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27/03/2012

Philippe Lecomte quitte Schroders France

Philippe Lecomte, directeur général de Schroders France, va quitter la société de gestion. Il devrait réapparaitre assez prochainement - fin avril début mai - au sein d’un autre établissement. Selon nos informations, il pourrait s’agir de La Française AM où il prendrait une responsabilité à l’international. Philippe Lecomte avait rejoint Schroders en 2003. Au sein du groupe britannique, Nuno Teixeira, actuel directeur général adjoint et responsable du développement de l’ensemble des clientèles de Schroders en France depuis un an, est appelé à le remplacer. Il prendra officiellement la direction des équipes basées à Paris dans le courant du mois d’avril.Selon John Troiano, responsable de l’activité institutionnelle de Schroders au niveau mondial et qui supervise Schroders France, Nuno Texeira, qui a contribué au développement de la clientèle institutionnelle en France, doit désormais poursuivre la croissance des activités de Schroders dans l’Hexagone, tant pour les institutionnels que vers la clientèle intermédiée. «Depuis trois ans, la dynamique est clairement du côté des institutionnels», a confirmé à Newsmanagers, le nouveau directeur général de Schroders France, «mais nous avons clairement pour ambition de poursuivre le développement des deux pôles institutionnels et retail». Nuno Texeira est arrivé chez Schroders France en 2003, neuf mois plus tôt que Philippe Lecomte. Avant de rejoindre Schroders France, il occupait la fonction de directeur général adjoint et responsable de l’équipe multigestion chez Invesco Gestion (France) depuis 1997.
27/03/2012

Baisse de 43% du bonus de Frédéric Oudéa au titre de 2011

Selon un document publié sur le site internet de l'établissement, la rémunération variable du PDG de la Société Générale au titre de l’exercice 2011 s'élève à 682.770 euros, en baisse de 43% par rapport à 2010, rapporte L’Agefi. Frédéric Oudéa va par ailleurs percevoir un fixe d’un million d’euros auquel s’ajoutent 300.000 euros «en compensation de la perte de tous ses droits au régime de retraite bénéficiant à l’ensemble des cadres hors classification du groupe». La totalité de la rémunération variable annuelle sera différée pour les dirigeants mandataires sociaux, précise le quotidien.
27/03/2012

Threadneedle lance un fonds en Italie

Threadneedle vient de lancer en Italie le US Contrarian Core Equities Fund, rapporte Bluerating. Ce fonds de droit luxembourgeois est géré par Guy W Pop, managing director et gérant de Columbia Management.
27/03/2012
Gestion d'actifs

L'UFF sélectionne un gérant de private equity pour lancer un FCPI

UFF Innovation 14 est un nouveau Fonds Commun de Placement dans l’Innovation (FCPI) qui offre aux clients de l’UFF un des rares accès aux entreprises non cotées. Le FCPI UFF Innovation 14 a comme objectif d’investir 100% de son actif dans des sociétés innovantes principalement non cotées, particulièrement dans les secteurs de l'énergie, des technologies de l’information et des sciences de la vie. Le FCPI investira un minimum de 40% de son actif en actions de PME éligibles. Les 60% restants seront principalement investis en obligations classiques, BSA et en avances en compte courant dans des PME éligibles en croissance, qui cherchent des solutions de financement non-dilutif à moyen terme. Le FCPI UFF Innovation 14 sera géré par l'équipe de Truffle Capital.
Gestion d'actifs
27/03/2012

InverCaixa + Banca Civica Gestión = EUR17.5bn

The acquisition of Banca Civica by La Caixa will result in a merger of Invercaixa (EUR15.5bn in assets as of the end of February) with Banca Civica Gestión de Activos (EUR2.05bn), Funds People reports. Of this total of EUR17.5bn, guaranteed funds investing primarily in bonds represent a volume of EUR9.76bn, and bond funds represent nearly EUR3.75bn.
27/03/2012

Barclays teams up with Allfunds in the Premier segment

With “Barclays Gestión de Carteras Premier,” Barclays Spain is launching a new discretionary, unit-linked wealth management service, Funds People reoprts. The product, aimed at clients with financial savings of at least EUR50,000, the so-called “Premier” segment, will be available from the Allfunds Bank platform, with which Barclays has signed a partnership to sell the best funds from the ranges of Barclays Wealth, JPMorgan AM, BlackRock and Franklin Templeton.
27/03/2012

Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild recruits a manager from La Caixa

The Spanish branch of Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Europe has recruited Jaime O’Donnell to manage high net worth clients from its Madrid office, Funds People reports. O’Donnell had most recently been at La Caixa Banca Privada, after spending 5 years at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Group and working at Franklin Templeton Investments in California.
27/03/2012

