Le compromis signé hier ne règle pas la question du déficit budgétaire et du relèvement du plafond de la dette

Le compromis signé hier ne règle pas la question du déficit budgétaire et du relèvement du plafond de la dette

The French financial regulator Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) published on Thursday a verdict against French asset manager OFI AM and its heads at the time of the events in question, Gérard Bourrret and Thierry Callault, who left the firm in March 2012. OFI AM has received a warning and a fine of EUR300,000, in addition to EUR300,000 paid in June 2011, while Bourret and Callault have each received a warning and a fine of EUR30,000. At a hearing on 20 September last year, the AMF sought a reprimand and a fine of EUR500,000 for OFI AM, and a warning for the two heads, with a fine of EUR60,000 each. Originally, the AMF states, on the basis of a check which began in mid-2009, the asset management firm and its executives were accused of a lack of professionalism and diligence in the investment and oversight of funds concerned in the “Madoff fraud,” lacunae in the monitoring of and adherence to regultory ratios, a lack of management of conflicts of interest for subscriptions and operations between funds for OFI AM, involvement of funds managed by the alternative multi-management unit of the firm, and operations undertaken between the directors of OFI AM the the FCPR fund OFI Investir. Lastly, the regulator noted irregularities in the sales of a foreign investment fund, related to marketing activities in the absence of prior permission, and the release of incorrect and misleading information. In the event, failures to monitor target funds within the multi-management department were found in relation to the Leveraged Swap Segregated Portfolio One and Herald USA Segregated Portfolio One funds. The lack of monitoring concerned the Fairfield Sentry Limited and Platinum All Weather Funds. The marketing of an unauthorised foreign investment fund was in relation to the Cayman Islands-registered fund X3. The verdict of the AMF is subject to appeal under conditions set forth in article R. 621-44 of the monetary and financial code. In late September, OFI AM told Newsmanagers that its exposure to Madoff funds between 2006 and 2008 totalled EUR25m, or 0.14% of assets under management, which at the time were near EUR17bn.

A lawsuit filed by 26 hedge funds against the former board of directors of Porsche was dismissed by a court of appeals in New York on Thursday, 27 December due to a lack of grounds for prosecution, leading to a steep increase in the share price of Porsche the following morning on the Frankfurt stock exchange, Reuters reports. The funds in question had accused the German auto maker of causing them over USD1bn in losses due to manipulation of the Volkswagen share price.

The asset management firm H2o AM has informed investors in the H20 Allegro fund (I share class: FR0011006188; R share class: FR0011015460; H-I share class: FR0011192327) that from 28 December 2012, changes have been introduced to the prospectus, to bring it into compliance with the new AMF instruction 2011-19 on UCITS-compliant funds. The minimal investment duration for each fund has been modified. While initially set at three years, it is now increased to four years. Ex post ante target volatility, which had previously been 5%, is now 4% to 8%. Lastly, the indicative average leverage level is raised from 0 to 3/4. “For this FCP fund,” a statement says, “'puttable’ and ‘callable’ fixed income products have been added to the list of authorised derivative securities. In cases where the initial ratings of the ABS and MBS in positions has been downgraded, the fund will now be authorised to retain these without a minimal rating, compared with a previous minimal rating of A/A2, from the ratings agencies S&P, Fitch Ratings or Moody’s. Lastly, H2O AM states that the management objective for H-I shares, the share class hedged for EUR/GBP currency risks and denominated in GBP, is to earn higher returns than the LIBOR interest rate in pounds sterling on a one-month maturity, over the minimal recommended investment duration after deduction of operating and management fees.

The Basel Committee on 28 December released an informational guide in the form of frequently asked questions about regulations concerning counterparty risks, and the regulatory framework for exposure of banks to central counterparties (CCP). In order to promote consistent application of the new requirements, the Committee will periodically release frequently-asked questions and publish answers with the necessary technical specificity and appropriate interpretations.

