Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB) on 2 April announced a reshuffle and apopintments which particularly affect Lyxor Asset Management, which is now directly under the direction of SG CIB. This development allows Lyxor Am to “continue its development as a top-raking asset management firm in the areas of alternative management, ETFs, structured and quantitative management,” a statement says, adding that Inès de Dinechin, CEO of Lyxor AM, is joining the extended executive committee at SG CIB. Richard Paolantonacci, head of the newly-created Management of Rare Resources department, Vincent Mortier, CFO, and Sylvie Préa, director of human resources, are also newly-appointed. The Financing and Investment Bank will continue to be organised around its three major professions: investment banking, financing, and market activities. In these three divisions, SG CIB is making the following changes and appointments, effective from 2 April: In the Client Relations and Investment Banking division, led by Thierry Aulagnon and his deputy, Diony Lebot: two new departments are created, including Primary Equity Capital Markets and Merger and Acquisition Advising activities, and dedicated to client segments. A department of Corporate Finance, led by Thierry d’Argent, offers major clients of the bank a complete range of services from origination to execution. Luis Vaz Pinto and Olivier Buttier are appointed as deputies. A Financial Institutions department, led by Pierre-Yves Bonnet, will include a ream of bankers serving financial institutions. In the Global Finance division, led by Pierre Palmieri and his deputies, Slawonir Krupa and David Coxon: an organisation oriented to distribution and favouring synergies. Creation of a Financing professional area, led by Matthew Vickerstaff. This professional area includes Infrastructure and Asset Financing, Expore Financing and Debt Optimisation. Creation of an Energy and Natural Resources professional area, co-directed by Federico Turegano and Jonathan Whitehead. The professional area includes the Financing activities in the Energy sector, Commodity Trading, Metals and Mines, and will work closely with the team in Commodities Markets in the Market Activities division. Creation of a Capital Markets professional area, led by Patrick Ménard and his deputy, Jean-Marc Giraud. This professional area includes the Capital Markets Finance (securitisation and capital structuring) activities, Capital Debt Markets, Ratings Advising, Leveraged Financing and Media & Telecom, Strategic Acquisition Financing and Financial Engineering. In the Market Activities division, led by Dan Fields: Fixed Income activities are scaled up. Creation of a Fixed Income & Currencies professional area, created by merging the Fixed Income, Treasury and Fixed Income and Currency Derivatives, led by Danielle Sindzingre. For commodity market activities, Jonathan Whitehead has been appointed Head of these activities in the Market Activities division, assisted by François Combes and Jean-François Maurey.

Florian Uleer, who had been head of banking and business clients for “A deposits” at Union Investment Institutional, has joined Schroders Germany as head of distribution for banks and funds of funds, replacing Alexander Prawitz.Prawitz has been transferred to the global financial solutions group Asia in Hong Kong, to assist international and local banking clients as well as strategic distribution partners.Uleer will report to Joachim Nareike, director of distribution at Schroders Investment Management GmbH.

The Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild group has seen a decline in its net profits of 16.6% in 2011, to CHF125.1m, compared with CHF149.9m one year previously, according to a statement released on 3 April. Net inflows totalled CHF3.2bn, compared with CHF6.5bn in 2010. Due to the negative impact of markets and the weak US dollar and euro compared with the Swiss franc, assets under management nonetheless fell to CHF91.4bn as of the end of 201, compared with CHF92.7bn as of the end of December 2010.

The Valartis group, which last year continued to refocus its activities on wealth management for high net worth private clients and institutional investors, has reported a quadrupling of its net inflows to CHF862m, compared with CHF220m the previous year. Despite negative market and currency effects totalling CHF304m, assets under management have increased to CHF6.8bn as of the end of December 2011, compared with CHF6.3bn one year previously. Due to one-time elements related to the restructuring, the group has now finished the year with total losses of CHF17.2bn, Valartis, which reduced its costs by 7% last year, is planning to continue its efforts to rationalise its organisation in order to sustainably restore its growth model.

Thomas Henauer, director, head of sales financial institutions at Clariden Leu (a private bank which since 2 April has been integrated into the Credit Suisse group), has joined Janus Capital International as director of distribution for Switzerland. The US asset management firm is taking the occasion to open an office in Zurich.Henauer will now report to Thomas Döring, head of sales for German-speaking Europe.

Jeremy Soulter, global head of products at Aviva Investors, has left the business following a restructuring, Investment Week reports. His duties will be taken over by the product strategy and product development teams.

Martin Gilbert, CEO of Aberdeen Asset Mangement, has sold GBP771,000 worth of shares in the firm, with the proceeds of the sale to be reinvested in funds managed by Aberdeen, Investment Week reports. Assets at Aberdeen as of 29 February totalled GBP184.4bn, compared with GBP173.9bn as of the end of December 2011.

