Selon Les Echos, le Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), le fonds souverain libyen, attend de récupérer la majorité de ses actifs, gelée à l'étranger. Pour les équipes en place du fonds souverain, plusieurs scénarios se profilent. Soit il devient un investisseur national stratégique, sur le modèle du fonds du Qatar, soit il devient un fonds de précaution sur le modèle cette fois du fonds d’Abu Dhabi (Adia). Soit enfin, ses actifs sont progressivement vendus pour financer la reconstruction.

La société de gestion espagnole Bestinver a lancé un nouveau fonds actions mondiales grandes capitalisations, Bestinver Grandes Compañias, pour parer à une éventuelle fermeture de ses fonds actions vedette pour des contraintes de capacité, rapporte Citywire. Sa gamme de fonds comprend actuellement Bestinver Internacional, Bestinfond et Bestinver Bolsa.

Un groupe d’investisseurs du Qatar, Precision Capital, va acquérir 90 % de Dexia Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, l’une des entités de la banque franco-belge. Le grand-duché de Luxembourg devient pour sa part actionnaire à hauteur des 10 % restants. Selon un communiqué paru mardi 20 décembre, le prix global de la transaction s'élève à 730 millions d’euros.L’opération reste entre autres soumise à toutes les approbations réglementaires ainsi qu’à l’autorisation de la Commission européenne.

La société de gestion britannique Martin Currie, dédiée à la gestion actions, lance comme prévu son fonds marchés émergents Martin Currie GF – Global Emerging Markets Fund . Ce compartiment de sicav luxembourgeoise, conforme au format Ucits IV, est géré par Kim Catechis et ses co-gérants Alastair Reynolds et Divya Mathur, qui ont rejoint Martin Currie en 2010 en provenance de SWIP. Martin Currie GF – Global Emerging Markets Fund est un fonds de 40-60 lignes concentrés sur les meilleures idées d’investissement de Martin Currie, quelle que soit la taille des capitalisations.

Les fonds «tout terrain», susceptibles d’investir sur n’importe quelle classe d’actifs partout dans le monde, et de se protéger contre les baisses de marchés, n’ont pas tenu leurs promesses, observe le Wall Street Journal. Les fonds d’allocation mondiale ont perdu en moyenne 6 % cette année au 16 décembre, selon Morningstar, contre un gain de 3 % du Dow Jones Industrial Average. Pourtant, ces fonds restent populaires. Les investisseurs y ont investi en net 16 milliards de dollars cette année à fin novembre, après 23 milliards en 2010.

La société de capital-investissement britannique a accepté de payer 100 millions de réaux, soit environ 41 millions d’euros, pour acquérir une participation dans le fournisseur de chaînes de télévision câblée brésilien Blue Interactive Group. «Nous croyons que Blue est bien positionné pour profiter du nouvel environnement de croissance au Brésil» a indiqué 3i qui s’est refusé à chiffrer le niveau de la participation.

La banque d’investissement a enregistré une baisse annuelle de 23% de son bénéfice net au quatrième trimestre à 48,4 millions de dollars, soit 21 cents par action. Un résultat néanmoins bien supérieur au consensus des analystes qui tablaient sur un bénéfice par action de seulement 11 cents, après la menace de dégradation en catégorie spéculative émise par l’agence de notation Egan Jones.

Les deux opérateurs boursiers ont proposé, dans un courrier adressé au commissaire européen à la Concurrence Joaquin Almunia, de plafonner pendant trois ans les commissions de base perçues sur les contrats dérivés en Europe une fois leur union entérinée. Les deux groupes ont rendez-vous aujourd’hui à Bruxelles pour un point d’étape, selon Reuters. La décision de la Commission sur la fusion est attendue d’ici au 9 février.

Le ministère de l’Economie a annoncé que le taux de rémunération des Plans épargne logement appelés à être souscrits en 2012 va rester inchangé à 2,50%. La réforme du 1er mars 2011 a fixé un «taux plancher» à ce niveau.

