Thierry Pauwels, directeur de la gestion actions d’OFI AM, a quitté la société, comme l’annonçait Newsmanagers il y a quelques jours. Il est remplacé par Ralph Bruneau, qui a occupé entre 1990 et 2010 la fonction de directeur des gestions actions de la BGP puis de la BFT. Le nouveau venu était également directeur général adjoint de BFT Gestion.Outre le départ de Thierry Pauwels, Pierre-Alexis Dumont, gérant actions, a quitté OFI AM. La société de gestion doit, dans les prochaines semaines, faire état d’une évolution de l’organisation des différentes équipes actions existantes au sein du groupe OFI, précise un communiqué.OFI AM gère 47,3 milliards d’euros dont 6,62 milliards investis dans des produits actions.

Heritage International Fund Managers (HIFM) vient de recruter plusieurs personnes pour ses équipes. David Dorey rejoint la société de gestion au poste de head of Private Equity. James Christie et Andrew Cooper ont été nommés senior fund administration managers. Susie Peer rejoint l'équipe en tant que fund administration manager, précise Investment Europe. HIFM totalise des encours sous gestion et administration de plus de 50 milliards de dollars.

«L’objectif de ce fonds n’est pas de battre un quelconque benchmark, c’est tout simplement de gagner de l’argent. Et, au pire, de limiter les pertes à un minimum compatible avec le seuil de douleur d’un investisseur chatouilleux», résume Michel Patri, qui gère le nouveau fonds luxembourgeois AllianceBernstein European Flexible Equity Portfolio dans une optique de performance absolue avec un biais net long.Ce produit créé le 31 janvier vient d’obtenir l’agrément de l’AMF. Il a été amorcé par AllianceBernstein : ce gestionnaire a trouvé le concept séduisant et a jugé que cette stratégie convient particulièrement à une clientèle retail plutôt déboussolée après des années de crise. Le fonds doit être commercialisé aussi en Italie, en Suisse, en Suède, aux Pays-Bas, et au Royaume-Uni. Dans la pratique, le nouveau produit, «opportuniste et agile», est un long/short actions européennes coordonné dont l'équipe de gestion peut faire varier de 0 à 100 % l’exposition nette au marché (40 % actuellement) en fonction d’un modèle quantitatif «discipliné» qui évolue en fonction de l’environnement boursier (risque, valorisations, consensus, momentum, facteurs techniques, prime relative des actions sur les obligations).Trois gérants (dont Michele Patri, leur chef) sont chargés respectivement des cycliques, des défensives et des financières. Ils identifient les valeurs les plus solides dans les «bons» secteurs pour le portefeuille long (et ont droit à 20 % maximum d’actions extra-européennes, 15 % actuellement) et se protègent par le biais de dérivés, par exemple sous forme d’un «short» synthétique que la taille d’AllianceBernstein permet d’obtenir à un tarif compétitif auprès des contreparties (comme Goldman Sachs)… tout comme elle donne aux gérants un accès aisé aux dirigeants des entreprises dont les titres sont potentiellement dignes de figurer en portefeuille.La formule imaginée par Michele Patri ne fonctionne pas trop mal, puisque depuis le lancement (25 janvier 2010), la performance nette au 31 janvier 2012 de ce fonds d’actions (à la base) a été de 1,47 % pour un rendement de 0,45 % des Bunds 3 mois, avec une volatilité de 5,47 %CaractéristiquesDénomination : AllianceBernstein European Flexible Equity PortfolioCodes Isin :Parts A : LU0590155247Parts I : LU0590155320Droit d’entrée : 6,25 % (parts A)Commission de gestion : 1,50 % (parts A)0,70 % (parts I)Commission de performance : 10 % de la surperformance par rapport au Bund 3 mois, avec high watermark

Le 20 janvier, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) a octroyé à La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Banque un contingent supplémentaire d’actions chinoises «A» pour 100 millions de dollars américains.La gestion de ce quota additionnel est confiée à Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (Edram) qui, avec son fonds Edmond de Rothschild Mainland China, gère 560 millions de dollars, soit 5% du montant total des encours des fonds QFII gérés par des entités étrangères (9,3 milliards de dollars à fin octobre).Au 31 décembre 2011, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management gère 12,4 milliards d’euros au travers de mandats de gestion et de 28 fonds ouverts enregistrés à la commercialisation dans 15 pays. Fin 2010, Edram affichait environ 14 milliards d’euros d’encours (lire Newsmanagers du 20 janvier 2011).

