Asian Investor reports that Anne Wong will be joining the private banking arm of Credit Suisse in Hong Kong as head of the Greater China region, Asian Investor reports. Wong, who a few days ago announced her departure from the HSBC group, where she still serves as head of brokerage services for Asia, has also recently become a member of the consulting committee which advises the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission.

Aviva Investors has appointed Patrick Chong as head of development for financial institutions in the Asia Pacific region. In this role, Chong will be in charge of development and deployment of the firm’s distribution strategy in Singapore and Asia Pacific. He will be based in Singapore and will report to Erich Gerth, CEO for global and Asia Pacific development. “The Asia Pacific market is increasingly important for Aviva Investors. We have considerably extended our presence in the region in the past 18 months, particularly with the creation of regional headquarters in Singapore, and we are now actively involved in strengthening our distribution channels in this market. Our objective is to bring the benefits of our long-only and alternative management to the region, both through our existing product range, and through developing custom strategies for businesses, in the service of private management and multi-management,” Gerth says. Chong joins Aviva Incestors after working for Fullerton Fund Management, where he was senior vice president in charge of commercial development. Before that, he was a fund manager for Temasek Holdings, and investment advisor for the Singapore Economic Development Board.

iShares (BlackRock) on 10 October announced in London that it has recruited Matt Mack as Head of Strategic Accounts, and Stephen Cohen as Head of Investment Strategies in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), effective immediately. They will report to David Gardner, Head of iShares Sales in EMEA. Mack, the new head of strategic accounts, will be in charge of monitoring relationships with financial establishments in the EMEA region. Mack was most recently Head of UK & Nordic Third Party Distribution at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), and previously spent five years as Executive Director for EMEA Hedge Fund Sales, also at GSAM. In his new role, Cohen will direct the EMEA Investment Strategies and Insights team. He joins from Nomura, where he was Global head of Equity Linked Strategy, with responsibility for derivative products, convertibles and delta one.

The U.S. based Investment Company Institute (ICI) has announced the launch of ICI Global, a new trade organisation to focus on regulatory, market and other issues for global investment funds, their managers and investors. ICI Global members will include regulated U.S.and non-U.S.based funds publicly offered to investors in jurisdictions worldwide, making it the first industry body to focus exclusively on the perspective of globally active funds. The new organisation will be based in London.Dan Waters will be the managing director of ICI Global. He comes to the newly created organisation following a long international career in regulation, including 12 years at the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), where he directed asset management policy. Dan Waters will lead ICI Global’s international funds work from the London office.Jamie Broderick, head of J.P.Morgan Asset Management in Europe, will chair ICI Global’s steering committee.Leading international fund management groups already have expressed their plans to join ICI Global. These companies include: Capital Research and Management, Federated Investors Funds, Franklin Templeton Investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Invesco, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Legg Mason, Nuveen Investments, PIMCO Funds, T. Rowe Price, Threadneedle and Vanguard.

The board of governors at the Investment Company Institute (ICI) on 6 October elected Gregory Johnson, CEO of Franklin Resources, for a one-year term as its president. Johnson, who succeeds Edward C. Bernard, vice chairman of T. Rowe Price Group (who was re-elected for one year on 8 October 2010), will chair the board of governors and the executive committee of that board.The members of the ICI have also elected James Boyle, chairman of John Hancock Financial Services, Catherine L. Newell, general counsel at Dimensional Fund Advisors, and Mary Ann Tynan, independent director at Oppenheim funds, to terms as governors, until 30 September 2014.

Longacre Fund Management, a hedge fund firm led by three former Bear Stearns traders, is closing its main funds in the wake of redemption demands from investors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The firm, which had managed as much as USD3bn, had only USD835m in assets as of February this year.

The US branch of Aberdeen Asset Management will be taking over two funds from Credit Suisse dedicated to the US market. The first, Credit Suisse Large Cap Blend Fund (USD273.5m in assets) will be merged into the Aberdeen U.S. Equity I Fund, which will at that time be renamed as Aberdeen U.S. Equity Fund. The second fund, Credit Suisse Large Cap Blend II Fund (USd65.6m) will be merged with the Aberdeen U.S. Equity II Fund.

At a macro-economic presentation on 10 October, Jean-Pierre Grimaud, president, and Eric Bourguignon, deputy CEO of Swiss Life Asset Management (France) told Newsmanagers that assets at the asset management firm have held stable since the beginning of this year, and currently stand at between EUR4.8bn and EUR5bn. The volume in money market funds has apparently fallen to EUR2.5bn.Overall, Swiss Life AM France has posted a net inflows of about EUR100-150m YTD, with net inflows to money markets and equities, largely from institutional clients, while net subscriptions to diversified funds came largely from distribution networks.The asset management firm is currently considering moving into master-feeder funds for networks, with a view to establishing a single product range if possible. However, regulatory and tax information about these areas is still incomplete, and a decision is therefore not necessarily imminent.

Threadneedle Investments has signed an agreement with the Swedish online bank Avanza Bank to distribute 23 of its funds. The British asset management firm registered 26 funds in Sweden in April 2011.

The acquisition of Banco Pastor by Banco Popular may call into question an exclusive distribution agreement in Spain for funds from the Portuguese Banco Espírito Santo (BES), since Banco Popular has agreed to exclusively offer products from its own asset management firm (Allianz Popular), in which Allianz GI controls a majority, Funds People reports.The solution may be the Banco Popular would indemnise BES for breaking the agreement which they signed least year at the time of the acquisition of Gespator by BES for EUR25m, since the agreement with Allianz would be much more difficult to cancel, as it also extends to life insurance and retirement savings plans.Popular Gestión has assets of EUR5.5bn in 72 products, while Espírito Santo Gestión has assets of EUR1.6bn in 55 funds.