Selon Nomura, en cas d’éclatement de l'union monétaire, beaucoup d’obligations d'entreprises financières pourraient être converties en nouvelle devise

La part des BTF diminuera encore en 2012. Des obligations à taux variables pourraient être lancées

La part des BTF diminuera encore en 2012. Des obligations à taux variables pourraient être lancées

Avec les ABS auto, les créances adossées à des prêts immobiliers résidentiels britanniques devraient tirer leur épingle du jeu en 2012

Le pays doit lever 64 milliards d'euros pour couvrir les tombées. Mais les mécanismes de soutien sont loin d'être opérationnels

Révisant sa prévision de croissance et d’inflation à respectivement 1,3 % et 1,5 % en 2012, la banque centrale a baissé ses taux hier de 25 pb à 1,75 %

Granite Investment Advisors is preparing to launch its first mutual fund. The Granite Value Fund will be managed by Scott Schermerhorn, CEO and CIO of the firm, as principal manager.

The multi-management fund OFI MultiSelect BRIC from OFI Asset Management, which invests primarily in equities from the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is extending its investment universe to the African continent. As a result, the fund has been renamed as OF MultiSelect BRICA. The management of the new Africa mandate will be handled by the London-based asset management firm Silk Invest, which has local teams in seven African countries. Geographical allocation to these countries is determined on the basis of the demographic dynamism of each region, direct investment flows, and creation of wealth. 50% of the mandate will be invested in African countries excluding South Africa, 15% in South Africa, and 35% in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Wells Fargo will close its Wells Fargo Advantage Growth Fund to new subscribers from 31 January 2012, Mutual Fund Wire has announced, citing reports by Morningstar. Assets in the fund have fallen by USD2.9bn since the beginning of the year to USD7.2bn. It is managed by Tom Ognar, Bruce Olson, and Joe Eberhard.

Groupama Asset Management has announced the appointment of François Delaleu as director of IT systems. Delaleu has a solid 15 years of experience in the Crédit Agricole group. He was appointed director of IT at the time of the creation of Amundi Investment Solutions in 2005. At that time, he participated in the merger of 3 entities with 130 employees, and set up Governance IT for the new Amundi affiliate.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has published for consultation a set of requirements for banks to disclose the composition of their regulatory capital. These aim to improve the transparency and comparability of banks’ capital bases, including on a cross border basis. «During the financial crisis, market participants and supervisors attempted to undertake detailed assessments of the capital positions of banks and make cross jurisdictional comparisons,» the Basel Committee recalls in a statement. «These efforts were often hampered by insufficiently detailed disclosure and a lack of consistency in reporting between banks and across jurisdictions». The committee underscores that this lack of clarity on the quality of capital may have contributed to uncertainty during the financial crisis.» In addition to improving the quality and level of required capital, Basel III established certain high level disclosure requirements to improve transparency of regulatory capital and enhance market discipline. The Basel Committee noted that it would issue more detailed Pillar 3 disclosure requirements in 2011. Comments should be submitted by Friday 17 February 2012. The Basel Committee has also released a consultative paper on Principles for the Supervision of Financial Conglomerates. The consultation will remain open until 16 March 2012.

The banking group SYZ & Co has announced the launch of the fund Oyster Multi-Manager Tail & Trading, a new sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav 3A Alternative Funds, part II. Devised by SYZ Asset Management, this innovative new fund combines two complementary alternative strategies in order to provide investors with protection in the current environment, which is generally unfavourable to traditional asset classes. It thus combines decorrelated CTA funds with funds that pursue a strategy of active protection against extreme risks (“tail risk”). Thanks to its low correlation with the financial markets and other alternative strategies, this new fund aims to provide a significant improvement in the risk profile of a traditional portfolio. The Oyster Multi-Manager Tail & Trading fund allocates the majority of its assets to CTA funds (combining short-term, medium-term and macro systematic approaches) and supplements it with an active risk management strategy. The proportion allocated to the two strategies may vary. The pro-forma historical results of this combination are particularly attractive, in terms of both annualized performance and volatility. In view of these good results and a low correlation with the financial markets and the other alternative strategies, the inclusion in a traditional portfolio of an allocation – however moderate – to this strategy significantly improves its maximum drawdown and volatility characteristics. This new strategy is available in five different reference currencies (USD, CHF, EUR, GBP and JPY). The fund invests its assets exclusively in the products based on the managed accounts platform developed through the cooperation between SYZ Asset Management and UBS Investment Bank. Oyster Multi-Manager Tail & Trading provides weekly subscriptions and redemptions. The fund is only aimed at an institutional client base.