The hedge fund sector is expected to post higher net inflows in 2012 than in 2011, even though the average hedge fund is expected to underperformn the S&P 500 index for the fourth consecutive year, according to estimates from the data provider eVestment. In November, inflows to hedge funds totalled USD6.6bn, while the sector posted outflows in October. Since the beginning of this year, net inflows now total USD33.4bn, an increase of nearly USD10bn compared with inflows in 2011 overall.

The private equity group Blackstone appears to have decided to maintain its investments in SAC Capital Advisors, despite an investigation for insider trading, the news agency Reuters reports. The asset management unit of Blackstone, which has invested about USD550m in SAC Capital, has thus far shown no willingness to refund money invested in a hedge fund whose assets under management total about USD14bn. Blackstone has held several talks with heads at SAC Capital concerning the ongoing investigation, and the private equity investor has also consulted its own investors, including pension funds, foundations and high net worth private investors.

Dexia will create a reduced board of directors, as the bank had recently announced at an extraordinary general shareholders’ meeting. The new board of directors, with effect from 31 December, will shrink from 16 to 9 members, 5 Belgiand and 4 French, according to a statement released on the evening of 27 December. The deputy director is the Belgian Kael de Boeck and the chairman of the board of directors is the Frenchman Robert de Metz. The number of independent administrators remains three. The board of directors of Dexia has confirmed the resignations of Gilles Benoist, Brigitte Chanoine, Christian Giacomotto, Antoine Gosset-Grainville, Bernard Herman, Catherine Koop, Oilvier Mareuse, Claude Piret, Bernard Thiry and Marc Tinant from their positions as directors. The six remaining directors will be assisted by the Belgians Paul Bodart and Alexandre de Geest, and the Frenchman Hervé de Villeroché, who join the board. The general shareholders’ meeting of Dexia has yet to approve their final appointments. Bodart works at the Bank of New York Mellon, while De Geest is director at SPF Finance, and de Villeroché is an attaché to the office of the general director of the treasury at the French ministry of economic affairs. On 14 December, Bert Bronselaer was appointed to the board. He is chairman of Royal Park Investments, the vehicle which contains structured credit for Fortis Bank. From 31 December 2012, pending approval for a capital increase, the board of directors at Dexia SA will consist of the following members: - Robert de Metz, chairman, independent director, - Karel De Boeck, deputy director, - Paul Bodart, independent director, - Olivier Bourges, non-executive director, - Bart Bronselaer, independent director, - Alexandre De Geest, non-executive director, - Philippe Rucheton, executive director, - Koen Van Loo, non-executive director, and - Hervé de Villeroché, non-executie director.

The announcement was made in the Lettre de l’Assurance a week ago, and the news is now official: Philippe Maso y Guell Rivet has resigned from his position as CEO of Aviva France, effective immediately, a statement from the group says. Nicolas Schimel, currently chairman and CEO of the affiliate UFF, a wealth management advising bank, and a member of the executive and strategic board at Aviva France, will succeed him. He had already served as temporary CEO of Aviva France from November 2010 to July 2011. Rivet joined Aviva in July 2011, after serving as CEO of AXA Insurance UK from 2008 to 2011.

US investors have lost out on nearly USD200bn in stock market gains due to their resistance to the market in the past four years. Assets in mutual funds, ETFs and closed funds increased by about 85%, to USD5.6trn since the beginning of the rising market cycle in March 2009, while the S&P 500 in the same period gained 94%, according to statistics from Bloomberg and Morningstar. The proportion of equity funds dedicated to retirement fell by 0.5 percentage points, compared with an average increase of 8.2 percentage points in all rising market phases since 1990. In other words, investors are continuing to avoid stock markets, even though indicators of an economic recovery are piling up. At slightly over 1,430 a few days ago, the S&P 500 has gained 14% since the beginning of the year, up from a low of 676.53 on 9 March, 2009.

