The name of the Liontrust funds «CF Walker Crips UK Growth,” «CF Walker Crips Equity Income» and «CF Walker Crips UK Hight Alpha funds» have been changed to «CF Liontrust Macro UK Growth,» «CF Liontrust Macro Equity Income» and «CF Liontrust Macro UK Hight Alpha funds» respectively, a statement announced yesterday. The decision follows the acqusition of Walker Crips Asset Managers Limited (WCAM) by Liontrust Asset Management PLC on 12 April 2012. The funds in question will continue to be managed by Stephen Bailey and Jan Luthman.

Demand by hedge fund managers for solutions from third party marketers (TPM) is on the rise, according to Agecroft Partners, Investment Europe reports. This development is reportedly related to small and mid-sized hedge funds, which with the financial crisis, have become aware of the importance of distribution and marketing of their product ranges via TPM providers. Between third quarter 2008 and 2010, net inflows in the hedge fund sector have remained concentrated on a small group of actors whose assets under management total over USD5bn. But from 2011, mid-sized structures have managed to drive their brands and compete with major alternative management actors, Agecroft Partners observes.

Alstom and the Strategic Investment Fund (FSI) on 11 June announced in a joint statement that they are taking over Translohr, a guided bus manufacturing affiliate of the Alsacian business Lohr, for a total of EUR35m. Alstom and the FSI have announced in a joint statement that they are taking over 51% and 49%, respectively, of capital in Translohr as part of an agreement which will be finalised “at the conclusion of current procedures, information processes and approval by the relevant authorities.” The Lohr grou[, based in Duppingheim (lower Rhine), has a total of 940 employees, and submitted its balance sheet on 4 June. The future of the business, which is facing debts of EUR94m and earnings which have fallen to one third of their 2008 levels since the onset of the economic crisis, is the subject of negotiations with the productivity recovery ministry.

About 10% of the total wealth of high net worth retail investors are held in the form of precious metals, according to a study published on 11 June in Geneva in the Barclays Wealth Insights series. This figure is 18% for high net worth invetors in the United Arab Emirates.In Brazil, China and Singapore, precious objects represent an average of one sixth of total wealth, while the percentage is lower in Switzerland (6%), the United Kingdom (7%) and India (3%). For its survey, the bank spoke to 2000 high net worth retail clients worldwide. One third of them have confirmed that they currently have a larger range of precious objects than five years ago.Despite growing public interest in collectible objects and record prices at auctions, the report finds that investors are more likely to buy assets for sentimental than financial reasons. 62% of precious objects owned by respondents worldwide were bought for pleasure, compared with 60% in Switzerland, as much as 79% in Monaco and 75% in the United Arab Emirates.Greg Davies, head of the department dedicated to behavioural finance at Barclays, remarks that “it is a good idea to be prudent before considering assets as a direct alternative to traditional asset classes, given that they carry numerous risks, ranging from insurance and maintenance costs to the subjective nature of markets.”

With Global Markets Intelligence (GMI), S&P Capital IQ has created an advisory operation which provides asset managers with risk-based, non-discretionary services for equity and fixed portfolio strategies, asset allocation and fund review. Currently, GMI advises assets totalling USD18bn. The new service is distributed by S&P Investment Advisory Services in the United States, and by McGraw Hill Research Europe Ltd in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, relying on the proprietary resources of S&P Captial IQ in data, analysis and research. The characteristic of GMI is that its methodologies integrate risk mitigation as a core element, and not as a separate overlay, a statement released on 11 June states.

