Net subscriptions to ETPs (1,244 ETFs, 544 ETC and ETN products) in Europe totalled USD3.3bn in January, according to BlackRock.This total is exactly equivalent to the inflows to the top three players, as iShares (BlackRock) attracted USD1.7bn, db x-trackers/db ETC (Deutsche Bank) took on USD1.1bn, and Lyxor Asset Mangement (Société Générale) posted inflows of USD0.5bn.Assets at these three major actors were USD113.4bn, USD47.2bn and USD40.7bn, respectively, at the end of last month.

Marcel Kahn, directeur général de la MACSF, dans un entretien paru dans Option Finance numéro 1159: Deux directeurs de gestion, qui ont chacun une vingtaine d’années d’expérience en finance, supervisent en direct la poche obligataire, qui compose la plus importante partie de l’actif, ainsi que les obligations convertibles et les actions. La perte du triple A français n’a pas eu d’effet aujourd’hui sur notre allocation d’actifs. Historiquement, la MACSF s’est toujours focalisée en priorité sur les dettes corporate, essentiellement françaises, qui représentent actuellement 50% des encours (sur un total de 21 milliards d’actifs), sans compter les obligations convertibles (15%). Les emprunts d’Etats représentent moins de 15% du total des encours, dont 4% seulement sur les pays périphériques. Pour la Grèce, nous avons déjà provisionné à hauteur de 60% dans nos comptes. Aujourd’hui, notre démarche reste très opportuniste. Quand nous pouvons réduire le risque sans que cela nous coûte trop cher, nous le faisons. Nous avons pu vendre, par exemple, une partie de nos emprunts irlandais depuis le début de l’année car la situation du pays s’est améliorée. Même si nous avons plutôt envie de nous alléger en dette périphérique, car nous privilégions la sécurité, nous ne bradons pas nos titres qui restent par ailleurs extrêmement rémunérateurs. Depuis la crise, nous investissons peu dans les emprunts souverains, en particulier français car la rémunération est trop faible. De plus, nous ne pouvons pas exclure à l’avenir une remontée des taux: la question est de savoir à quelle vitesse et quand. Les actifs du groupe comportent également une part importante d’obligations indexées sur l’inflation afin de profiter d’une éventuelle reprise à terme de l’inflation, ainsi qu’une part significative d’obligations à taux variable qui offriront un rendement plus important en cas de remontée des taux.

Depuis la fin du mois de janvier, Robusta, la structure de gestion irlandaise du Fonds de Pensions Nestlé en Suisse, peut investir dans les fonds de Schroders. Pour rappel, 50% des actifs du fonds de pension sont gérés par Nestlé Capital Management (obligations, actions des marchés développés, matières premières, et devises). Alliance Bernstein est le gérant délégataire sur les actions émergentes monde. Allocation stratégique: Liquidités et engagements futurs sur titres: 3,3% Obligations: 13,2% Actions Europe: 13,0% Actions reste du monde: 29,9% Placements privés (private equity): 5,7% Hedge funds et autres placements alternatifs: 20,2% Matières premières (commodities): 8,0% Immobilier (fonds de placement): 6,7% Les investissements en hedge funds du Fonds sont actuellement réalisés à travers trois fonds de fonds, gérés par trois gérants. Un quatrième gérant, Nestlé Capital Management a été engagé en 2011 et reprendra progressivement la gestion de la moitié des placements en hedge funds. De plus la liquidité des fonds de hedge funds de même que leur transparence seront améliorées. L’allocation dynamique entre les différents styles de stratégies (fonds de hedge funds) s’en trouvera ainsi facilitée.

A fin décembre, les fonds classés «développement durable» en Allemagne par Ecoreporter affichaient des actifs de 28,1 milliards d’euros, ce qui représente une contraction de 12 % par rapport à fin 2010, rapporte la Börsen-Zeitung. Le nombre de ces fonds a d’ailleurs diminué à 289 contre 306 douze mois plus tôt.

