Après le départ la semaine dernière de Philippe Couvrecelle d’Edmond de Rothschild AM (EdRAM) dont il était le président du directoire, le groupe Edmond de Rothschild a précisé vendredi soir ses intentions. Comme les rumeurs en faisaient état avec de plus en plus d’insistance ces derniers temps, les deux sociétés de gestion de l'établissement -Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EdRAM) et Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (EdRIM)- vont se rapprocher. Sous réserve de l’accord des autorités de tutelle et de la consultation préalable des partenaires sociaux, l’objectif de la maison est de bâtir une structure unique, avec plus de 20 milliards d’euros d’actifs sous gestion dont 11,3 milliard fin mai pour EdRAM. Ce qui, précise le groupe «va lui permettre de mettre en place une nouvelle organisation dont l’objectif est de mieux promouvoir l’offre globale d’asset management, de renforcer l’action commerciale au service d’une clientèle institutionnelle et de distribution, en France comme à l’international, et d’améliorer l’efficacité de sa plateforme». En pratique, la nouvelle entité doit regrouper l’ensemble des classes d’actifs développées jusqu’à présent chez EdRAM et EdRIM : actions, taux et crédit, obligations convertibles, gestion diversifiée, multigestion, gestions structurée, alternative et allocation d’actifs. Restait à savoir à qui le groupe Edmond de Rothschild entendait confier la responsabilité de ce projet. En l’occurrence, comme Newsmanagers en avait eu la confirmation la semaine dernière, la main-mise de l’une des sociétés de gestion sur l’autre n’était pas à l’ordre du jour. De fait, l’opération sera menée par les responsables opérationnels des deux filiales. Compte tenu du départ de Philippe Couvrecelle, ce sera à Christophe Boulanger dont le groupe a annoncé vendredi soir l’accession à la fonction de président du directoire d’EdRAM, après en avoir été le directeur général lorsque Philippe Couvrecelle était président, de conduire ce projet aux côtés de Guillaume Poli, président du directoire d’EdRIM.

Pour le deuxième trimestre 2012, Wells Fargo a déclaré le 13 juillet un bénéfice net record de 4,62 milliards de dollars contre 4,2 milliards pour janvier-mars et 3,9 milliards pour la période correspondante de 2011. Sur l’ensemble du premier semestre, le bénéfice net ressort à 8,9 milliards de dollars contre 7,7 milliards. La coefficient d’exploitation s’est amélioré à 58,2 % contre 60,1 % pour le trimestre précédent et 61,2 % pour avril-juin 2011.Pour sa part, le bénéfice net du pôle gestion de fortune, courtage et retraites s’est inscrit à 343 millions de dollars, augmentant ainsi de 47 millions par rapport au premier trimestre et de 6 millions sur avril-juin de l’an dernier.Le communiqué précise que l’encours de la division gestion de fortune s’est situé fin juin à 197 milliards de dollars, soit 8 milliards ou 4 % de moins qu’un an auparavant.

Pour le deuxième trimestre 2012, le pôle gestion d’actifs de JP Morgan Chase affiche un bénéfice net de 391 millions de dollars contre 386 millions pour janvier-mars et 439 millions pour la période correspondante de l’an dernier. L’encours sous gestion à fin juin ressortait à 1.300 milliards de dollars, soit une hausse de 5 milliards sur le niveau du 30 juin 2011, les souscriptions nettes pour les produits de long terme étant compensées par l’effet négatif de la baisse des marchés et les remboursements nets subis par les produits monétaires. Durant les douze mois à fin juin, les actifs sous gestion ont augmenté sous l’influence de rentrées nettes de 31 milliards de dollars, mais pour avril-juin 2012 le gestionnaire affiche des sorties nettes de 11 milliards de dollars provoquées par des remboursements nets de 25 milliards de dollars en parties compensées par 14 milliards de souscriptions nettes pour les produits de long terme. JPMorgan précise que ses fonds de long terme ont enregistré pour avril-juin leur treizième trimestre consécutif de souscriptions nettes.A l'échelon du groupe J. P. Morgan Chase & Co, le bénéfice net est ressorti pour le premier semestre à 9,85 milliards de dollars contre 10,96 milliards pour janvier-juin 2011 tandis que la perte avant impôt de 4,4 milliards de dollars imputables aux opérations de la «Baleine de Londres» n’a pas empêché le groupe d’afficher un bénéfice net de 4,96 milliards de dollars au deuxième trimestre contre 5,43 milliards pour la période correspondante de 2011. Reste que, depuis le début de l’année, l’ardoise liée à la perte de trading atteint 5,8 milliards, a confié vendredi le directeur financier Doug Braunstein cité dans un article de L’Agefi. Et la facture pourrait encore gonfler de 1,7 milliard dans un scénario extrême, ont admis les dirigeants de JPMorgan, ce qui porterait le total à 7,5 milliards de dollars.