The combined forces of disappointing employment data in the US and another week of no clear policy consensus in Europe, along with the fear that Chinese economic growth is slowing faster than previously thought, rattled global markets and encouraged investors to stay on course with the current bond buying spree while continuing to dump equities.In the week ending June 6 EPFR global tracked fixed income funds absorbed another USD3.4 billion of inflows, their 31st consecutive weekly inflow and extending YTD total inflows to about USD190 billion, a pace that is set to break the full year inflow record set in 2010.Investors were retreating from the perceived higher risk of equities as they made net withdrawals of USD7.6 billion from Equity Funds during the week, the second strongest weekly outflow this year.Meanwhile, money market Funds attracted nearly USD9 billion of net inflows, but it was only European based investors feeling the love for this cash equivalent and ultra-low yielding fund vehicle, pumping in nearly USD13 billion of net inflows while US domiciled Money Market Funds saw another week of substantial withdrawals. So far this year Europe domiciled funds have taken in about USD38 billion of net inflows while the US domiciled funds have seen USD107 billion of redemptions.

In May, equity funds on sale in Sweden for the second consecutive month have recorded net outflows, totalling SEK9.7bn, or EUR1.09bn, according to the most recent statistics from Fondbolagens Förening, the Swedish investment fund association. Outflows form equities profited bond and money market funds, which posted net inflows of SEK4bn (EUR0.45bn) and SEK4.6bn (EUR0.52bn), respectively. Balanced funds, meanwhile, have seen inflows of SEK1.1bn (EUR0.12bn). These inflows, however, were not enough to compensate for overall redemptions, as funds on sale in Sweden saw outflows of SEK0.7bn (EUR0.08bn). As of the end of May, Swedish funds managed a total of SEK1.892trn (EUR213bn), of which SEK998bn (EUR112.4bn) were in equity funds.

Assets under management in the ETF sector in Europe in this year’s first quarter rose by 8.71% to EUR250.81bn, according to statistics from Lipper. For 2011 as a whole, assets under management rose 3.75%.In Q1 2012 equity ETFs saw inflows of over EUR3 billion in new assets under management, followed by EUR1.5 billion into bond funds and EUR770 million into commodity funds. Money market ETFs experienced outflows of over EUR90 million.In Q1 2012, 62 ETFs were launched - half in the equity space. 19 bond funds were launched in the first quarter, but these have gathered 63% of assets among new ETFs. Inflows to new ETFS totalled EUR490m in first quarter, of which EUR311m were for bond ETFs, and EUR102m for equity ETFs.Lipper reports that out of the 1,711 ETFs registered for sale in Europe, 241 funds may be on a so-called ETF “Death List”, in other words under review for profitability reasons by fund promoters. These funds are older than 3 years, but have less than €100 million in assets.

Andreas Kuschmann, head of investment consulting & product marketing for Europe at Invesco Asset Management, will be joining the managing board at Feri EuroRating Services, alongside Tobias Schmidt, chairman, and Matthias Klöpper.Kuschmann will be responsible for developing relationships with institutional and retail clients, and for enlarging the portfolio of products and services, particularly in the area of systematic selection of products and managers.

Norbert Braems, chief economist at Sal. Oppenheim (Deutsche Bank group), has decided to leave his position on 1 July, while remaining as senior economic adviser to the private bank. His role will be held in the interim by Frank Hübner, head of the economics department.By January 2013 at the latest, his successor will be Martin Moryson, who has most recently been director of corporate advisory at HSH Nordbank, after serving as adviser to institutional investors at Feri Institutional Mangement, and as head of empirical research and econometric analysis for the German Council of the Wise.

In only seven years, the French asset management boutique Comgest has built up assets under management in Germany of EUR2.5bn, which is a good result considering that Comgest invests exclusively in equities, while Germans are particularly circumspect about this asset class, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The sales team led by Christoph Zitt is convincing because Comgest practices stock-picking for shares likely to be successful in the long term, without frequent modifications to the portfolio, and because there has been no change of fund managers for 25 years.In Düsseldorf, the five institutional sales staff at Comgest cover the German, Austrian, Swiss and Luxembourg markets.

