tel Aviv. Les trois principaux secteurs au 24 juin étaient l’informatique (29,9 %), la santé (26,3 %) et les financières (19,1 %).Le taux de frais sur encours (TFE) de 0,73 % en brut est plafonné à 0,59 % jusqu’au 1er mai 2015, ce qui est légèrement inférieur au TFE du iShares MSCI Israel Capped Investable Market Index Fund (acronyme EIS), chargé à 0,60 %.

Pour son fonds immobilier offert au public Deka-Immobilien Europa*, Deka vient d’acheter l’immeuble de bureaux La Fayette à Paris auprès du canadien Ivanhoé Cambridge.Le montant de la transaction pour ce bien de 28.700 mètres carrés, dont 27.400 mètres carrés de bureaux loués à Arevaet 1.300 mètres carrés de logements, n’a pas été divulgué.* Code Isin: DE0009809566 ; encours 12,19 milliards d’euros au 31 mars.

Lyxor annonce le lancement sur Euronext Paris d’un ETF sur le marché de la dette souveraine espagnole court terme. Le Lyxor Ucits ETF MTS 1-3y Spain Government Bond a pour indice de référence le MTS Spain Government Index (1-3yr) qui offre une exposition directe sur le marché des Emprunts d’État espagnol, regroupant les maturités comprises entre 1 et 3 ans. Lyxor souligne que le rendement de l’indice MTS Spain Government Index (1-3yr), au 31 Mai 2013, est de 2,2%, soit 150 bps de plus que le rendement des obligations gouvernementales de la zone euro de même duration qui est de 0.7%.CaractéristiquesCode Isin : FR0011501618Frais : 0,165%

La boutique d’investissement Rainier Investments, basée à Seattle, vient de recruter l’ex-gérant actions d’UBS, Sam Console, qui va renforcer le pôle en charge des grandes capitalisations, rapporte Citywire.Sam Console, qui a quitté le pôle de gestion d’actifs d’UBS en avril dernier, a rejoint Rainier début mai en qualité de manager au sein de l'équipe dédiée aux actions américaines avec une fonction de gestion de portefeuille senior. Les actifs sous gestion de Rainier Investments s'élèvent à environ 12,5 milliards de dollars.

Le luxembourgeois Alceda Fund Management (5,4 milliards d’euros sous administration) a annoncé le 26 juin avoir conslu un accord de coopération avec l‘australien APN Property Group, ce qui va se traduire prochainement par la commercialisation d’un fonds d’investissement spécialisé (FIS) qui sera la déclinaison sous forme coordonnée du Asian REIT Fund.APN (2,1 milliards de dollars américains d’encours) s’est spécialisé dans les actions à fort rendement de la zone Asie-Pacifique, avec un accent particulier sur les REIT ainsi que sur les actions d’entreprises des secteurs des infrastructures et des services publics sous-évaluées et offrant une visibilité de long terme.

Barclays Capital envisage de fermer son Barclays Capital Radar fund lancé il y a quatre ans en raison du peu d’intérêt manifesté par les investisseurs pour cette stratégie, rapporte Fundweb.Les actifs sous gestion de ce fonds de rendement s'élèvent à tout juste 9,8 millions de dollars et ses performances n’ont manifestement pas été à la hauteur des attentes des investisseurs.

Funds Europe rapporte que M&G Real Estate va ouvrir sa stratégie d’investissement sur l’immobilier britannique aux investisseurs étrangers. Cette activité pèse 580 millions de livres d’encours gérés depuis 1971 pour le compte d’investisseurs institutionnels britanniques, sous la responsabilité, actuellement, de Dermot Kieman.Selon ce dernier, l’immobilier commercial britannique est devenu beaucoup plus attrayant pour les investisseurs étrangers depuis la dépréciation de la livre contre plusieurs devises depuis 2007. De plus, les prix de l’immobilier au Royaume-Uni sont à présent à 30 % en-dessous de leur niveau le plus élevé.