The independent business bank Duff & Phelps is changing hands. An agreement presented as “final” was announced on the night of Sunday, 30 to Monday, 31 December, by a consortium of private investors led by the Carlyle fund, Les Echos reports. The fund is joined by the US fund Stone Point Capital, the Swiss bank Pictet 7 Cie and the Rothschild group, in order to complete the acquisition, valued at USD665.5m (EUR504.47m). The transaction will be completed in first quarter.

The Basel-based private bank Sarasin is losing its director for Germany, Frank Niehage, who has resigned, citing differences in point of view over the strategic orientation of the establishment, Le Temps reports. His responsibilities will be assumed for the interim by Aris Prepoudis and Bernd Würfel, members of the board.

Hedge funds are expected to gain an average of slightly over 5% in 2012, after losses of 5% in 2011, the Financial Times reports, citing statistics from Hedge Fund Research. “Bearish” funds suffered the most, as the euro zone avoided a costly dissolution.

Agefi reports that United States Commodity Funds, with USD3.4bn in assets under management in ETFs, has received permission from the US market regulator to launch a fund to bet on Asian demand for commodities. The fund will be listed on NYSE, and will invest in futures on commodities for which China, Japan and India represent 10% of global demand, and of which they are expected to be net importers, the SEC states.

Agefi reports, citing the Sunday Times, that RBS has told its traders that they will see an overall reduction in their bonuses, in order to compensate for a fine the firm will be required to pay for manipulations of the Libor interest rate. The bank may agree to pay GBP350m (EUR430m) to settle lawsuits against it.

Property companies and investment managers are preparing to fight a proposal by the Financial Services Authority which would prevent them from marketing real estate investment trusts to retail investors, the Financial Times reports. This summer, the regulator announced that it would block sales of exotic investments by independent financial advisers to ordinary investors. But the FSA’s definition of “unregulated collective investment schemes” may include REITs.

At a time when BNP Paribas had been dominating the national rankings of advising banks for merger and acqusition (M&A) operations established by Agefi, Rothschild is taking advantage of a free-fall on the market to take the lead. Due to lengthening delays in completing deals, the rankings of completed operations were strong in 2011. In 2012, there were few major transactions in France. Investment brought only USD113bn in transactions, compared with over USD190bn in 2011, and EUR100bn in 2010. After Rothschild and BNP Paribas, and also in the lead for commissions in rankings by the US firm Freeman Consulting, Lazard takes third place with some lead over the next three players, Morgan Stanley, SG CIB and Barclays.

The largest German regional bank, LBBW, on 27 December filed a lawsuit in a United States court against its compatriot Deutsche Bank, claiming fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities ahead of the financial crisis in 2008. The lawsuit relates to investments in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) totalling USD173m, the weekly newspaper Der Spiegel reports on its website. LBBW accuses Deutsche Bank of making false statements in the sales documents for the products concerned. Deutsche Bank is already facing numerous lawsuits in the United States, and its role in the sub-prime crisis is considered dubious by the US Senate, which was severely critical of it and Goldman Sachs an a report released in April 2011. The German bank is also one of 17 financial institutions against which the US authorities announced lawsuits in September 2011, in an effort to make them compensate the heavy losses experienced in 2008 by two US real estate lending giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were bailed out at great expense to the country. The US government accuses the banks of providing misleading information about the quality of their mortgage-backed securities.

La banque privée bâloise Sarasin perd son directeur pour l’Allemagne, Frank Niehage. Celui-ci a démissionné en invoquant des divergences de vue sur l’orientation stratégique de l’établissement, précise Le Temps. Sa fonction sera assumée à titre intérimaire par Aris Prepoudis et Bernd Würfel, qui sont membres de la direction.