The Italian asset management firm Azimut has posted net subscriptions in January of EUR119m, of which EUR113m were for collective management. Total assets under administration are EUR17.2bn, of which EUR15.2bn are assets under management.

The Hennessee hedge fund index in January posted 2.51% returns, following losses of 4.6% in 2011. All strategies finished the year with gains. “The hedge fund industry is starting 2012 on a highly positive note,” says Charles Gradante, co-founder of the Hennessee Group.

From 1 April 2012, Holger Kerzel, who had already been a member of management at the business for 12 years, will join the board of directors at MEAH Munich Ergo KAG. He will be in charge of the management of equity portfolios and “other tier 1 investments” for Munich Re, Ergo and external clients of the group. The executive chairman of the firm is Thomas Kabisch, who also serves as its CIO. MEAG currently manages EUR210bn, of which EUR10bn are for retail and institutional clients from outside the group.

No representative of the Wegelin bank was present on Friday, 10 February as New York judge Jed Rakoff held a first hearing, Agefi Switzerland reports. The private bank has been accused by US prosecutors in a case that began on 3 February of helping high net worth clients to evade the US tax authorities. The bank explained that it was absent because “the legal conditions to open a penal case have not been satisfied.”

Net profits for financial services at Prudential Financial in 2011 totalled USD3.53bn, compared with USD2.71bn then previous year, while adjusted operating profits for the asset management unit were up to USD659m, compared with USD587m. As of the end of the year, total assets under management were USD900.7bn, compared with USD784bn one year previously, of which USD619.1bn, compared with USD537.3bn were for the asset management unit. Prudential Financial states that net inflows (excluding money market funds) for institutional management totalled USD16.7bn, compared with USD28.6bn, while net subscriptions for retail (also excluding money market funds) fell to USD3.5bn from USD6.4bn.

As of 31 December, Gamco Investors Inc had assets of USD34.1bn, which represents an 8.8% increased over their levels on 30 September (USD31.3bn) and a 4.8% increased over USD32.5bn in assets as of the end of 2010. Although the asset management firm has seen net outflows o fUSD50bn in fourth quarter, it has posted net subscriptions of USD2.74bn for the year as a whole. Mutual funds of the Gabelli range finished the year with USD12.27bn in assets, compared with USD11.47bn as of the end of September, and USD11.25bn as of 31 December 2010. Net profits for the 2011 fiscal year totalled USD69.68m, up 1.3% compared with USD68.79bn the previous year.

For the year 2011 as a whole, net profits at The Hartford have fallen 61% to USD662m, of which USD127m (-79%) were in fourth quarter. The insurance group does not provide annual data for wealth management profits, but says that net profits for the unit were USD112m for October-December, compared with USD340m for the corresponding period of last year.Total wealth management assets as of the end of December totalled USD193.8bn, compared with USD216.9bn one year previously, which represents an 11% contraction. This decline reflects bot net outflows and negative market effects, which brought a 16% decline in individual annuity assets and 14% in non-proprietary mutual funds. The Hartford has recently signed a sub-advisory agreement with Wellington Management Company (see Newsmanagers of 12 December). Wellington is now the sole sub-advisor for non-proprietary mutual funds at The Hartford, which amount to 45 products out of 77 in The Hardford’s range.

According to results published by its parent company, Great-West Lifeco, Putnam Investments has posted an increase in its earnings to USD28.1bn, compared with USD24.1bn the previous year, but its assets as of the end of the year totalled USD116.7bn, compared with USD121.2bn as of the end of 2010, although they bottomed out at USD113.9bn at the end of September.Putnam did not earn any significant performance commissions in third and fourth quarters, and its management commissions were down to USD126m in October-December, compared with USD1.33m in third quarter 2011 and fourth quarter 2010. They totalled USD141m in April-June 2011, compared with USD136m in January-March.Putnam’s ROE for the year totalls 0.9%.However, net profits for the Great-West Lifeco group last year rose 25% to USD2.02bn.

