Graham Tuckwell, founder, largest shareholder and president of ETF Securities, has put his company up for sale for about EUR1bn, Investment Week reports, echoing reports in the Financial Times. The founder of the firm has retained Goldman Sachs to sell the firm. Asset management firms and capital management groups are reportedly on the list of potential buyers. Their bids are to be submitted before Christmas. In early December, assets under management at ETF Securities totalled USD28.2bn, of which USD17.7bn, or 63% of total assets, are invested in physical precious metals.

The flormer global head of ETF research at BlackRock, Deborah Fuhr, did not ultimately join Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London as head of Global Delta One strategy, as previously announced (Newsmanagers of 12 August 2011).According to the Reuters news agency, Fuhr never began work at the US group, and has not given any reasons for her decision. According to sources familiar with the matter, differences in point of view between Fuhr and BofA Merrill Lynch about the perimeter of its activities are said to be the cause of the disaffection. For several weeks, Fuhr has been presenting herself in public as an independent ETF expert.Fuhr has not yet decided what direction she will give to her career, and has told Reuters that she will be taking some time to think before accepting a new position.

In two years, guaranteed funds in Spain have taken on more than EUR10bn, and have doubled their market share to 26.6% from 13.4%, Expansión reports. They have dethroned short-duration bond funds as the largest category of funds by asset volume, with EUR34.4bn in assets under management.This total may increase further, as some products are generating returns of over 4% per year due to the debt crisis. But that is a double-edged sword, since these funds hold EUR25bn in Greek, Spanish and Italian public debt.The strongest inflows for guaranteed products have been for InverCaixa, with net subscriptions of EUR3.5bn since the beginning of this year, following EUR2bn in 2010, while in second, third and fourth place are Santander (EUR1.15bn), Bankia (EUR750m) and Banca Civica (EUR400m).

On 1 November, Russell Investments opened a branch office in Frankfurt, on Bockenheimer Landstraße. The two people in the office, Sebastian Hofmann-Wether, director, and Philip Hofmann, have now moved into the Opernturm skyscraper and in early January will welcome a new sales representative. There are no plans for the new office to employ portfolio managers: it will be dedicated exclusively to distribution of all of the products of the Russell range (indices, funds, execution, consulting, etc).The new location is intended to bring Russell Investments closer to its German-speaking clients, particularly in Germany and Austria.

Carlos Böhles has been recruited as head of institutional business for Germany and Austria at Schroders. Böhles will report to Achim Küssner, CEO of Schroder Investment Management GmbH, and will oversee a team of four people who will soon be strengthened with the addition of a senior sales officer.Before joining Schroders, Böhles spend seven years as director of European equity at Merrill Lynch International Bank Limited in Frankfurt.Böhles replaces Robert Schlichting, who was recruited in 2007, and who according to reports in the local press, appears to have been dismissed with effect from 31 December; he has already left the business.

Agefi reports that the court-appointed trustee for the M-Invest fund, a “feeder fund” for the fraud orchestrated by Bernard Madoff, are seeking USD900m from the auditing firm Ernst & Young, which it accuses of negligence in audits undertaken between 2003 and 2007. The M-Invest fund was created by Union Bancaire Privée, the newspaper notes.

Public awareness is there: actively-employed French citizens know that the reforms being passed do not resolve the problems in the long term. Though a slight majority consider the 2010 reforms necessary to preserve the French system of distribution of assets, two thirds feel that it is inadequate to preserve the system sustainably, according to the Deloitte study “The French and retirement,” undertaken by Harris Interactive. The survey was undertaken between 28 September 2011 and 11 October 2011, and covered a sample of 2,000 French respondents aged over 25, composed of 18% pensioners and 82% actively-employed persons. Actively-employed respondents have also taken on board the increase in the retirement age to 66, and are aware of the importance of preparing for their retirement (57%).Concerns about retirement are equally substantial. 55% of the actively employed say they are worried or very worried by the issue of retirement, with 72% very worried or worried about preparing for it. As to the retirement age, 81% say they are concerned, an opinion shared by all age groups.Although a lack of money is the major obstacle to putting aside savings for retirement, a high majority of actively-employed people are aware of the need to personally finance a future complementary source of income (83%). Actively-employed persons are preparing or planning to prepare for their retirement before the age of 50.The need for information remains, as two actively-employed respondents out of three consider the level of information insufficient, both about their future situation and about the means to prepare for it. More than 75% have no or little idea about the future level of income they will receive at retirement, and more than 50% of these have at least a vague idea, which overestimates that amount. Four actively-employed respondents out of ten have no confidence in any public or private institutional source. Obligatory retirement organisms are viewed as the most reliable source, but only for about one in three actively-employed respondents. In this situation, pension funds and the Internet are preferred sources of information for research, with the Internet the information channel used by more than four out of ten actively-employed respondents.58% of actively-employed respondents are setting aside savings when they can, and 25% are planning to do so. 42% of the youngest of them (25-34) are already preparing. More than half of assets are being directed primarily to traditional products (savings accounts and life insurance), which offer flexibility and security for their savings efforts and retirement. Existing dedicated retirement savings products are not preferred as they do not satisfy all the concerns of French clients, either for the long term (retirement) or the short term (helping loved ones, covering health-care costs). This situation is all the more regrettable as retirement is now the number one savings priority for the French.