Cristiano Migliorini, senior quantiative specialiste à Genève, va gérer avec trois de ses collègues à Londres le nouveau fonds Dividende+ qui se focalisera sur les grandes capitalisations européennes servant des dividendes élevés de manière régulière, avec une couverture avec des options pour chacune de ces valeurs de manière à réduire le beta et la volatilité du portefeuille, rapporte Investment Europe. L’objectif de performance est de 10 % par an.

Depuis que JP Morgan et maintenant State Street se sont retirés de la course, il est de plus en plus probable que la Deutsche Bank va être obligée de vendre séparément ses activités dans le domaine de la gestion d’actifs (400 milliards d’euros), écrit le Financial Times, qui s’attend aussi à voir prochainement Ameriprise Financial jeter l'éponge parce qu’il trouve le prix trop élevé. Mais une vente par appartements serait plus complexe à réaliser, et elle augmenterait le risque de voir partir les dirigeants et les équipes d’investissement les plus importants.

Désormais, Axa Investment Managers a obtenu l’agrément de la BaFin pour la commercialisation en Allemagne de la classe de parts SolEx censée limiter la volatilité d’un placement classique en actions (lire Newsmanagers du 3 février).Comme en France, ces parts seront disponibles pour tous les produits de la gamme Axa World Funds, en commençant par le fonds coordonné Axa World Funds Framlington Eurozone lancé le 22 novembre et géré par Gilles Guibout. Les placements permanents en options de vente hors de la monnaie protègent les investissements contre de fortes baisses.La stratégie SolEx est confiée à l'équipe Investment Solutions d’Axa IM qui est spécialiste depuis 1997 des solutions de gestion sous contrainte de passif (ALM) pour le compte d’investisseurs institutionnels. Arithmétiquement, cette équipe gère pour 88 milliards d’euros de dérivés.

Depuis mardi, ComStage ETF (groupe Commerzbank) a fait admettre à la négociation sur le segment XTF de la plate-forme électronique Xetra le ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRN.Il s’agit d’un ETF (le 924ème coté à Francfort) qui réplique l’indice MSCI des marchés émergents avec un levier de 2 sur une base journalière (MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily Net Index). C’est le premier produit actions émergentes admis à la cote allemande à proposer un effet de levier.CaractéristiquesDénomination : ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRNCode Isin : LU0675401409TFE : 0,75 %

De sources concordantes, rapporte L’Agefi, la Deutsche Bank va limiter à 200.000 euros les bonus versés cette année. Les collaborateurs recevront jusqu'à 100.000 euros en numéraire et 100.000 euros en titres qu’ils ne pourront pas revendre avant le mois d’août. Tout bonus supplémentaire sera différé pendant trois ans, ajoute le quotidien.

Conformément à sa politique de recentrage sur ses marchés clés, Coutts intensifie son effort en direction du Moyen-Orient avec l’engagement de trois collaborateurs seniors, basés à Genève, rapporte L’Agefi suisse. La banque genevoise compte par ailleurs recruter une vingtaine de collaborateurs supplémentaires sur la région cette année. Ancien managing director de Bank Sarasin Alpen à Dubai, Akram Khattab est nommé Executive Director Relationship Management. Ses marchés de prédilection sont Dubai et les Emirats du nord. Ali-Reza Vahabzadeh devient Vice President Relationship Management. Il arrive en provenance de Citi Private Bank à Abu Dhabi et a travaillé précédemment au sein du team Ultra High Net Worth Middle East de Citi à Genève. Il se focalisera sur Abu Dhabi et le Qatar. Enfin, Arjun Mittal est nommé directeur régional NRI, responsable des marchés. Il est lui aussi un ex-Bank Sarasin Alpen à Dubai.

La société de gestion danoise BankInvest, spécialiste des marchés émergents, vient d’annoncer la promotion de Kasper Elmgreen à la fonction de responsable du pôle actions internationales, rapporte Citywire.Kasper Elmgreen était jusqu'à présent responsable adjoint du pôle dont il prend la tête.

Evan Reedman, director of lifecycle strategies chez Queensland Investment Corp, rejoint Credit Suisse à Melbourne pour occuper le poste nouvellement créé de head of consultant relationships for Asia-Pacific, rapporte Asian Investor. Il sera subordonné à Will Britten, head of asset management, Australia.

Since Tuesday, ComStage ETF (Commerzbank group) has added the ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRN fund to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform.The ETF (the 924th to be listed in Frankfurt) replicates the MSCI emerging markets index with a leverage of 2, on a daily basis (MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily Net Index). It is the first emerging markets equity product offering leverage to be admitted to trading in Germany.CharacteristicsName: ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRNISIN code: LU0675401409TER: 0.75%

Axa Investment Managers has received a license from BaFin to release in Germany as well the SolEx share class, which is intended to limit the volatility of a traditional investment in equities (see Newsmanagers of 3 February).As in France, the shares will be available for all products of the Axa World Funds range, starting with the UCITS-compliant fund Axa World Funds Framlington Eurozone, launched on 22 November and managed by Gilles Guibout. Permanent investments in out of the money put options protect the investments against severe losses.The SolEx strategy will be operated by the Investment Solutions team at Axa IM, which since 1997 has been specialised in asset-liability management (ALM) for institutional investors. Arithmetically, the team manages EUR88bn in derivatives.