Selon Les Echos, JP Morgan s’attend à une perte de trading de 7,5 milliards de dollars au maximum. A l’occasion de la présentation des résultats du deuxième trimestre, Jamie Dimon, le PDG de JP Morgan, a révélé que la perte suite au pari pris sur des dérivés de crédit par les équipes londoniennes du Chief investment office (CIO) a atteint 4,4 milliards de dollars au deuxième trimestre. Au total, la perte de trading s'élève à ce jour à 5,8 milliards de dollars.Selon Les Echos, la banque a « découvert des informations qui laissent douter de l’intégrité des «marks» des traders et qui suggèrent que certains individus ont peut-être essayé de dissimuler le montant total des pertes encourues par le portefeuille au premier trimestre ».

Les Echos reports that JP Morgan is expecting a trading loss of USD7.5bn at most. At a presentation of results for second quarter, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan, revealed that losses due to bets on credit derivatives by the London-based teams of the Chief Investment Office (CIO) totalled USD4.4bn in second quarter. Overall, trading losses to date total USD5.8bn. According to Les Echos, the bank has “discovered information that casts doubt on the integrity of traders’ ‘marks,’ and which suggests that some individuals may have attempted to falsify the total amount of losses incurred by the portfolio in first quarter.”

In second quarter 2012, Wells Fargo on 13 July announced a record net profit of USD4.62bn, compared with USD4.2bn in January-March and USD3.9bn in the corresponding period of 2011. For first half as a whole, net profits totalled USD8.9bn, compared with USD7.7bn. The total expense ratio improved to 58.2%, compared with 60.1% for the previous quarter, and 61.2% in April-June 2011. Net profits for the wealth management, brokerage and retirement unit, meanwhile, totalled USD343m, USD47m higher than first quarter and USD6m higher than April-June last year. The statement adds that assets for the wealth management division as of the end of June totalled USD197bn, USD8bn or 4% less than one year previously.

Following the departure last week of Philippe Couvrecelle from Edmond de Rothschild AM (EdRAM), where he had been chairman of the board, the Edmond de Rothschild group on Friday declared its intentions. As had increasingly been rumoured recently, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EdRAM) and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (EdRIM) will be merging. Pending permission from the supervisory authorities and consultation with labour representatives, the objective for the firm is to create a single structure, with over USD20bn in assets under management, of which USD11.3bn were at EdRAM as of the end of May. This, the group says, “will allow it to set up a new organisation, whose objective is to better promote the global asset management range, strengthen commercial actions in the service of institutional and distribution clients in France and abroad, and to improve the efficiency of the platform.” In practice, the new entity will include all asset classes which had previously been developed at EdRAM and EdRIM: equities, fixed income and credit, convertible bonds, diversified management, multi-management, structured management, alternative management, and asset allocation. The remaining question is to whom the Edmond de Rothschild group will entrust responsibility for this project. As Newsmanagers reported last week, the operation will not proceed with one of the asset management firms acquiring the other. Instead, the operation will e led by the chief operating officers of both affiliates. Following the departure of Couvrecelle, Christophe Boulanger, who the group announced on Friday evening has succeeded him as chairman of the board at EdRAM, after serving as CEO when Couvrecelle was chairman, will lead the project, alongside Guillaume Poli, chairman of the board at EdRIM.

Investment Europe reports that the British firm Threadneedle Investment has released its European absolute return equity fund Threadneedle (Lux) Absolute Alpha for sale in Italy. The product is a UCITS version of the long/short hedge fund Threadneedle Apex European Fund, which aims to satisfy Italian investors’ current taste for UCITS-compliant products.

According to a Morningstar study, of nearly 38,000 products, the total expense ratio for investment funds increased steadily between 2007 and 2010, from 1.52% to 1.64%, but fell for the first time in 2011, to 1.58%, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. This is also true for funds which charge no performance commissions, which fell to 1.9% from 2.17% in 2010 (compared with 1.78% in 2007). The most costly funds were equity products, with 1.79% in 2011, after two successive double-digit declines in 2009 and 2010.