TCW, a US asset management affiliate of Société Générale (which controls 80%, while Amundi owns 20%), may be sold by SocGen, Bloomberg reported last week. According to La Tribune, Morgan Stanley has received five or six offers for the asset management firm.According to reports in the newspaper, the head of TCW, Marc Stern, is seeking an alliance with a private equity fund for a management buy-out (MBO). The newspaper names JC Flowers & Co and KKR.

The Italian asset management association Assogestioni is proposing to create a category for “Italian bond funds.” The category would be reserved for products which invest at least 70% of their assets in Italian debt issuers, including the Italian treasury and Italian businesses. With this move, “we are proposing to facilitate household investment in government bonds,” explains Domenico Siniscalco, chairman of Assogestioni. The initiative follows calls from an entrepreneur and a footballers’ association to buy Italian government bonds. “Italians are not the BOT people of past years anymore [BOT are Italian treasury bonds -ed]. From 1997 to the present, the percentage they hold of Italian public debt has more than halved, from 32% to 13%,” Siniscalco adds.

On Monday, the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) announced that it has fined HSBC a record GBP10.5m, The regulator claims that one of the bank’s affiliates, NHFA Limited, “inappropriately” sold complex securitisation products to 2,485 elderly and “vulnerable” clients between 2005 and 2010. These clients were investing largely to finance their health-care expenses. The FSA notes that in some cases, the life expectancy of these clients was less than five years, the recommended investment period for products of this type.In addition to the fine, HSBC must pay damages and interest totalling GBP29.4m, which NHFA will pay out to victims.

The British asset management firm MA Funds has recruited the former CEO of Witan Trust, Robert Edwards Clarke, as chief financial officer for the group and chief operating officer, effective immediately.Tony Moore, the current CFO, will be resigning from his responsibilities in parallel with the recruitment, but will remain to ensure a smooth transfer of his responsibilities until 2012. John Graham, who is leaving his position as chief operating officer, but who will remain to ensure a smooth transition, will do the same.Assets under management at MAM Funds totalled GBP1.68bn as of the end of June 2011.

Pre-tax profits for the asset management firm Aberdeen Asset Management have increased 44% in the year to 30 September, to a total of GBP301.9m, compared with GBP210m, Earnings are up 23%, to EUR784m, largely due to growth in high-margin activities.Assets under management, however, have fallen to GBP169.9bn as of the end of September, compared with GBP178.7bn one year earlier. AUM increased during a good part of the year, but events in the past few months have led to a reduction in assets of about 5%. For the year as a whole, Aberdeen has reported a net outflows of EUR1.7bn.Equity funds have attracted GBP9bn, but alternative strategies, bond and money market funds have finished the period with outflows of GBP3.2bn, GBP4.8bn, and GBP2.1bn, respectively.

Graham Tuckwell, founder, largest shareholder and president of ETF Securities, has retained Goldman Sachs to sell the company, according to reports in the Financial Times. The structure had USD28.2bn in assets under management as of the beginning of December, of which 63% were in products backed by physical precious metals. The value of the firm is estimated at about GBP1bn, according to the FT.

Skandia Investment Group’s (SIG) portfolio manager Lee Freeman-Shor is bringing back Wellington Management fund manager Dirk Enderlein into his Skandia European Best Ideas Fund (EBI) after a two year break.Dirk Enderlein left EBI following his move from RCM to Wellington some two years ago. Since then he’s been establishing in his activities with the US fund management giant.Now after two years, Dirk Enderlein has agreed to run a EUR34m mandate from Lee Freeman-Shor who regards Dirk Enderlein as Europe’s premier growth manager.Given that Lee Freeman-Shor currently has ten managers he has therefore decided to remove incumbent manager James Buckley.

Barclays Capital is planning to launch an onshore version of its Radar fund in February 2012, Investment Week reports. The absolute return fund replicates the investment strategy of the UCITS-compliant fund, domiciled in Ireland and launched in February 2009.The co-managers of the offshore portfolio, Jason Smith and Ian Mizrahi, will also manage the new fund, which will concentrate on indices of international equity markets, government bonds, commodities and currencies.