EFG Private Bank, the British affiliate of WFG International, has appointed Daniel Gerber as Managing Director and Head of Private Banking, effective from 2 July 2012. Gerber will chair the management committee and the board of directors at EFG Private Bank, according to a statement published on 2 April. Gerber will report to Anthony Cooke-Yarborough, CEO of the affiliate of EFG International for the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands, which includes EFG Private Bank, EFG Harris Allday and EFG Independent Financial Advisers. Gerber previuosly served as Chief Executive Officer at Julius Baer International in London.

Investment Week reports that Standard Life Investments (SLI), seeking to focus on its range of actively-managed funds, has sold its range of six OEIC tracker funds to Vanguard Asset Management. In addition, SLI will be closing the Unit Linked UK Equity Tracker Fund from Standard Life Insurance. Assets in the fund transferred to Vanguard nearly all come from Standard Life.

Nearly half of all European Union member states, 13 out of 27, have not yet adopted national legislation to comply with the tax dispositions of the UCITS IV directive, according to an updated version of a study published by KPMG in 2010 entitled “UCITS IV – Fill the glass to the brim: Have we broken through?” Hedge Week reports. Among the countries which would have been required to transpose the directive by 1 July 2011 are Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, and Portugal.

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global hedge fund trade association, in 2 April expressed concern about the European Commission’s new draft text for the implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) (see Newsmanagers of 30 March). In response to the recommendations by the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA), the Commission has developed a text in the form of a regulation, which may be applied more quickly than a directive. The Commission has given member states and the Parliament two weeks to react to the new bill. According to the director general of the AIMA, Andrew Baker, the Commission’s bill appears to “to significantly and substantially diverge” from ESMA’s proposals on a number of key points, such as the responsibility of the depository, outsourcing, and outside countries. “We fully respect the Commission’s right not to follow ESMA advice when producing secondary legislation. However, there should be more transparency and better consultation if the Commission has decided to depart from the advice in such crucial areas for the global asset management industry.” The professional association invites the Commission to state its point of view on the terms concerning outside countries, where it does not appear to follow ESMA’s recommendations. According to the Commission, European and non-European regulators should sign legally binding bilateral cooperation agreements. This would be very problematic or impossible to put into practice if regulations stipulate that cooperation agreements require that regulators in outside countries apply European legislation in their respective territories.

Activity has been lively in March, but for first quarter as a whole, initial public offerings have raised only USD16.2bn, the lowest amount observed since 2009, according to statistics from Bloomberg. In fourth quarter 2011, IPOs represnted a total of USD28.8bn, and in first quarter 2011, total IPOs measured USD48.4bn. Renaissance Capital observes that expected IPOs in the United States are close to their highest level in over 10 years. However, in recent weeks, some interest in activity in the United States, Asia and Europe has returned. In the United States, nine companies raised USD1.4bn in the week to 30 March.

Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has sold the Luisacenter shopping centre in Darmstadt (19,000 square metres) to LaSalle Investment management for about EUR104m. UIRE bought the property in December 2003. Management of the shopping centre will continue to be provided by ECE.A statement says UIRE took advantage of an attractive moment to sell the property, which belongs to a category currently in strong demand from investors.

DWS Investment (Deutsche Bank group) has had to freeze redemptions of its ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat fund of funds, with assets of EUR101.5m. Five other funds of this type have already been required to do likewise, as eight open-ended real estate funds are now in the liquidation process, and six others have recently announced that they are extending redemption freezes. As the DWS ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat is largely invested in open-ended real estate funds whose redemptions are suspended, the available liquidity is not sufficient to meet redemption demands, except by selling off assets at a loss and a disadvantage to shareholders. Overall, the DWS ImmoFlex Vermögensmandat is invested in 10 open-ended real estate funds, which hold about 500 properties.

Deutsche Börse announced on 2 April that four German-registered ETFs of the iShares brand have been admitted to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform. The XTF segment now lists 956 funds. Three new funds replicate S&P indices of commodity producers, while the fourth tracks an MSCI index of industrial shares. Characteristics Name: iShares S&P Commodity Producers GoldISIN code: DE000A1JS9D8Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Gold IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares S&P Commodity Producers Oil & GasISIN code: DE000A1JS9C0Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Oil & Gas Exploration & Production IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares S&P Commodity Producers AgribusinessISIN code: DE000A1JS9B2Benchmark index: S&P Commodity Producers Agribusiness IndexTER: 0.55%CharacteristicsName: iShares MSCI ACWIISIN code: DE000A1JS9A4Benchmark index: MSCI All Country World IndexTER: 0.60%

PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory has sought to put a figure on the consequences of the UCITS IV directive on the six major Italian (or Italian-registered) groups, which manage a total of EUR231bn at 42 asset management firms affiliated to them, Plus24, the wealth supplement of Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. This represents 1,101 funds, of which 21% are Italian-registered, 54% are Italian but registered abroad, and 25% are foreign. PwC finds two potential outcomes. One is that six group will retain one asset management firm each in Italy or abroad. There would then be an 83% reduction in the number of asset management firms, from 42 to 7. In the second case, the six groups might merge asset management firms in countries of reference and specialist centres (Luxembourg and Ireland). Then, the reduction in the number of asset management firms would be 50%. This development would take place over three years, and PwC predicts that there would be a parallel reduction of 30% in the number of funds, from 1,010 to 731.