Espirito Santo recruits bankers from Deutsche Bank

José Ignacio Ruiz-Garna, Fernando Coscollar, Diego Martínez and Daniel Alonso, private bankers from Deutsche Bank in Spain, have joined Banco Espirito Santo, which is recruiting for its own retail and private banking division in the country, Funds People reports.Banco Espirito Santo has 115 wealth management banking advisers (for clients with EUR25,000 to EUR1m) and private banking advisers (for those with over EUR1m). Its affiliate Espirito Santo Gestión manages 83 Sicavs and 48 funds with EUR1.5bn in assets.
27/03/2012

Threadneedle launches a fund in Italy

Threadneedle has launched the US Contrarian Core Equities Fund in Italy, Bluerating reports. The Luxembourg-registered fund is managed by Guy W. Pop, managing director and portfolio manager at Columbia Management.
27/03/2012

Azimut hopes to increase foreign assets to EUR2.7bn

The Italian asset management firm Azimut is planning to reach EUR2.7bn in assets under management outside Italy by 2014, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. Currently, counting the firm’s assets in Monaco, Switzerland and Turkey, “foreign” assets are slightly under EUR1bn. Azimut is also reportedly interested in Brazil. In Italy, Azimut would like to increase its market share, currently 3.3%. In order to achieve that, the firm is planning to make acquisitions and may have EUR240m to EUR250m to spend, the Italian newspaper calculates. Assets under management at Azimut totalled EUR17.67bn last year; it is planning to increase this to EUR27bn by 2014.
27/03/2012

Vanguard manages more than USD200bn in ETFs

Vanguard has seen an increase in its ETF activities in the United States to USD204bn, even though it arrived late to this market, Financial Times Fund Management observes. The group, which is the world’s third-largest player, may soon overtake State Street, which has USD298bn. ETFs now represent 45.2% of net subscriptions for Vanguard, compared with 28.4% in 2009.
27/03/2012

Bernheim, Dreyfus & Co retains BofA Merrill Lynch

The French absolute returns strategy specialist Bernheim, Dreyfus & Co has appointed BofA Merrill Lynch as its additional prime broker for the Diva Synergy Fund and Diva Synergy Ucits Fund, Hedgeweek reports. Asset allocation for the fund between BofA Merrill Lynch and the current prime brokers and custodians for the fund will be determined depending on the type of transaction, at the discretion of Bernheim, Dreyfus & Co.
27/03/2012

Profits down at C-Quadrat

Although the German-Austrian asset management firm C-Quadrat is highlighting a 25% increase in its commission revenues in 2011 in its communications materials, to EUR44.65m, and a reduction of personnel costs from EUR8.4m to EUR6.6m, operating profits at C-Quadrat have fallen to EUR823,000 from EUR9.38m, and operating profits have fallen to EUR2.97m from EUR15.29m.Assets as of the end of the financial year were down to slightly under EUR2.93bn, from EUR3.33bn, but the increase in commission revenues is due to an increase in average annual assets and a replacement of institutional assets by higher-margin retail assets.
27/03/2012

Schroders France CEO departs

Philippe Lecomte, CEO of Schroders France, will be leaving the asset management firm. He will soon be starting in a new position at another firm, in late April or early May. According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, the new firm may be La Française AM, where he would be responsible for inernational activities. Lecomte joined Schroders in 2003.At the British group, Nuno Teixeira, currently deputy CEO and head of development for all Schroders clients in France for the past year, will replace him. Teixeira will officially take over as head of teams based in Paris in April. According to John Toriano, head of institutional operations at Schroders worldwide, to whom the head of Schroders France reports, Teixeira, who contributed to the development of institutional clients in France, will now continue to grow the activities of Schroders in France, both aimed at institutional and intermediated clients. “For the past three years, the dynamic has clearly been on the side of institutionals,” the new president of Schroders France tells Newsmanagers, “but we have a clear ambition to continue to develop the two institutional and retail units.”Teixeira arrived at Schroders France in 2003, nine months before Lecomte. Before joining Schroders France, Teixeira served as deputy CEO and head of the multi-management team at Invesco Gestion (France), where he began in 1997.
27/03/2012