Legal & General Assurance Society vient d’acquérir la société britannique spécialisée dans les contrats d’"annuities» Lucida auprès de LCM Holdings pour un montant de 151 millions de livres, rapporte Investment Week.La transaction, qui devrait être bouclée au troisième trimestre, s’inscrit dans la volonté du groupe britannique d’accélérer sa croissance.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The former head of communication at Hauck & Aufhäuser, Felix Höpfner, has since early June been serving as director of marketing at BHF-Bank (Deutsche Bank group). It is a newly-created position, Das Investment reports.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The former head of retail distribution at BlackRock for Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe until October 2012, Andrej Brodnik, has been recruited by Jupiter Asset Management as director of distribution for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Das Investment reports.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Following the recent departures in February of Christian Wrede, managing director, and then of Klaus Mühlbauer, director of distribution, in June, Fidelity Germany has confirmed to fondsprofessionell that Marion Dreßler is leaving the position of head of corporate & marketing communications Germany & Austria.Until a permanent successor can be found, Dreßler will be replaced by Ellen Posch, head of Continental Europe Marketing in Luxembourg since 1 July 2012 (see Newsmanagers of 9 July and 16 October 2012).So far, Fidelity Germany does not appear to have found a successor for the positions of CEO and director of distribution.On Wednesday afternoon, Das Investment has reported for its part that Stephan Volkmann, director of private wealth and private banking, also left the business, effective immediately.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The French pension fund, Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), has launched a request for proposals to select one to three providers of financial management for active management mandates invested in Japanese equities. For this bidding process, the public market procedure selected is that of a restricted request for proposals. The request for proposals concerns the active management of one to three mandates, which will implement exposure to Japanese equities of all cap sizes. For purely indicative purposes, the FRR estimates that the total amount of funds placed for management may be set at EUR400m. Each mandate in the present round of bidding is signed for a period of four years from notification, with a possible one-year extension. Interested asset management firms have until 24 July 2013, at 12:00 Paris time, to respond to the FRR within the conditions specified by the consultation rules.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The Californian pension fund CalPERS on 26 June announced that it has engaged USD50m in Clearlake Cpaital, a California-based private equity investor. The investment is one of ten made by CalPERS last year as part of its private equity investment programme. Clearlake has already been a part of a CalPERS investment programme dedicated to new managers with exposure through a fund of funds. The new engagement is invested directly in the Clearlake Capital Partners III fund, which focuses primarily on distressed SMEs. CalPERS invested USD36.7bn in private equity firms betweeen 2006 and 2008, approving more than 130 funds. Since then, the pension fund has invested USD5.2bn in 23 funds.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The investment boutique Rainier Investments, located in Seattle, has recruited the former UBS equity manager Sam Console, as an addition to the large caps unit, Citywire reports. Console, who left the asset management unit of UBS in April this year, joined Rainier in early May as a manager in the team dedicated to US equities, with a senior portfolio management function. Assets under management at Rainier Investments total about USD12.5bn.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Paul Hawtin, the founder of the Twitter hedge fund, which uses algorithms to detect investor moods on social networks and to invest as a result, is launching a new investment company which appears to be aiming to exploit the same vein, COOConnect reports. The Twitter hedge fund, entitled Derwen Absolute Return Fund, launched in 2011, was closed in February 2013 due to a lack of interest on the part of investors. The new strategy, Cayman Atlantic, launched last year, aims to detect investment opportunities on the basis of data collected from social networks in real time. It has gained 13.76% since its launch in July 2012.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } With the new Global Allocation Fund, the Blatimore0based asset management firm T. Rowe Price has launched an asset allocation fund with the wider spectrum in a range whose assets as of the end of March totalled USD138bn.It is a mutual fund, whose portfolio may be invested in 20 asset segments, generally with 60% in equities, 30% in bonds and cash and 10% in alternative assets. About 40% of assets will be placed in international equities and bonds from developed and emerging countries.The management of the fund is provided by Charles Shriver with the assistance of Stefan Hubrich.CharateristicsName: Global Allocation FundTickers:RPGAX (investor class)PFGAX (advisor class)Total expense ratio:1.05% (investor class)1.15% (advisor class)Minimal subscription:USD2,500 or USD1,000 for pension plans

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } For its open-ended real estate fund Deka-Immobilien Europa (ISIN code: DE0009809566; assets of EUR12.19bn as of 31 March), Deka has acquired the La Fayette office building in Paris from the Canadian firm Ivanhoé Cambridge.The total sale price for the property, with 28,700 square metres, of which 27,400 square metres are offices rented to Arevaet, and 1,300 square metres of housing, has not been disclosed.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The New York-based hedge fund management firm Direxion (USD6.5bn as of 31 Mrch) has announced the launch on NYSE Arca of the ETF Direxion Daily Japan Bull 3x Shares (acronym: JPNL), and the direxion Daily Japan Bear 3x Shares (JPNS).They are triple and inverse leveraged products, replicating the MSCI Japan Index, which covers equities in Japanese companies listed in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, as well as on the Jasdaq.The total expense ratio for both funds is 1.08%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Van Eck Global on 26 June announced the admission to trading on the NYSE Arca platform of the Israel ETF, under the ticker ISRA. It is the most recent product of the Market Vectors range which includes 53 products.The fund will aim to replicate the BlueStar Israel Global index (BLST), which is primarily composed of businesses listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange. The three major sectors as of 24 June were IT (29.9%), healthcare (26.3%) and finance (19.1%).The total expense ratio (TER) of a gross 0.73% is limited to 0.59% until 1 May 2015, which is slightly below the TER of the iShares MSCI Israel Capped Investable Market Index Fund (ticker EIS), which charges 0.60%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } More than 60% of actively-managed funds in the Swedish defined-contribution pension system are “more expensive than hedge funds,” with commissions that exceed returns over a three-year period, according to a study by an analyst for the Swedish pension fund AP7, the website IPE reports. The AP7 analyst, Hakan Tobiasson, compared the costs anre turns of about 500 actively-managed funds with the costs of an average hedge fund with equivalent performance, on the basis of a management fee of 1% and a performance commission of 15%. One third of funds reviewed showed an alpha higher than the management fees for the period, but were nonetheless more expensive than a hedge fund. For all funds analysed, only 5% could be categorised as “good performance with reasonable commission” with all the characteristics of positive alpha over the past 36 months.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The European asset and fund management association (EFAMA) has sent a letter to the members of the Economic Commission of the European Parliament to express concerns about the most recent developments concerning the planned PRIPS investment product regulations. It is true that the project, which is fundamental for the protection of investors and the creation of a more consistent space for the sales of retail products, has been on the negotiating table since 2007. EFAMA regrets that recent talks about PRIPS in the European Parliament have been increasingly distanced from the initial regulatory approach, which was that of the Commission, threatening the feasibility of the project overall. Among other things, says EFAMA, an extension of the perimeter to non-packaged products and the introduction of rules concerning eligible assets could render the bill inapplicable. It is also unlikely that a compromise will be found on reasonable time-frames, due to the divergences surrounding the parliamentary debate on a corpus of over 700 amendments. The new areas for discussion, which are not based on impact analysis, have not been subject to consultation either, which may be expected to considerably delay passage of the PRIPS regulations, the professional organisation predicts. EFAMA reiterates its commitment to the initiative and estimates that the Commission’s proposals represent a balanced basis, which could nonetheless be improved on some points, but which should not be completely thrown into question with an entirely new regulatory approach. EFAMA therefore invites members of European parliament to put the priority objectives of the project at the centre of their concerns, namely the publication of high-quality, standardised product information. The text of the letter published on the EFAMA website is attached: http://www.efama.org/Publications/Public/PRIPS/EFAMA_Letter_Industry_vo…