Christiano Migliorini, senior quantitative specialist in Geneva, will manage the new Dividend+ fund with three of his colleagues in London. The fund will focus on European large caps which regularly pay high dividends, with hedging via option writing for each share in order to reduce beta and the volatility of the portfolio, Investment Europe reports. The performance objective is 10% per year.

After several months of steep declines, culminating in 7,734 trades in December, the average daily number of on-book trades of ETF shares stabilised in January at 7,731 for the European markets of NYSE Euronext. This total is 2.6% higher than the corresponding month of last year.The contraction in daily trading volumes has also slowed considerably, at EUR265.5m, compared with EUR268.7m the previous month. However, compared with January 2011, this trading volume is down 43.2%.Block trading, for its part, has increased to EUR1.1bn in January, from EUR930.5m in December, and EUR974.9m in November.Lastly, the average spread in January came to 39.5 basis points, compared with 36.6 in December and 40 in November.

The additional retirement establishment for public sector employees (ERAFP) has launched a request for proposals for two management mandates for convertible bonds. The first allocation will be for management of a portfolio of financial instruments composed of convertible bonds and tradeable corporate bonds admitted to trading on a regulated market in the European region. This mandate will be for EUR80m. The second allocation will be for management of a portfolio of financial instruments composed of convertible bonds and tradeable bonds admitted to trading on a regulated market in the global region. This mandate will be for EUR130m. The initial duration of the market is four years, with a potential renewal of the market by ERAFP for two successive terms of two years each. ERAFP says that the new mandates must comply with the regime’s SRI framework, in a manner adapted to each.

“The objective for this fund is not to outperform any benchmark, but simply to make money, and at the worst, to limit losses to a minimum suitable for a sensitive investor,” says Michel Patri, manager of the new Luxembourg-registered fund AllianceBernstein Flexible Equity Portfolio, which has an absolute return approach with a net long bias. The strategy has been running for two years now, and AllianceBernstein has seeded the new fund.The product, created on 31 January, has received a license from the French regulator, AMF. It is particularly well-suited to retail clients who are disoriented after years of crisis. The fund will also be sold in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.In practice, the new “opportunistic and agile” product is a European UCITS-compliant long/short equity fund whose management team may vary net market exposure from 0% to 100% (currently 40%), depending on a quantitative “disciplined” model which adatps to the market environment. Risks are hedged with the use of derivatives, possibly in the form of a synthetic short which AllianceBernstein’s size makes it possible to obtain at a competitive price from counterparties.The formula has been working reasonably well, as since launch (25 January 2010), net performance as of 31 January 2012 is 1.47%, with returns of 0.45% on 3-month Bunds, and volatility of 5.47%.CharacteristicsName: AllianceBernstein European Flexible Equity PortfolioISIN codes:A share class: LU0590155247I share class: LU0590155320Front-end fee: 6.25% (A shares)Management commission:1.50% (A share class)0.70% (I share class)Performance commission: 10% of performance exceeding the Bund 3-month, with high watermark

In a difficult environment for fundraising, Duke Street has called off the fundraising process for its seventh vehicle. The fund had aimed for assets of EUR850m, with a first closing at about EUR250m initially planned for first half 2012, a source familiar with the matter has told Agefi. The fundraising may be restarted in 2013, the source says. Although the sixth vehicle, raised in 2007 with a total of EUR963m, is now more than 85% invested, the British private equity firm is planning to adapt to the new situation. It is now planning to solicit investors, mostly European institutionals, on a case-by-case basis for each investment.

Hedge funds finished the month of January with gains of 2.63%, after a calamitous year in 2011, according to statistics from HFR. This is the best performance the sector has turned in for one year.Equity Hedge strategies performed best, with gains of 3.84% for the month, followed by Event Driven and Relative Value Arbitrage, with gains of 2.4% and 2.3%, respectively.After a year of losses in 2011, hedge funds investing in emerging markets began the year with gains of 5.3%, the best monthly result since May 2009. Hedge funds exposed to Russia/Eastern Europe and Latin Amerioca earned returns of 9.2% and 6.9%, respectively.