Rothschild & Cie Gestion and Koris sign partnership for risk management

Rothschild & Cie Gestion announced on Tuesday, 27 March, that it has signed a marketing and sales cooperation agreement with the financial investment advising firm Koris International to set up investment solutions and distribution based on dynamic risk budget controlling techniques. The techniques are conceived and developed by Koris International. For its part, Rothschild & Cie Gestion provides the financial management of the range of multi-manager, multi-asset class range, allowing the two firms to “deploy dynamic risk control management techniques as part of specific solutions adapted to the needs of investors,” the asset management firm says. These offerings will be a part of Rothschild Investment Solutions, recently created following the acquisition of Héritage AM (see Newsmanagers of 2 February 2012), which concentrates on alternative and long-only management. This is done “on the basis of open architecture, which gives us access to classic management funds as well as ETFs and hedge funds.” Then “once the selection is made, Koris will provide the equivalent of an intellectual service, by acting to dynamically control risk budgets,” says Jean-René Giraud, CEO of Koris International. The product range will be composed of funds, potentially “seeded” funds, and also mandates. The two partners will jointly provide sales of these solutions to private banking and institutional clients in France. At Rothschild & Cie Gestion, Laurent Levenq, formerly of Héritage AM, will be in charge of commercial and client development.
27/03/2012

Hedge funds wind down short positions

According to the International Strategy & Investment Group (ISI), in the past five months, hedge funds trading on the S&P 500 have accepted defeat and have sold off short positions at their highest pace since 2010, Expansión reports. The indicator, which measures the percentage of long contracts held by funds, came out at 48.6, compared with 42 in November 2011; this is the largest increase since April 2010.The index is constituted on the basis of information provided by 36 hedge funds, whose assets total USD89bn. If the index is at 50, that means long and short bets are balanced out.
27/03/2012

Warburg-Henderson sets up a distribution affiliate

The Hamburg-based real estate fund management firm Warburg – Henderson Kapitalanlagegesellschaft für Immobilien mbH on Monday announced that its new distribution affiliate, Warburg – Henderson Vertriebs GmbH, commenced its activities on 9 March. Its management team includes count Christian von Hochberg, who had previously been director of institutional sales, and distribution specialist Bodo Schrah.The new entity will be responsible for distributing 17 institutional funds from Warburg – Henderson (EUR4.1bn in assets), advising German and foreign clients, and winning new mandates.
27/03/2012

Loys appoints a co-manager

The German asset management firm Loys has appointed Ufuk Boydak as co-manager for the Loys Global and Loys Global L/S funds. The 26-year-old young man joined the firm upon completing his studies in 2009, as an equities analyst.
27/03/2012

Ongoing disagreements and delays will limit the impact of Solvency 2

The Solvency 2 directive still represents “a positive force for change in the insurance sector,” analysts at Morgan Stanley claim in a study published on 23 March (“Solvency 2: The Long and Winding Road,” by Morgan Stanley/Oliver Wyman).However, the lack of political consensus or agreement within the profession mean that the bill is in danger of losing its relevance, and arriving in a final form far from the original vision of its designers. Morgan Stanley does not expect the directive to be applied before 1 January 2014, or even 2015, and in light of concerns on the part of politicians and professionals, the regulator will need to allow for long transitional periods. With this in mind, there are reasons to be concerned that there will be significant divergences between countries in the application of the rules, while heavyweights in the sector will have lost the advantages originally planned.This is thus more an evolution than a revolution, and the initial hopes that Solvency 2 would become an international point of reference for regulation of the insurance sector appears more distant than ever.
27/03/2012

Mario Draghi calls on banks to pay less in dividends and bonuses

The chairman of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, yesterday defened the German banking associations’ measures, resolved at the end of 2011, including subsidized credits for euro zone banks, Les Echos reports. Draghi welcomed the new budget treaty now in the ratification process, and the efforts on the part of Italy and Spain, but warned that guard should not be let down. Banks, he says, should take advantage of the current favourable environment to increase their resistance to shocks, by holding on to their profits instead of handing them out as bonuses and dividends.
27/03/2012

North America fund from MainFirst coming on 18 April

The German asset management firm MainFirst Asset Management has announced that its first fund investing outside Europe, MainFirst North America Fund, will be launched on 18 April (see Newsmanagers of 15 March), Fonds Professionell reports. The portfolio of 150 to 200 US and Canadian shares will be constructed on the basis of a computer-based model along with several objective criteria; it will generally invest 90% to 100% of its assets. The objective is to outperform the benchmark index, MSCI North America, but 400 to 500 basis points.
27/03/2012

NAV of Morgan Stanley P2 Value falls further

The German asset management firm Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investment GmbH at the end of this week confirmed that it has sold a 56.95% stake which the open-ended real estate fund P2 Value (DE000A0F6G89) held in the firm which owns the Trianon tower in Frankfurt to an affiliate of Madison International Realty (see Newsmanagers of 27 February). The transaction was made at a price “nearly” corresponding to the most recent expert valuation of EUR408m, which means a further loss of about 72 cents to the fund’s net asset value, to EUR21.23 per share. The sale of the stake in Trianon, after loans are paid off, would bring about EUR92m in liquidity into the fund, which in July will be required to make its fourth half-yearly distribution before it is liquidated (on 30 September 2013). As of 24 March, assets in the P2 Value fund totalled EUR622.42m.
27/03/2012