The Boston-based Putnam Investmnts (USD124bn in assets as of the end of April) has announced the opening of a representative office in Beijing, which will be directed by Michael Luo, formerly of Invesco Great Wall, where he helped to set up a fixed income team, has he had previously done at China Investment Corporation. Luo will report directly to Joseph T. Phoenix, head of global institutional management.The Beijing office will be in charge of establishing and managing relationships with government and private institutions in China. Luo will also be responsible for developing Putnam’s long-term strategy in the country.

The board of directors at the banking group Valartis has appointed Vincenzo Di Pierri as CEO of Valartis Bank AG Switzerland. He succeeds Daniel Reptsis, who took over the position for the interim following the departure of Stefan Holzer in May, according to a statement published on 11 June by Valartis. Reptsis will concentrate on his role as chief financial and risk officer for the finance & risk and banking operations units.Di Pierri worked from 2003 to 2011 at Privat Bank Finter, as CEO. Currently, he is head of the Italian chamber of commerce for Switzerland (CCIS).Valartis, formerly a simple brokerage firm, has recently refocused on wealth management. Its assets under management total about CHF6.8bn.

The Gonet private bank has appointed Alex Jagmetti as head of its activities in Asia. Following the opening of the Gonet Asia Pte Ltd company in Singapore in November last year, the group has strengthened its involvement in Asia and is now entering a new phase in its development. Jagmetti has 10 years of experience in Asia, where he has served as Managing Director at HSBC and then at UBS, before becoming head of Asia-Pacific at Falcon Private Bank.

The US firm Franklin Templeton has transformed its division dedicated to real estate into a unit dedicated to real assets, Asian Investor reports. With this prospect in mind, Franklin Templeton is currently recruiting infrastructure specialists (energy, water, transportation, agriculture) and sources close to the firm indicate that Franklin Templeton is also preparing an infrastructure fund. Franklin Templeton had no commend on the reports. Assets under management in real assets, for the moment composed largely of real estate, total nearly USD5bn.

The alternative asset management firm SAC Capital, whose assets under management total about USD14bn, has recruited Louis Villa as a portfolio manager, Reuters reports. Villa previously worked at Edoma Partners, the fund founded by a former Goldman Sachs manager, Pierre-Henri Flamand, which has not performed terribly well since its launch in 2010. Villa left his position at Edoma in April. The event-driven hedge fund from Edoma, whose assets total about USD1.8bn, lost 0.85% in first quarter 2012, which puts its losses since launch at 3.1%. On average, event-driven strategies earned 4.62% in first quarter.

Pergam, an independent asset management firm founded in 2001 by Olivier Combastet, is now adding a third element to its activity, alongside mandates and private equity: Erik Alme, director of management and private clients, and Caroline Gaudry, partner and bond manager, have told Newsmanagers that the firm is now entering collective management, with the launch of a first fund on 13 June, entitled Pergam Obligations 2017. It is a target date fund (30 June 2017), which received a sales license from the AMF on 9 May.With Obligations 2017, Pergam is offering a French-registered fund which will allocate at least 80% of its portfolio to investment grade securities (currently 84%), while the remainder is divided between an “upper segment” of high yield and unrated assets. The portfolio (40 holdings) will initially contain no financial sector or automotive sector investments, nor securities from issuers whose headquarters are in Greece. The bonds selected are from issues of EUR500m or more, and have no currency risks. For the first fund, Pergam is aiming for performance higher than those the French govie OAT maturing on 25 April 2017, for a net return of nearly 4% under current conditions. The product offers weekly liquidity, and subscriptions will close on 31 October.The declared inflow objective is EUR50m. Management is outsourced to Aviva Investors, which has a credit research team with 40 analysts. The asset management firm currently has assets of about EUR800m, about half of which is in mandates (2/3 equities from outside Europe and 40% European bonds) and private equity (agricultural land, US real estate and rolling stock, among others). The objective, including the collective management unit, is to have a total of EUR1bn in assets under management in all three professions in three years, and EUR1.2bn in five years.CharacteristicsName: Pergam Obligations 2017ISIN codes:FR0011223106 (C share class)FR0011223114 (D share class)Front-end fee: noneManagement commission: 0.80%Withdrawal penalty:1% until 31 October 20120.5% from 1 November 2012 to 30 June 2014, inclusive; none thereafter

Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers on 11 June announced the launch of a new target date bond fund which allows investors to benefit from current opportunities on credit markets: Edmond de Rothschild (EdR) Millésima 2018. Edmond de Rothschild (EdR) Millésima 2018 – Major characteristics End of sales period: 17 December 2012 ISIN codes: C share class (retail): FR0011252360 ; I share class (institutional): FR0011255207 Liquidity: Daily AMF classification: Bonds and other securities denominated in euros Currency: euro Benchmark: OAT maturing in October 2018 Recommended investment duration: until 31 October 2018 Financial management fees: C share class: maximum 0.95%; I share class: maximum 0.45% Performance commission: None

The hedge fund industry may more than double in size in the next five years, to more than USD5trn in assets, according to a recent Citigroup study cited by the Wall Street Journal. Hedge funds may attract USD2trn in new subscriptions, due to enlargements of their product ranges to make them able to compete with traditional asset management firms. Pension funds and institutional investors may invest a further USD1trn as they adjust to the various risks posed by hedge funds.

Fidelity Worldwide, BlackRock and Norges Bank Investment Management are the best asset management firms for active engagement with businesses in which they invest to earn long-term shareholder value, according to a survey of 780 selected companies in Europe and the United Kingdom, cited by Financial Times Fund Management. The top three finish ahead of four US asset management firms: Capital International, JPMorgan, Wellington and Capital Research Global Investors.

European mid-sized asset management firms are in fragile financial health, and will be under increasing pressure from dominant asset management firms, according to a study by McKinsey & Co, cited by Financial Times Fund Management. European groups in the top quartile increased their share of profits in the sector from 50% to 58% between 2007 and 2011, and this percentage may rise to 70% by next year.

The Swiss private bankVontobel on 11 June announced the launch of a fund dedicated tocorporate bonds, the Vontobel Fund - High Yield Bond, which willallow investors to earn revenues comparable to those from equities,with lower risk and volatility.The new fund offersinvestors access to a wide range of high yield corporate bonds, withratings ranging form BB+ to CCC-. With a return objcctive of 5% to 9%per year (considered over a complete economic cycle), the fund isseeking to earn revenues comparable to those of equities, and thus ishoping to achieve protection against inflation, while presentinglower volatility and risk than shares which servei dividends.Additional returns compared with government bonds, which have highersolvency levels, are offset by credit risks.Name of fundVontobel Fund – High Yield Bond Benchmark indexCustomized Merrill Lynch High Yield, 50% EUR et50% USD hedgedCurrency of fundEURCountry of domicileLuxembourgEnd of financial yearAugustDate of launch11 June 2012Portfolio managerStefan ChappotISIN numberB: LU0571066462 I: LU0571066975(exclusively for institutional investors)Management commissions per year1.10% (B), 0.55% (I)

UK asset management firms are pushing major banks and businesses to reform their practices in the area of pay scales, the Financial Times reports. Fidelity Worldwide Investment, Standard Life Investments and Hermes Equity Ownership Services are encourging remuneration committees to model their long-term incentive plans on those rolled out by HSBC, which require the top 100 employees on the pay scale to hold onto the shares issued to them under long-term plans until they leave the bank.

The wealth management firm Vestra, based in London and Jersey, has appointed David Campbell as managing partner. Campbell previously worked at Deutsche Bank, where he was director of the British wealth management unit. Assets under management at Vestra total about GBP2.5bn.