In the week to 11 July, bond funds have posted net subscriptions of USD4.87bn, the strongest inflows in eight weeks, bringing net subscriptions since the beginning of the year to USD200bn, EPFR Global reports. Meanwhile, equity funds have posted net outflows of USD327m in the week under review, while money market funds have posted their best weekly results since the beginning of the year, due to USD20bn for US products. According to EPFR, European equity funds have seen modest outflows for the sixth time in the past eight weeks, and net redemptions since the beginning of the year total USD21.7bn, compared with net subscriptions of USD1.4bn in the twelfth consecutive week and the twenty-sixth week of the first 28 weeks of the year.

The number of firms with a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license in China rose to 172 in June, as the regulator issued licenses to ING Investment Management and Mitsubishi UFJ, for a total of USD1.35bn, Z-Ben Advisors reports. In first half overall, the CSRC issued quotas to 37 firms, totalling USD5.7bn.

Agefi cites reports in the New York Times that the US Federal prosecutor is considering criminal charges against several banks involved in the Libor rate-fixing scandal. Some traders at Barclays are said to be concerned. Agefi suggests that these impending charges may provide added impetus to the banks to settle out of court. In Europe, the newspaper points out, Deutsche Bank has signed a cooperation agreement with the European Commission to minimise any potential economic impact on the bank. The Bank of England, for its part, has released emails which confirm that its governor, Mervyn King, in 2008 supported proposals by Timothy Geithner, then chairman of the Federal Reserve in New York, to reform the way in which the Libor rate is calculated.

As part of research by the Newedge chair on the subject of “Advanced Modelling for Alternative Investments,” the EDHEC-Risk Institute has adopted a new method for evaluating the performance of hedge funds on the basis of a non-linear adjustment of risk performance. It has been tested on various hedge fund indices and several individual hedge funds, taking into account a variety of risk factors, covering equities, bonds, credit, currencies and commodiies. The study concludes that what had been unduly considered alpha in previous analyses is actually a form of just recompense for hedge fund managers for holding a variety of relatively complex linear and non-linear exposures to various risk factors. Often, EDHEC adds, declines in performance are triggered by a few extreme events which cannot be captured with traditional linear methods.

The Lyxor global hedge fund index has posted losses in June of 0.47%, putting average performance in first quarter at 0.49%. Seven out of 13 strategies showed losses last month, but bond arbitrage and long/short equity long bias have posted respective gains of 1.97% and 1.95%. Three categories have posted strong returns in January-June: bond arbitrage leads, with 5.65%, followed by distressed securities (4.89%), and long/short equity long bias (4.30%). However, CTA Long Term has posted losses of 2.72% in first half.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that following Barclays, 11 other banking establishments may also be fined for manipulating the Libor rates. RBS may also face fines of GBP150m, Investment Week reports. Overall, the banks concerned may be facing fines of GBP22bn.

For second quarter 2012, the asset management unit at JP Morgan Chase has posted net profits of USD391m, compared with USD386m in January-March, and USD439m in the corresponding period of last year. Assets under management as of the end of June totalled USD1.3trn, a gain of USd5bn compared with their levels as of 30 June 0211, as net subscriptions to long-term products were compensated by the negative effect of falling markets and net redemptions from money market products. In the twelve months to the end of June, assets under management increased under the influence of net inflows of USD31bn, but in April-June 2012, the asset management firm shows net outflows of USD11bn, due to net redemptions of USD25bn, partly offset by USD14bn in net subscriptions to long-term products. JPMorgan states that its long-term products in April-June posted their thirteenth consecutive quarter of net subscriptions. For the J. P. Morgan Chase & Co group as a whole, net profits in first half totalled USD9.85bn, compared with USD10.96bn in January-June 2011, while pre-tax losses of USD4.4bn due to the operations of the “Whale of London” did not prevent the group from posting a net profit of USD4.96bn in second quarter, compared with USD5.43bn in the corresponding period of 2011.

The French asset management firm Mandarine Gestion has signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI). Assets at Mandarine as of the end of June totalled EUR1.3bn.