Revisions to investment law considered to severe

“Global sales of investment funds should not be strangled by an EU corset,” Matthäus Den Otter, director of the Swiss Funds Association (SFA), wanred yesterday, Agefi Switzerland reports. The revisions to the law on investment funds (LPCC) proposed by the Swiss federal council includes too many measures which are discriminatory against the market, particularly sales of collective capital investment products in Switzerland, or from Switzerland. The SFA claims that the proposed regulations on fund sales go far beyond EU standards. It thus disadvantages Swiss wealth managers by applying global standards with a severity that exists nowhere else. Despite their positive points, he says, the proposals show too much zeal in many areas.
27/03/2012

Head of equities leaves Lombard Odier

Lombard Odier Investment Managers, the asset management unit of the Swiss private bank, at the end of 2011 parted with its chief investment officer for equities, Aziz Nahas, Financial News reports. Lombard Odier has confirmed the departure. For his part, Nahas had no comment, but according to sources familiar with the matter, he is now planning to launch his own hedge fund.
27/03/2012

Asset managers bet on emerging market government bonds

According to the most recent sectoral newsletter from S&P Capital IQ, although most fund managers are convinced that the euro will survive, they see little value in government bonds from OECD countries. Most professionals estimate that government bonds from emerging markets denominated in US dollars or euros are a far superior choice, compared with countries such as Greece or Portugal, says Kate Hollis, fund analyst.Most managers surveyed already invested very little or nothing at all in peripheral euro zone countries last year. However, most funds chose to expose themselves to government bonds from emerging countries or European countries outside the euro zone.
27/03/2012

Irish asset management industry on the offensive

The Irish finance ministry has granted approval in principle to proposals by the asset management industry which would facilitate access to Irish funds for US investors, while reducing administrative costs. Without endangering the structures of existing firms, the Irish fund sector estimates that the creation of a structure especially dedicated to investment funds, and consequently not constrained by the rules which apply to other types of companies, would favour foreign asset managers, including US firms.
27/03/2012

Names of ETF funds are too often misleading

In the ETF universe, the name of a product, as long and detailed as it may be, does not necessarily give the correct information about its contents. These are the findings of a study by the US consultant Casey Research (“Top 10 Misleading ETFs”). Casey has created a list of the 10 ETFs with misleading names, which includes, for example, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund (ESR). Unlike what the name would suggest, this ETF does not cover a range of promising countries of Eastern Europe, but is exposed largely to Russia (76%), with 21% invested in Gazprom, 16% allocated to Poland, 4.1% to the Czech Republic and 3.4% to the Hungarian market. Due to the large number of products which sometimes lack transparency in their names, Casey Research emphasises that it is important to select products that are adapted to the needs of investors. The full study is attached.
27/03/2012

ERAFP steps up its initiative on management pay scales

The French public employees’ additional retirement fund (ERAFP) is planning to bring its full weight to bear in the debate over the governance of publicly-traded businesses. Its board of directors has unanimously approved guidelines which would have some impact in the area of shareholder engagement. The French public pension fund, which currently manages EUR12bn in assets, would like to see boards of directors include 50% independent directors, that these directors not be allowed to serve for more than three terms, and that the position of chairman of the board of directors be separated from the position of CEO. In terms of pay, a director would not be allowed to get paid more than 100 times the minimum wage. Major publicly-traded businesses would no longer be allowed to hand out stock options, which would be allowed only for startups. Finally, the ERAFP claims that golden farewells and golden parachutes are not compatible with the principles of long-term investment it aims to promote.
27/03/2012

Amafi wants to change rules for market surveys

Following sanctions levelled by the AMF against the major French banks, Crédit Agricole, Natixis, BNP Paribas and Société Générale, the French financial markets association (Amafi) would like to submit a code of conduct to the French financial market authority for market surveys, Les Echos reports. The newspaper says that the code would, in theory, need to be examined by the College of the AMF within 15 days, and would be accompanied by proposed modifications to the AMF’s general rules in relation to market surveyes. The market authority says that it participated in the association’s considerations, but had no further comment.
27/03/2012

Cayman Islands push back deadline for registration of master funds to 21 May

The government of the Cayman Islands has announced that it will be delaying the deadline for registration of master funds by 60 days, until 21 May 2012, Hedgeweek reports. The change is due to a disagreement between the government and the monetary authority of the Cayman Islands (CIMA) over whether master funds are required to register if they have only one regulated feeder fund. The government has announced that it will soon be issuing a clarification on this point.

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