Proposées par les BFI, et dans une moindre mesure par les asset managers, les options de couverture des risques permettent de réduire l’exigence de fonds propres. La Sham a étudié des scénarios où un risque important se matérialise sur ses actifs. Elle souhaite construire elle-même (avec l’aide d’un consultant en finance) des stratégies de couverture, « mais nous ne les avons pas encore mises en ??uvre car aujourd’hui tout le monde cherche à se protéger contre les mêmes risques (baisse brutale du marché actions, hausse brutale des taux obligataires ), ce qui rend les couvertures très chères » note Dominique Godet, le directeur général de la Sham. Sur les produits structurés, les asset managers proposent des offres proches de celles des BFI. Ces produits financiers effrayent certains investisseurs : « Des banques ou des asset managers nous proposent des produits structurés qui sont moins consommateurs en fonds propres que les actifs sous-jacents, décrit Dominique Godet. Ce type de produits ne m’intéresse pas car le risque intrinsèque demeure. Si un sous-jacent me coûte trop cher en fonds propres, je préfère y renoncer. »

Le numéro un mondial de la gestion d’infrastructures se prépare à lever 2 milliards de dollars cette année pour son troisième fonds dédié aux Etats-Unis et au Canada, a rapporté Reuters de sources proches du dossier. Son deuxième fonds dédié, de 1,6 milliard de dollars, est totalement investi. Fin septembre, le groupe disposait de 317 milliards de dollars d’actifs sous gestion.

La société est sortie victorieuse de la bataille pour VIP Commodities, permettant la mise sur pied d’une équipe spécialisée sur le courtage du coton. «Nous pensons que c’est un bon assemblage», a déclaré Louis Barbera, l’un des trois courtiers de VIP Commodities. «Ils ont une base de clientèle élargie», a-t-il ajouté, soulignant que l’opération devrait permettre à la société de développer ses activités de dérivés, notamment OTC.

Le régulateur américain des contrats à terme accuse Royal Bank of Canada d’avoir mis en œuvre au moins entre juin 2007 et mai 2010 un ensemble de transactions de plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars entre différentes filiales dans un but uniquement fiscal. RBC a «énergiquement» démenti les accusations de la CFTC, estimant notamment que les opérations concernées avaient été réalisées en toute transparence auprès des régulateurs.

Le principal fonds ouvert de DoubleLine, gestionnaire d’actifs fondé par l’ancien gérant vedette de TCW, affiche pour le premier trimestre 2012 une collecte nette de 6,4 milliards de dollars, selon les données préliminaires publiées par Morningstar. Le montant total des actifs sous gestion de la société passe en trois mois de 22 à 31 milliards.

La société de données financières a fait l’acquisition de Data Explorers Limited, qui fournit à une base de données de clients internationaux une évaluation quantitative quant à la rentabilité et aux risques du prêt-emprunt de titres. La transaction s’est effectuée auprès du fonds de private equity Bowmark Capital. Les modalités financières n’ont pas été précisées.

L’autorité de régulation comptable de Hong Kong mène une enquête sur plusieurs sociétés chinoises cotées sur la Bourse locale concernant des suspicions de fraudes, indique le South China Morning Post qui cite la présidente de l’autorité, Sophia Kao. La démission de certains auditeurs et le report de la publication des résultats de plusieurs sociétés chinoises auraient alerté les autorités.

De source non identifiée, le South China Morning Post avance que la chute du leader politique local de Chongqing Bo Xilai aurait «bouleversé les règles du jeu». Le fonds texan serait ainsi disposé à transférer quelque 4 milliards de yuans, l’équivalent de près de 480 millions d’euros, récoltés en vue d’être investis à Chongqing vers Pékin et Shanghai.

L'opérateur boursier compte se lancer sur le marché des différentiels de cours et vise 250 millions de dollars d’économies annuelles d’ici 2014

Les valorisations relatives sont aujourd’hui plus favorables aux actions, y compris aux Etats-Unis

Les ministres des Finances de l'Union demandent à Bruxelles de revoir sa copie sur l'idée d'une rotation tous les trois ou six ans des agences

L'Esma a estimé que la plate-forme répondait aux exigences de transparence prénégociation contenues dans la directive MIF

Ils reprochent à la Commission de ne pas suivre le régulateur européen, l'Esma, sur la directive AIFM

Ils reprochent à la Commission de ne pas suivre le régulateur européen, l'Esma, sur la directive AIFM