According to an internal document which was procured by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Munich-based firm KanAm has changed its strategy to sell off the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund grundinvest (EUR6bn), which must be liquidated by 2016. Initially, the objective had been to make as much as possible for each of the properties to be sold. Now, the properties in the portfolio will be divided into four categories: firstly, properties which can easily be sold and are not mortgaged; then, properties which can be put on the market only when the credit has been paid off; thirdly, properties which need to be restructured, or whose leases need to be renegotiated, and fourthly, properties which are morgaged, and which in their current state would be difficult to sell.

As part of a suicide attempt, Les Echos reports, Russell Wasendorf Sr, founder and CEO of the derivatives broker Peregrine Financial Group, confessed in a suicide note that for nearly 20 years he falsified banking information at the firm. The letter explains the mysterious disappearance of about USD200m, initially detected by the National Futures Association (the voluntary industry watchdog body for the derivative sector in the United States) early last week.

AdvisorShares is launching its fifteenth ETF, the AdvisorShares Global Alpha & Beta ETF, managed by Your Source. The ETF offers a strategy which bets on equities when the markets are rising, and on short-term bonds when the markets are falling, Mutual Fund Wire states.

Schroder Property Investment Management has announced the appointment of Tony Smedley to the newly-created position of head of Pan European Fund Management. Smedley will be based in London, where he had previously been head of European Funds at Invista REIM. Smedley will be responsible for the management of the Matrix European Real Estate Trust.

According to Morningstar statistics relayed by Bloomberg, the Total Return Bond Fund from DoubleLine Capital was the fund with the highest net subscriptions in the United States in first quarter, at USD11.5bn. Mutual Fund Wire reports that the number two fund was the Total International Stock Index Fund from Vanguard, with USD8.9bn. Overall, net subscriptions to taxable bond funds in the United States totalled USD106bn in January-June, compared with USD34bn for US equity funds, and USD20bn for international equity funds.

Ulrika Bergman has joined Pyramis Global Advisors (USD180bn as of the end of March), an affiliate of Fidelity Investments specialised in institutional asset management, as senior vice president of Nordic & Benelux sales. She will be based in London. Previously, she also worked in London, at Principal Global Investors as head of institutional sales.

Peter Herrlin has been appointed as head of the prime brokerage activity at SEB in London. Herrlin, who joined the firm in 2010, succeeds Attila Olesen, who is now head of Enskilda equities in Denmark, also part of SEB, Hedgeweek reports.

In the next few days, the Qualified Domestic Limited Partner (QDLP) programme will officially be launched to allow foreign hedge funds with more than USD10bn in assets to register in China and to apply for licenses in Shanghai, Z-Ben Advisors reports. QDLP will allow Chinese institutional investors and high net worth private clients access to alternative strategies which are still lacking on the local market. The initial concession for QDLP will be only USD5bn, and it is expected that only a few asset management firms will get involved in the first series of licenses.

The asset management firm of the Munich Re group, MEAG, on 13 July announced that it has acquired six wind farms already connected to the grid on behalf of its shareholder. The wind farms, located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandebnurg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, were sold for a total sum “in the tens of millions of euros” by the developer, wpd. The operation is part of the Renewable Energy & New Technologies (RENT) programme, launched by Munich Re in 2010, which will eventually have a total of EUR2.5bn in assets.

Standard Life Investments (SLI) on 13 July confirmed that it has launched a class of completely unbundled shares as part of its preparation for the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) legislation, to come into force in January 2013. That will result in a reduction in management commissions by half, from 1.50% for the existing share classes to 0.75% for the unbundled share classes. Fundweb, for its part, states that BlackRock has launched the Consensus 35, 60, 70, 85 and 100 funds, which invest in index-based funds of the BlackRock range which are compliant with the requirements of RDR, with a management commission of 0.20%.

The private bank Julius Bär has merged its activities in Italy for the asset management firm Kairos. In exchange, the Zurich-based group has received a 20% stake in the new firm. According to Finews, in the long term, Julius Bär may increase its stake or even acquire the new firm entirely.

The Turin-based asset management firm Ersel Gestioni di Patrimoni has recruited Gianluca Oderda as head of quantitative investments, Investment Europe reports. Oderda had previously been head of multi-asset & total return at Pictet Asset Management, where he spent ten years.

The board of directors at UniCredit on 10 July adopted a decentralised structure, discontinuing efforts to create a pan-European division. The private bank, retail bank and SME bank will be organized locally in Itally, Germany, Austria and Poland. However, the COO and asset management division will retain their current prerogatives worldwide.