The Japanese government has announced plans to create a sovereign fund, one of whose missions would be to contain the growth of the Japanese national currency by investing in assets in foreign currencies. Prime minister Yoshihiko Noda has stated before Parliament that he is prepared to approve the plans. The prime minister would not like to see the current national pension fund requisitioned in an effort to combat a strong yen. The Government Pension Investment Fund, which with EUR1.2trn represents the largest pension fund in the world, currently invests very prudently, with two thirds of its assets in Japanese government bonds.

For the first time this year, money market funds have accounted for the majority of inflows. Bond funds have also posted considerably lower net inflows, which cannot be said of funds investing in equities taken overall. This is the state of health of French-registered funds as of January 2012, according to Europerformance-SIX Telekurs. Money market funds took on EUR7.12bn, in assets, provoking a 2.16% increase in their assets. Bond categories all show net inflows. Funds investing in euro zone securities took on EUR790m, most of inflows to this asset class. The situation for equity funds is more mixed. In terms of inflows, three categories of funds have posted net outflows: funds investing in French equities (-EUR480m), those investing in Europe (-EUR260m) and Asia/Pacific (-EUR10m). All other categories show inflows: mutual funds investing in the euro zone (EUR30m), international (EUR340m) and the US market (EUR220m).

Fidelity Worldwide Investments has joined a growing chorus of Xstrata shareholders calling for a change to the terms proposed by Glencore for a merger of the two firms, the Financial Times reports. Fidelity is one of the ten largest shareholdres in Xstrata, with 1.5% of capital, and owns 2.3% of Glencore. “We support the deal in principle, but we think that the terms need to be revisited,” Fidelity says.

In 2011, BlackRock has been the firm to post the largest net inflows in Europe, with EUR14.3bn in assets excluding money market funds, Lipper reports. But excluding ETFs, Frankling Templeton takes the top spot, with EUR12.6bn, most of it in bond funds. The two groups stand out at a time when the European fund sector has seen net redemptions of EUR69.3bn last year. This is the second negative result in 10 years, as the last negative bottom line was in 2008, when outflows totalled EUR298bn. Only 12 markets of the 33 monitored by Lipper posted net inflows. Among them are the United Kingdom (+EUR13.1bn) and Switzerland (+EUR9.8bn). Norway and Sweden are also among the countries that stood out in 2011. However, France is deep in the red, as is Italy. In terms of investment universes, global funds were the most popular in 2011, both for global bond funds (+EUR16.4bn) and global equity funds (+EUR6.3bn). This theme also extended to balanced funds, as flexible funds able to invest in the full spectrum took on EUR12bn.

In a joint letter sent on Monday to top European Commissioners, the directors of the National Association of Pension Funds, the CBI and TUC say that European plans in the area of pensions may have disastrous consequences for businesses and employees, the Financial Times reports. If passed, the proposals to strengthen the financial condition of corporate retirement plans (with the adaptation of Solvency II requirements) would be a death sentence for defined-benefit plans, and may lead to the bankruptcy of many businesses.

The wealth management unit of the British Barclays group has earned pre-tax profits of GBP207m in the 2011 fiscal year, compared with GBP163m the previous year. The Investment Management unit, for its part, has earned adjusted profits of GBP96m, compared with GBP67m, largely reflecting a dividend of GBP123m (GBP100m in 2010) on the group’s 19.7% stake in BlackRock. Assets under management in the wealth management unit totalled GBP164.2bn as of the end of December 2011, compared with GBP163.9bn one year earlier. Significant growth in net inflows were largely offset by negative market and currency effects. Pre-tax profits for the group totalled GBP5.9bn, down 3% compared with the previous fiscal year. For the group as a whole, bonuses were down 26% year on year. In the investment bank (Barclays Capital), the decline is as much as 35%.