Dexia va se doter d’un conseil d’administration réduit, comme la banque l’avait déjà annoncé récemment lors d’une assemblée générale extraordinaire. Le nouveau conseil d’administration, effectif à partir du 31 décembre, va passer de 16 à 9 membres, dont 5 Belges et 4 Français, selon un communiqué diffusé dans la soirée du 27 décembre. Le Belge Kael de Boeck et le Français Robert de Metz sont nommés respectivement administrateur délégué et président du conseil d’administration. Le nombre d’administrateurs indépendants est maintenu à trois. Le conseil d’administration de Dexia a pris acte des démissions de Gilles Benoist, de Brigitte Chanoine, de Christian Giacomotto, d’Antoine Gosset-Grainville, de Bernard Herman, de Catherinbe Kopp, d’Olivier Mareuse, de Claude Piret, de Bernard Thiry et de Marc Tinant de leur poste d’administrateurs. Les six administrateurs restants seront accompagnés des Belges Paul Bodart et Alexandre De Geest et du Français Hervé de Villeroché, qui sont cooptés. L’assemblée générale de Dexia devra encore se prononcer sur leurs nominations définitives. Paul Bodart travaille pour The Bank of New York Mellon, Alexandre De Geest est administrateur au SPF Finances et Hervé de Villeroché est lié à la Direction générale du Trésor au ministère français des Affaires économiques. Le 14 décembre, Bert Bronselaer avait déjà été coopté. Il est président de Royal Park Investments, le véhicule qui abrite les crédits structurés de Fortis Bank. A compter du 31 décembre 2012 et sous réserve de la réalisation de l’augmentation du capital, le conseil d’administration de Dexia SA sera donc composé des membres suivants :- Robert de Metz, président, administrateur indépendant,- Karel De Boeck, administrateur délégué,- Paul Bodart, administrateur indépendant,- Olivier Bourges, administrateur non-exécutif,- Bart Bronselaer, administrateur indépendant,- Alexandre De Geest, administrateur non-exécutif,- Philippe Rucheton, administrateur exécutif,- Koen Van Loo, administrateur non-exécutif, et- Hervé de Villeroché, administrateur non-exécutif. A noter par ailleurs que la Commission européenne a officiellement approuvé le 28 décembre le plan de restructuration de la banque Dexia, élaboré par la Belgique, la France et le Luxembourg, lui permettant de mener à bien son démantèlement et d'éviter une faillite désordonnée lourde de conséquences.

La société de gestion H2O AM a informé les détenteurs du fonds H2O Allegro (*) qu’à compter du 28/12/2012, des changements sont intervenus dans le prospectus qui a été mis en conformité avec la nouvelle instruction AMF 2011-19 sur les fonds coordonnés. La durée minimale de placement de chacun des fonds a été modifiée. Fixée à trois ans initialement, elle passe de trois à quatre ans. De même, la volatilité cible ex post annuelle qui était de 5 % jusque là passe entre 4 % et 8 %. Enfin, le niveau d’effet de levier indicatif moyen passe de 0 à 3/4."Sur ce FCP», indique un communiqué, «les produits de taux «puttable» et «callable» sont ajoutés à la liste des titres intégrant des dérivés autorisés. De même, dans le cas où le rating initial des ABS et des MBS en positions serait dégradé, le fonds sera dorénavant autorisé à les conserver sans limite de notation, contre précédemment une limite de notation de A/A2 minimum selon la notation des agences S&P, Fitch Rating ou Moody’s.Enfin, H2O AM précise que l’objectif de gestion applicable à la part H-I, part couverte contre le risque de change EUR/GBP et libellée en GBP, est de réaliser une performance supérieure à celle du taux d’intérêt LIBOR libellé en livre sterling de maturité un mois, sur sa durée minimale de placement recommandée après déduction des frais de fonctionnement et de gestion. (*) Part I : FR0011006188 ; Part R : FR0011015460 ; Part H-I : FR0011192327

Dans le procès qui l’opposait à 26 fonds alternatifs, l’ancienne direction de Porsche a obtenu un non-lieu de la Cour d’appel de New York jeudi 27 décembre, entrainant une forte hausse de l’action le lendemain matin à la bourse de Francfort, rapporte Reuters. Les fonds en question accusaient le constructeur allemand de leur avoir causé plus d’un milliard de dollars de pertes en manipulant les cours du titre Volkswagen.