The alternative asset management firm Man Group on 11 June announced that the ETF Man GLG Europe Plus Source, launched in January 2011, topped USD565m in assets on 31 May 2012. That makes it one of the largest ETFs in the world seeking to outperform an equity index. It is also one of the most attractive European ETF funds in 2012, both in terms of performance and inflows.The ETF replicates the Man GLG Europe Plus index, created by Man Systematic Strategies (MSS). The index is a long-only total return equity index, designed to capture outperformance through recommendations from brokers on behalf of Man GLG.The exposure of the Man GLG Europe Plus index to large caps is near that of the European equity market overall, while also presenting potential for optimised performance. Between the creation of the index on 30 December 2010 and 30 April 2012, the Man GLG Europe Plus index has outperformed the MSCI Europe by 2.1%. Since 2007, MSS has a managed account, which is based on a similar strategy and provides a track record for the index. Between its launch on 31 December 2007 and 30 april 2012, the performance of the strategy exceeds that of the MSCI Europe index by 13.2%, or 2.9% in annualised figures.

India may be the first of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to lose its status as an investment grade country (BBB-) Standard & Poor’s announced on 11 June, two months after putting the rating on a negative watch. “The slowdown in GDP growth and political obstacles to economic decisions are among the factors which are increasing risk, and may see India lost its investment grade rating,” the ratings agency says. Growth in Indian GDP totalled 5.3% in first quarter, the lowest level in nine years, and “inability to more extensively liberalise the economy may reduce long-term growth potential for India, and thus affect its sovereign rating,” Standard & Poor’s indicates.

Fin 2011, les encours sous gestion s'élevaient à 26,7 milliards d’euros, dont 15,7 milliards d’euros d’actifs liés au démantèlement de sites nucléaires, 7,3 milliards d’euros d'épargne retraite. L’allocation d’actifs retenue depuis 2007 pour le portefeuille dédié à la couverture des engagements nucléaires est de 50% en actions et 50% en obligations. La décision de faire évoluer cette répartition est prise directement par la division de la gestion d’actifs qui en délègue ensuite la gestion. Bernard Descreux, directeur de la division gestion d’actifs chez EDF dans un entretien paru dans Option Finance numéro 1175: Dans le cadre de la retraite, nous sélectionnons les assureurs et les sociétés de gestion. Les premiers mettent en place les contrats de retraite tandis que les secondes s’occupent de l’allocation d’actifs, qui est composée en moyenne de 70% d’obligations et de 30% d’actions. Nous travaillons avec une dizaine d’assureurs et de sociétés de gestion, ce qui nous permet de bien répartir les risques et de diversifier le portefeuille car nous sélectionnons des gérants avec des approches de gestion différentes. Pour ce qui est de notre allocation d’actifs, nous comptons ouvrir davantage nos investissements dans les pays émergents, et nous étudions également la possibilité d’investir en immobilier, même si nous ne sommes pas exposés pour le moment à cette classe d’actifs.

Au mois de mai, les nouveaux prêts octroyés par les banques chinoises ont atteint 793,2 milliards de yuans, contre 681,8 milliards en avril. La proportion de prêts à moyen et long terme est passée de 28% en avril à 34% en mai, indiquant que les crédits «ont probablement un impact légèrement meilleur sur l'économie» selon Frances Cheung, économiste chez CA-CIB.

Le gouvernement japonais doit impérativement faire voter la loi sur l’augmentation de la TVA dans le cadre de son plan de réforme fiscal afin de démontrer sa volonté de respecter ses engagements en matière budgétaire, a estimé le FMI dans un rapport rendu public ce matin. Et l’institution d’ajouter que la crise européenne devrait entrainer une appréciation du yen à un niveau qui menace les perspectives de croissance.

Le gouverneur de la Banque du Japon, Masaaki Shirakawa, a indiqué qu’il était «impératif que chaque économie influente d’Asie maintienne un niveau suffisant de flexibilité de son taux de change». Un manque de flexibilité pouvant conduire à de forts mouvements dans les flux de capitaux.