The European summit on 9 December had only a very fleeting positive impact on the confidence of investors, who are concerned about a recession in the euro zone, and who are still avoiding equities. In the week to 14 December, equity funds have seen a net outflow of USD9.5bn, according to statistics from EPFR Global. Only funds dedicated to Indonesian, South African and Colombian equities finished the week with net inflows. Emerging market funds have seen net outflows since the beginning of the year of USD38.8bn, compared with net inflows of USD91.5bn in the corresponding period of 2010. Bond funds, which have been less popular, attrracted USD1.1bn in the week to 14 December. For the first time since the end of third quarter 2011, none of the major categories of bond funds have seen positive or negative flows of over USD1bn. Money market funds have posted net inflows of USD3.2bn. Since the beginning of November, money market funds have posted net subscriptions of about USD60bn.

The former controller at Bernard Madoff’s firm, Enrica Cotalessa-Pitz, has admitted falsifying documents, the Wall Street Journal reports. She becomes the sixth person, including Madoff, to plead guilty since hirs arrest in December 2008. “Even though I know that the crimes I committed helped to cover up and perpetuate the fraud of Bernard Madoff, at the time I did not know that Madoff and others were stealing money from investors,” the former employee of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities said.

Generali is hoping to reach EUR30bn in assets under management by 2015, between Asia and Eastern Europe, the economy supplement of Il Corriere della Serra reports. Asset management is one of three growth areas for the Italian insurer, along with real estate and international.

The financial ratings agency Moody’s on 19 December announced that it has issued a rating of A3 for subordinate debt from Julius Baer Group. The rating has a negative outlook, the agency says. It is the first rating ever issued for Julius Baer by Moody’s. In the long term, the agency may modify its outlook on its rating of Julius Baer if the Swiss group manages to develop in private banking in emerging markets, improves the profitability of its assets under management, and realises economies of scale due to its geographical reach.

It is now China, and not the euro zone, which is galvanising analysts and hedge fund managers, the Financial Times reports. Concerns are increasing about global outlooks, in light of negative economic signals coming from the country. Emerging Sovereign Group, which is one of the hedge funds which anticipated the euro zone crisis, feels that the next stage of the global debt crisis may play out in Asia. The difficulty is that official figures from China only provide a partial view of the situation there, the FT adds. Many professionals, such as GLG Partners, are therefore recruiting staff locally to verify the economic situation.

Eric Verleyen has been appointed chief investment officer of Société Générale Private Banking Hambros (SGPB Hambros), in London. He has previously served in the same role at Société Générale Bank & Trust Luxembourg, a firm he joined in 2005. In Luxembourg, he will be replaced by Alexandre Cegarra, as chief investment officer at Société Générale Bank & Trust in Luxemmbourg. Cegarra had been head of the discretionary portfolio management at the firm. Cegarra and Verleyen will lead the Investment Strategy implementation in their respective entity and will chair the relevant entities’ local Asset Allocation Committee. They will also be responsible for developing and managing the local investment products & services offering dedicated to high net worth clients in their market.

Aberdeen Asset Management would like to increase its assets under management by its emerging markets debt team from USD7bn to USD30bn, Financial News reports. According to its CEO, Martin Gilbert, the firm is planning to do so without recruiting new staff.

UBS Global Asset Management has recruited Ian Barnes to replace John Nestor as head of business in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Financial News reports. He joins the firm from Russell Investments.

Paul Feeney has been appointed chief executive of Skandia Investment Group (SIG) – an asset management business within the Long Term Savings Division (LTS) of Old Mutual plc.He is expected to join in early January. Since 2008, he has been head of distribution and executive director of BNY Mellon Asset Management responsible for all global distribution outside the United States.Paul Feeney’s new appointment to SIG follows Phil Wagstaff’s decision to take the role of global head of distribution at Henderson Global Investors following his appointment to the role of SIG CEO just two weeks ago.Paul Feeney will also be chief executive of all of Old Mutual’s Asset Management businesses within LTS. He will report directly to Paul Hanratty, chief executive of Old Mutual’s Long Term Savings business.