Christoph Gebert has been appointed to manage the new Warburg -D – Fonds Small & Midcaps Deutschland fund, which will specialise in German small and midcaps, an asset class which has earned average returns of 8% in each of the past ten years, compared with 1% for large caps. In addition, the universe is considerably larger than for large caps, with 95% of German equities falling into the smidcaps category.The portfolio is composed entirely through bottom-up stock-picking, from equally-weighted equities in all sectors. The benchmark index is composite: 50% MDax, 50% TecDax.CharacteristicsName: Warburg – D – Fonds Small & Midcaps DeutschlandISIN codes:DE000A0RHE28 (R share class)DE000A0LGSG1 (I share class)Front-end fee: 5%Management commission:1.40% (R share class)0.60% (I share class)

In the three years to the end of December 2011, more than 80% of the 214 absolute return funds in the Lipper database analysed by the Frankfurt-based firm Lupus alpha have posted gains, and the average returns are 2.63%. 60% of funds have a positive Sharpe ratio, but with a rather wide range, from +1.76 to -2.36, a sign of rising divergences between the quality of the various absolute return strategies, according to Ralf Lochmüller, CEO of Lupus alpha.However, 2011 was a difficult year for absolute return funds, which lost an average of 3.02%, with a maximal dispersion ranging from +20.07% to -49.06%. About 30% of products have managed to generate positive results.Lupus alpha emphasizes that absolute return funds have performed better than equity markets in Germany and Europe, as the Dax and Euro Stoxx 50 lost 14.69% and 14.54%, respectively, last year. Hedge funds have lost nearly 9%, according to the HFRX index.In addition, 99.42% of absolute return funds have seen a maximum draw down of an average of 7.35%, compared with 33.26% for European equities, 33.62% for German equities, and 10.59% for hedge funds.Lupus alpha says that there are now 375 absolute return funds in Germany, with assets of EUR63.8bn.

Reyl Asset Management in December launched two long/short funds complying with UCITS IV standards: the Reyl Long/Short European Equities fund of European equities, and the Reyl Long/Short Emerging Markets equities fund of emerging markets equities. The two products, co-managed by Thomas de Saint-Seine, Maxime Botti and Emmanuel Hauptmann, have recently been licensed for sale in France. They aim for returns of 8% to 12% per year, with long-term volatility of 6% to 8%. The Reyl Long/Short European Equities fund replicates the Reyl Absolute Return fund based in the Cayman Islands.

Rising equity markets in the United States and the rest of the world in January contributed 1.7 percentage points to rising coverage rates for US pension funds, BNY Mellon Asset Management reports. Coverage rates now stand at 74.1% as of January, compared with a corrected level of only 70.1% in September 2011.

In his column in Monday’s Cinco Días, Juan Manuel Vicente Casadevall, former director of analysis at Lipper Thomson Reuters in Spain, says that the asset management sector is one of the least competitive in the Spanish economy, largely because it had no competition for years. It was long dominated by bank networks, meaning that it has always had a hermetic rather than open architecture. In addition, Spanish legislation did not favour opening it up. The results have been devastating. Based on Lipper data, in the past ten years, Spanish funds (pension funds and traditional funds) have seen an average performance lag in all categories of 1.5 to 3 percentage points per year compared with foreign funds.

For the fiscal year ending on 31 December 2011, the listed company AllianceBernstein Holding LP on 10 February announced losses of USD93.26m, comapred with net profits of USD134.16m in 2010. The operating partnership AllianceBernstein LP has posted a net loss of UUSD174.14m, compared with net profits of USD442.42m the previous year.As of 31 December, capital in AllianceBernstein was 37.9% controlled by AllianceBernstein Holding, while Axa held a economic interest representing about 64.4% of the firm.As of the end of last year, AUM totalled USD405.9bn, and were up 1% in one quarter, and down 15.1% on one year.