According to a survey by SimCorp of 100 heads at 50 North American investment companies, more than 40% of businesses surveyed are sceptical of the coherence and quality of the data coming from their various systems, including those used for order management, accounting, performance monitoring and risk management.67.4% of respondents estimate that a lot of work is needed to consolidate data coming from multiple systems and sources of information at their business. 22% say that they need several days to produce a report which calculates exposure or performance of the business for the portfolio as a whole, including derivative products. Nearly 8% even say that they need weeks to do so.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), one of the largest US pension funds, has asked Facebook in a letter to include a woman on its all-male board of directors, claiming that diversity improves corporate governance and performance, the Financial Times reports. The fund, which has USD145bn in assets under management, has also called for an increase in the size of the board of directors and a separation of the roles of chairman and CEO.

Heritage International Fund Managers (HIFM) has recruited several people for its teams. David Dorey joins the asset management firm as head of Private Equity. James Christie and Andrew Cooper have been appointed as senior fund administration managers. Susie Peer joins the team as fund administration manager, Investment Europe reports. HIFM has total assets under management and administration of over USD50bn.

The hedge fund firm Atwater Capital, based in New York and founded by former managers from Atticus Capital, is closing down two years after its launch, having failed to achieve critical mass, Financial News reports. The fund had USD163.6m in assets under management at the end of December.

As Newsmanagers reported a few days ago, Thierry Pauwels, head of equity investments at OFI AM, has left the firm. He will be replaced by Ralph Bruneau, who served from 1990 until 2010 as head of equity at BGP and then at BFT. Bruneau has also served as deputy CEO of BFT Gestion. In addition to the departure of Pauwels, Pierre-Alexis Dumont, equity manager, has left OFI AM. The asset management firm will publish its new equity organisation in the next few weeks, a statement says. OFI AM manages EUR47.3bn in assets, of which EUR6.62bn are invested in equity products.

Asian hedge funds finished the year 2011 with less than shining results, Asian Investor reports. According to statistics from HFR, the HFRX Asia index including Japan lost 5.2% for the year as a whole. But excluding Japan, the Asia Emerging Markets ex-Japan index has lost 17.75%. When developed Asian markets are included, the larger Asian index has lost “only” 13.81%. In other words, hedge funds did not manage to outperform the indices, with the exception of the HFR Japan index, which is down 6.8%, compared with 17.3% for the Nikkei 225. IN fourth quarter, Asian hedge funds saw outflows of USD1.04bn, but for the year as a whole, they have seen net inflows of USD6.6bn, bringing total assets under management to USD82.1bn. Two thirds of funds invested in Asian hedge funds were allocated to equity hedge strategies. The number of Asian hedge funds rose 4% last year to 1,100 funds.

On 20 January, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Banque with an additional Chinese “A” shares quota of USD100m.The management of the additional quota will be entrusted to Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EDRAM), which, with the Edmond de Rothschild Mainland China fund, manages USD560m in assets, 5% of total assets in QFII funds managed by foreign entities (USD9.3bn as of the end of October).As of 31 December 2011, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management had EUR12.4bn in assets under management in mandates and 28 open-ended funds registered for sale in 15 countries. As of the end of 2010, Edram had about EUR14bn in assets (see Newsmanagers of 20 January 2011).

The Danish asset management firm BankInvest, a specialist in emerging markets, has announced the promotion of Kasper Elmgreen as head of the international equities unit, Citywire reports. Elmgreen had previously been deputy head of the unit which he will now lead.

The healthcare sector will attract a growing share of transactions, as it is considered a refuge for investors, both short and long term, according to a study by PwC of merger and acquisition activiti4es in the healthcare sector (“Global Healthcare Deals Quarterly”). The market has shown a solid balance sheet and support from investment funds, despite a grim economic environment in 2012.PwC has identified three key factors in the growth of trading volumes. First of all, a general resilience of operations, favourable demographic indicators, and a strong infrastructure component are all reassuring indicators for investors facing a high-risk macroeconomic environment.In the Health/Pharma sector, difficulties encountered in the search for and development of new products have led to a reorientation of capital, reducing investments in medication-type products or medical equipment, in favour of investments in new medical technologies and medical services.Lastly, the development of innovative models for the diffusion of medical services make it possible to provide a higher quality, more competitive and more effective range of healthcare services in countries such as Australia, India and the Middle East, which will be likely to attract new capital.

Since JP Morgan, and now State Street, have dropped out of the running, it is increasingly likely that Deutsche Bank will have to sell off its activities in the areas of asset management (EUR400bn) separately, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper expects to see Ameriprise Financial pull out of the running soon, as it finds the price too high. But a sale in parts would be a more complex undertaking, and would increase the risk of seeing key personnel and top investment teams leave the firm.