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), the asset management affiliate of Lloyds Banking Group, is launching the SWIP Foundation Growth fund, a tracker fund which replicates the FTSE All-Share index, with a management commission of 0.07%, and a total expense ratio of 0.11%, making it the most inexpensive retail fund ever offered on the British market, the Financial Times repoorts.The most inexpensive fund previously available on the British market had been the MoneyBuilder from Fidelity, with a TER of 0.27%, while the Scottish Widow All-Share charges 0.36%.Vanguard is offering British investors an All-Share fund with a TER of 0.15%, but until recently, that fund had been available only with a minimal investment of GBP100,000. The Vanguard and SWIP tracker funds are now available on the Vantage fund platform from Hargreaves Lansdown, with an initial subscription of at least GBP1,000, and GBP50 per month. Eleven other low-cost funds from Vanguard are now available on Vantage, with total TER rates ranging from 0.25% to 0.30%.

As part of measures by the new Italian government, a new stamp duty on securities will be introduced, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. It will apply to all financial instruments, including funds (except pension funds). The duty will be proportional to the value of financial instruments. The proposed legislation, which is being debated by Parliament, proposes a rate of 0.1% per year in 2012 and 0.15% from 2013.

State Street Corporation has been selected by Fundsmith LLP to provide fund administration and custody services and shareholder services to its new UCITS IV-compliant Luxembourg-registered feeder fund.State Street has provided the Fundsmith Equity Fund EIOC with securities custody, fund accounting, and depository services, as well as processing of portfolio transactions, since the launch of the fund in the United Kingdom in November 2010.

Avis de pré information: Gestion d’actifs de la Caisse des dépôts pour le compte du régime d’allocations viagères des gérants de débits de tabac (Ravgdt). Mise en place et la gestion de deux FCP. Le montant global des encours est de l’ordre de 350 millions d’EUR. Il s’agit d’un marché à bons de commande multi-attributaires. Pour lire l’avis complet: cliquez ici

Le 19 décembre, Deka lancera le fonds Deka-Deutschland Balance qui investira en actions et obligations d’Etat allemandes, avec une repondération hebdomadaire assistée par ordinateur afin d’optimiser l’allocation aux deux types d’actifs.Ce nouveau produit est la version focalisée sur l’Allemagne du Deka-Euroland Balance lancé en juillet 2003 et qui affiche jusqu'à fin novembre 2011 une performance annuelle moyenne de plus de 4 %. Pour le Deutschland Balance, Deka vise une performance supérieure à celle du marché obligataire allemand.Selon le gérant du fonds, Thorsten Rühl, les actions allemandes sont actuellement très abordables et les obligations fédérales sont considérées comme une valeur refuge.D’emblée, le nouveau fonds est positionné de manière «conservatrice» : en position «neutre», le portefeuille se compose de 15 % d’actions et de 85 % d’obligations. Selon la physionomie du marché, la poche actions peut varier entre 0 et 30 %, la poche obligations évoluant entre 50 et 100 %. En cas de situation extrême, le fonds peut être investi jusqu'à 50 % en dépôts à terme.CaractéristiquesDénomination: Deka-Deutschland BalanceCodes Isin : Version ClassicFonds (CF) : DE000DK2CFB1 / Version TradingFonds (TF) : DE000DK2CFC9Droit d’entrée : 3 % (parts CF)Commission de gestion : 0,85 % (CF) / 1,20 % (TF)Commission administrative : 0,16 % (CF et TF)

Carlos Böhles a été recruté en tant que head of institutional business pour l’Allemagne et l’Autriche par Schroders. Subordonné à Achim Küssner, directeur général de Schroder Investment Management GmbH, il sera à la tête d’une équipe de quatre personnes qui doit être prochainement musclée par l’embauche d’un «senior sales».Avant d’entrer chez Schroders en 2008, Carlos Böhles avait été pendant sept ans director of European equity chez Merrill Lynch International Bank Limited à Francfort.Carlos Böhles remplace Robert Schlichting, recruté en 2007 et qui, selon la presse locale, semble avoir été licencié avec effet au 31 décembre. Il a déjà quitté l’entreprise.

Au 1er novembre, Russell Investments a ouvert une succursale à Francfort, Bockenheimer Landstraße. A présent, les deux personnes de ce bureau, Sebastian Hofmann-Werther (director) et Phillip Hofmann, ont emménagé dans l’Opernturm et devraient accueillir début janvier un nouveau «sales». Il n’est pas prévu que la nouvelle antenne emploie également des gérants de portefeuille : elle est dédiée exclusivement à la distribution de tous les produits de la gamme Russell (indices, fonds, exécution, conseil, etc).Cette nouvelle implantation est destinée à rapprocher Russell Investments de ses clients germanophones, notamment allemands et autrichiens.