Overall, assets under management by Franklin Templeton Investments, Invesco, AllianceBernstein and Legg Mason as of the end of January were up by USD76.3bn compared with their levels on 31 December 2011. This increase is not due to equity funds, although that asset class was the one whose assets increased the most at the four asset management firms.At Franklin Templeton Investments, the increase totalled USD34bn in one month, to USD704.3bn. Invesco had USD648.3bn as of the end of January, USD23bn more than at the end of December, while Alliance Bernstein posted an increase of USD15bn to USD421bn. Legg Mason had USD631.3bn as of the end of January, which represents an increase of USD4.3bn compared with their level one month previously.

Philippe Zaouati, deputy CEO of Natixis AM, was appointed on 1 December as head of the working group for socially responsible investment at Efama, the European association of management professionals, the Essentiel de l’ISR periodical from Novethic reports.

In 2011, socially responsible investment mutual funds on sale in France have seen an increase in their assets of nearly 35% or EUR16.6bn, to EUR64.245bn, according to the most recent statistics from Novethic. This growth is due solely to fund conversions, which totalled EUR20bn, of which EUR18bn are for Amundi alone. The French asset management giant is planning to reach EUR50bn in assets under management in SRI eventually. It now has over EUR25bn in this area, making it the leader, far ahead of Natixis AM in second place, with less than EUR10bn. Fund conversions were largely in money markets, totalling nearly EUR15bn. Once again, Amundi led the way with its Amundi Tréso Eonia ISR fund weighing in at EUR13.4bn. Equity funds also benefited from conversions totalling EUR5.3bn. Investors, however, were not as convinced by SRI in 2011, as the sector saw net outflows of EUR1.3bn. Those were largely from equity and money market funds, with net outflows of EUR885m and EUR722m, respectively. However, bond and balanced funds continued to see inflows, with net subscriptions of EUR209m and EUR125m, respectively. Though it is artificial, this growth in SRI in rough markets has allowed the sector to exceed 5% of total assets in French-registered funds for the first time ever. Money market funds, once again, have the most spectacular weight in SRI, with over 10% of assets.

The estimated total volume of requests for proposals to select managers initiated by French institutional investors last year totalled EUR13.5bn, down 55% compared with 2010, according to an annual bfinance survey of 20 asset management firms representing about 80% of institutional delegated assets under management.As of the end of December 2011, long-term assets outsourced by French institutionals to asset management firms, excluding money markets, totalled EUR383bn, This is 4% less than assets which were reassigned last year in the form of requests for proposals, compared with nearly 7% in 2010.The study of requests for proposals also identifies a net change in the distribution of operation volumes by asset class, as 2011 has marked a return of diversified management. One of the most representative investors in this trend is Novalis-Taitbout with a total of EUR3bn. Overall, diversified management represents 33% of total volumes in requests for propsals in 2011, compared with 5% in 2010 and 3% in 2009. However, the percentage of fixed income products in requests issued in 2011 fell to 20%, compared with 76% in 2010.In parallel with this diversified management, equities have made a strong return as a part of requests for proposals (24% by volume, compared with 6% last year), largely thanks to the FRR, which handed out a large part of its European equity portfolio, for a total of EUR3bn overall.Interest in real estate has also increased. The Caisse des dépôts initiated a request for proposals on behalf of Ircantec for an OPCI manager (EUR300m). ERAFP made its first real estate investment with AEW Europe (EUR40m).

The Cantonal bank of Zurich has finished the 2011 fiscal year with net profits of CHF769m, up 5.6% compared with 2010. Net inflows totalled CHF12.3bn, compared with CHF12bn the previous year. The proportion of institutional clients as a part of inflows was CHF9.5bn, while retail accounted for CHF2.8bn, Assets under management rose by CHF11.5bn, to CHF176.6bn.

CM-CIC AM is an asset management firm which is not often talked about. And it is developing a highly personal type of equity management, especially for an affiliate of a network establishment. With good results the main goal, Christophe Besson, director of management, regrets that despite its simplicity, its transparency and the work it requires, it is not being adequately recognised by investors.