Dexia a confirmé le 31 décembre que, conformément à leur engagement, les Etats belge et français ont souscrit "à l’augmentation de capital de Dexia SA pour un montant de 5,5 milliards d’euros», lui permettant ainsi de mener à bien son démantèlement. Cette augmentation de capital avait été autorisée par l’assemblée générale extraordinaire de Dexia SA réunie le 21 décembre, rappelle le groupe dans un communiqué, puis approuvée par Bruxelles.L’Etat belge a souscrit à 15,3 milliards d’actions et l’Etat français à 13,6 milliards d’actions, de préférence nouvelles, de Dexia SA, «portant ainsi leur participation au capital de Dexia SA à respectivement 50,02% et 44,40%», souligne le groupe. Le prix de souscription des actions de préférence a été fixé à 0,19 euros par titre. Outre un important plan de cessions, le sauvetage de Dexia passe par la «mise en gestion extinctive» de la holding du même nom et par la restructuration de Belfius (ex-Dexia Banque Belgique), l’ancienne filiale du groupe qui a été nationalisée par l’Etat belge. La banque de dépôt va désormais se réorienter vers ses activités clés de banque-assurance et s’est engagée auprès de la Commission à réserver son bénéfice au renforcement de ses fonds propres et à ne pas réaliser d’acquisitions majeures d’ici à fin 2014. Dexia Municipal Agency (DMA), le véhicule de refinancement de Dexia qui permet d’emprunter sur les marchés pour prêter aux collectivités, sera lui adossé à une nouvelle banque de développement en France, à laquelle participeront l’Etat français, la Caisse des Dépôts et la Banque Postale.

La banque d’affaires indépendant Duff & Phelps change de mains. Un accord présenté comme « définitif » a été annoncé dans la nuit de dimanche 30 à lundi 31 décembre par le consortium d’investisseurs privés mené par le fonds Carlyle, rapporte Les Echos. Celui-ci s’associe au fonds américain Stone Point Capital, ainsi qu'à la banque suisse Pictet & Cie et au groupe Rothschild afin de réaliser cette acquisition, valorisée à 665,5 millions de dollars (504,47 millions d’euros). La transaction devrait être finalisée au premier trimestre.

United States Commodity Funds, qui gère 3,4 milliards de dollars en ETF, a reçu l’aval du gendarme des marchés américain pour lancer un fonds pariant sur la demande asiatique en matières premières, rapporte L’Agefi. Le fonds sera coté sur le Nyse et détiendra des «futures» sur les matières premières sur lesquelles la Chine, le Japon et l’Inde représentent 10% de la demande mondiale, a précisé la SEC.

Le secteur des hedge funds devrait enregistrer cette année une collecte nette supérieure à celle de 2011, même si le hedge fund moyen devrait sous-performer l’indice S&P 500 pour la quatrième année consécutive, selon des estimations du fournisseur de données eVestment.Au mois de novembre, la collecte nette des hedge funds s’est élevée à 6,6 milliards de dollars, alors que le secteur avait décollecté en octobre. Depuis le début de l’année, la collecte nette s'élève désormais à 33,4 milliards de dollars, soit une progression de près de 10 milliards de dollars par rapport au montant de la collecte pour l’ensemble de l’année 2011.

Les hedge funds devraient avoir gagné seulement un peu plus de 5 % en moyenne en 2012, après avoir perdu 5 % en 2011, rapporte le Financial Times, citant des statistiques de Hedge Fund Research. Les fonds «bearish» ont le plus souffert, la zone euro ayant évité un démantèlement coûteux.

Prochaine Edition de L’Agefi 14H, lundi 7 janvier 2013