Sur la plate-forme de fonds coordonnés de Bank of America Merrill Lynch, les particuliers et les institutionnels allemands ont désormais accès à trois fonds long/short gérés respectivement par Perella Weinberg Partners, TT Financials et Westchester, rapporte Das Investment. La souscription minimale est fixée à 1.000 dollars.Il s’agit du Perella Weinberg Partners Sustainable Resources Long-Short Ucits Fund, géré par Rod Parsley et Douglas Millet, du TT Financials Long-Short Ucits Fund, géré par Mark Eady, et du Westchester Merger Arbitrage Ucits Fund, géré par Roy D. Behren et Michael T. Shannon.

Lee Freeman-Shor, gérant du fonds Skandia European Best Ideas chez Skandia Investment Group (SIG), a réintégré Dirk Enderlein en portefeuille. Le gérant avait été sorti il y a deux ans lorsqu’il avait quitté RCM pour Wellington. Maintenant qu’il est bien installé dans sa nouvelle société, Lee Freeman-Shor lui a confié un mandat de 34 millions d’euros. La réintégration de Dirk Enderlein a conduit le gérant du Skandia European Best Ideas, qui réunit les meilleures idées d’investissement de 10 gérants, à se séparer de James Buckley, de Barings.

Barclays Capital envisage de lancer une version onshore de son fonds Radar en février 2012, selon Investment Week. Ce fonds de performance absolue réplique la stratégie d’investissement du fonds Ucits domicilié en Irlande et lancé en février 2009.Les co-gérants du portefeuille offshore, Jason Smith et Ian Mizrahi, vont également gérer le nouveau fonds qui va se concentrer sur les indices des marchés d’actions internationales, les obligations souveraines, les matières premières et les devises.

Le britannique MAM Funds vient de recruter l’ex-CEO du Witan trust, Robert Edwards Clarke, en qualité de directeur financier du groupe, et directeur des opérations, avec effet immédiat.Tony Moore, l’actuel directeur financier, démissionne parallèlement de ses fonctions, mais assume jusqu’en 2012 le transfert de ses responsabilités. Même démarche pour John Graham qui démissionne de ses fonctions de chief operating officer mais qui va assurer la transition avec son successeur. Les actifs sous gestion de MAM Funds s'élevaient à 1,68 milliard de livres à fin juin 2011.

Le résultat avant impôts de la société de gestion Aberdeen Asset Management a progressé de 44% durant l’exercice au 30 septembre pour s'établir à 301,9 millions de livres contre 210 millions de livres. Le chiffre d’affaires affiche une hausse de 23% à 784 millions de livres, en raison notamment du développement des activités margées.Les actifs sous gestion ont toutefois diminué à 169,9 milliards de livres à fin septembre contre 178,7 milliards de livres un an plus tôt. Les actifs sous gestion ont progressé pendant une bonne partie de l’année mais les événements des derniers mois ont entraîné une réduction des actifs de l’ordre de 5%. Sur l’ensemble de l’année, Aberdeen fait état d’une décollecte nette de 1,7 milliard de livres.Les fonds actions ont drainé une collecte nette de 9 milliards de livres, mais les stratégies alternatives, l’obligataire et les fonds monétaires ont terminé l’exercice sur des décollectes de respectivement 3,2 milliards de livres, 4,8 milliards de livres et 2,1 milliards de livres.

TCW, la filiale américaine de gestion d’actifs de Société Générale (à 80 %, Amundi en possédant 20 %), pourrait être cédée, indiquait Bloomberg la semaine dernière. Selon La Tribune, la banque Morgan Stanley aurait reçu cinq à six offres d’achats de sociétés de gestion. Selon les informations du quotidien, le patron de TCW, Marc Stern, chercherait une alliance avec un fonds de private equity pour faire un MBO (management buy-out). Le quotidien cite les noms de JC Flowers & Co et KKR.

State Street Corporation vient d'être sélectionné par Fundsmith LLP pour fournir des services d’administration de fonds et de conservation de titres ainsi que des services aux actionnaires pour sa nouvelle sicav Ucits IV (fonds nourricier) à Luxembourg. State Street fournit au fonds Fundsmith Equity Fund EIOC des services de conservation de titres, de comptabilité de fonds, de dépositaire ainsi que des solutions pour l’exécution des transactions de portefeuille depuis son lancement au Royaume-Uni en novembre 2010.

Et de 51 ! Avec l’arrivée du groupe Pasteur Mutualité au sein du Club des investisseurs, la société amLeague compte désormais 51 membres - hors les cinquante caisses de pension fédérées par le GIP, un groupement de fonds de pension suisses. Les membres du Club investisseurs d’amLeague ont notamment la possibilité de suivre et de juger la qualité de la gestion active de 22 sociétés de gestion participant aux championnats organisés sur les marchés européens et de la zone euro, avec un mandat «full invested» et/ou «flexible» et/ou un mandat de type «asset allocation long only».