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } Six experts in the ETF sector are seeking to popularise the investment vehicle on the Swiss market through an organisation of “ETF Ambassadors” who seek to familiarise investors with the ETF universe and improve their knowledge of the subject with a website (etfambassadors.ch) and monthly seminars. Among the experts behind the initiative are Christian Gast, head of iShares for Switzerland, Frank Mohr, head of ETF-Sales Trading at Commerzbank, Alain Picard, head of Product Management at SIX Swiss Exchange, and Marcel Wagner, head of Index Selection at Credit Suisse. Only 3.7% of assets in European funds are invested in passive investment products.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Spanish Arcano group has appointed José Luis der Río as deputy director of its asset management unit. He will be responsible for developing the launch and management of investment products aimed at Spanish and foreign institutional investors, Funds People reports. He will co-operate closely with the four partners at Arcano who are specialised in asset management, Ignacio Sarría, Manuel Mendivil, Pedro Hamparzoumian and Yuliya Kaspler.Luis del Río was a founder of N+1. He is leaving the positions of chairman of N+1 gestión and N+1 Patrimónios.Arcano Asset Management has EUR2.5bn in assets under advisory and management in private equity.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The annual general meeting of the Spanish Inverco association of asset management firms on Wednesday elected Javier Palomar (Ibercaja Gestión) as chairman of the group of investment funds, replacing Lázaro de Lázaro (Santander AM), Funds People reports. It has also elected Miguel Colombás (Allianz Popular Pensiones) as president of the group of pension funds. He succeeds Rocio Eguiran (Bankia Pensiones).

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } After the acquisition of Salvepar a few months ago, the young private equity and asset management specialist firm Tikehau is expected to announce this morning that it hs acquiring a 35% stake in the British firm Duke Street, Les Echos reports. The price of the acquisition, through a capital increase, has not been revealed. An option on a majority stake in capital in the long term is being offered.Duke Street has been active in France for 10 years, and has seen investments from Marie Bizard (from 2000 to 2006) and B&B hotels (from 2003 to 2005). With about EUR3bn in assets under management, Duke Street still plans to grow, the newspaper adds.

L’association britannique des gestionnaires d’actifs (IMA) envisage de mettre en place une déclaration de principes qui gouvernera les activités de ses membres tout en servant de référence pour le développement du secteur.Le directeur général de l’association professionnelle, Daniel Godfrey, a publié sur son blog une série de propositions qui s’inscrivent dans la volonté de l’association de restaurer la confiance des investisseurs, «sérieusement écornée» au cours des cinq dernières années.Outre la déclaration de principes, l’IMA souhaite publier un document de recommandations sur internet qui identifie «les dossiers critiques que doivent traiter les gestionnaires d’actifs là où la nécessité de gérer les conflits d’intérêts est la plus forte».L’IMA souhaite donc recueillir l’avis de ses membres sur ses problématiques tout en travaillant parallèlement à la rédaction du document avec le CFA Institute et le Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Barclays Capital is planning to close the Barclays Capital Radar fund, launched four years ago, due to the limited interest shown by investors in the strategy, Fundweb reports. Assets under management in the fund total barely USD9.8bn, and its performance has manifestly not been up to the level of investor expectations.