Initial indications are that BaFin is inclining towards opposing the sale of BHF-Bank by Deutsche Bank to the private equity firm RHJ International, which is reported to have withdrawn its application for the acquisition, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. In April, the German regulator blocked the sale of BHF to Liechtenstein’s LGT.

Architas (Axa group) is planning to launch a European low-risk fund for the team’s multi-management team, led by Caspar Rock, according to Investment Week. The UCITS III fund Architas Conservative Europe will invest in collective investment funds, which will in turn invest in bonds.

Michael Simpson, who had been manager of the Latin American portion of emerging markets portfolios at Wells Capital Management (San Francisco), has been recruited by the British asset management firm Barings Asset Management (Barings) as Head of Latin American Equities. He will report to Tim Scholefield, Head of Equities. Simpson will take charge of the management of the Baring Latin American Fund, an equities product launched in 1993, with assets of USD667m as of 31 August.

Between 2000 and 2010, of 1,549 European retail funds which changed their management fees, which represent 26% of the universe, 70% increased them, a research by Lipper (Thomson Reuters) of funds domiciled in Luxembourg and Ireland finds.Taking into consideration only actively managed equity funds, 784 funds changed their management fees, and 80% of these upwards. Where fees were raised it was by an average of 28 basis points. On the other hands, funds which lowered their fees reduced them by 39 basis points.In passive management, 16 ETFs and tracker funds changed their fees, and only 9 lowered them.Among money market funds 57% of funds which modified their fees have chosen to reduce them (71 funds out of 124). Among bond funds, a majority have increased their fees, but to a lesser extent than for equity funds, reflecting the greater cost sensitivity of this asset class. Of 480 bond funds which have modified their fees, 288 have increased them (60%), by an average of 17 basis points.The research also finds that fund fees do not tend to fall as assets increase, though they do tend to do so in the United States.

L’indice Lyxor Hedge Fund Index, qui reflète la performance moyenne des 14 indices de stratégie, a enregistré une baisse de 2,86 % en septembre, indique Lyxor AM. Au 30 septembre, l’indice affiche une perte de 6,55% depuis le début de l’année.Sur le mois, les stratégies alternatives ayant affiché les plus fortes performances sont Lyxor L/S Equity Short Bias Index (+2,67%), Lyxor CTAs Short Term Index (+2,29%) et Lyxor CTAs Long Term Index (+0,07%).

After a daily trading average of 14,638 on-book trades per day in August, the European markets of NYSE Euronext posted a further 13,070 transactions per trading day in September. The growth rate in annual terms comes out to 56.1%, compared with 90.7% in August.In the first nine months of the year, the number of transactions increased by 26.6% compared with January-September 2010 (with an increase of 10.6% in January-August).NYSE Euronext reports an increase of 71.4% in September compared with August in the number of trades for ETFs replicating CDS swap indices.The daily trading volume in September stood at EUR558m, 82.3% higher than in the corresponding month of last year, compared with EUR618.2m and +108% in August. The increase in the first three quarters totalled 28.6%, compared with January-September 2010.NYSE Euronext also points out that in early July it launched a new version of its off-block trading services. Trades in this segment in September totalled EUR1.3bn, 273.3% more than in September 2010.The number of ETFs listed on the European markets of NYSE Euronext as of the end of September totalled 586 (these funds are listed a total of 684 times, counting secondary listings). These products come from 18 providers. Since the beginning of the year, the number of newly-listed ETFs has totalled 139, of which 111 were primary listings, and 28 were cross-listings.The average spread for all listed ETFs in September totalled 38.83 basis points, compared with 28.5 basis points in August.Lastly, NYSE Euronext states that total assets of ETFs listed on its European markets totalled EUR124.5bn, 2.5% more than the EUR121.4bn at the end of September 2010. However, compared with August, assets under management have declined by 1.3%, with declines of 29.7% for agriculture ETFs, and 34% for industrial metals ETFs.

In the week to 5 October, equities funds underwent net outflows of USD11.57bn, one of the worst results since the beginning of the year, according to statistics from EPFR Global. Bond funds finished the week with outflows of USD2.65bn, while money market funds underwent redemptions totalling USD5.84bn. A notable and unexpected exception is European equity funds, which have ended a four-week spell of outflows with subscriptions of an undisclosed amount, though this was largely due to subscriptions to ETF funds. Diversified funds, which are considered a defensive options, have seen redemptions for the sixth consecutive week. Net inflows to these funds since the beginning of the yar, which peaked at USD11bn as of the end of July, now stand at less than USD7.5bn.

Oliver Bilal, who has recently been promoted to head of institutional and retail distribution on the executive board at Pioneer Investment Deutschland, has announced three recruitments for the institutional distribution team in Germany, Das Investment reports.Markus Becker (ex-Invesco) will be in charge of insurers, while Tobias Löschmann (ex-BNP Paribas Investment Partners) will be in charge of corporate treasurers and pension funds. Holger Schäfer is also leaving BNPP IP, and will be in charge of sales to professional complementary retirement institutions, charities and non-profit organisations.

Tony Anderson, who has spent 9 years at UBS, the last six as tech and telecom equities manager, has been recruited as manager for digital communications in the thematic equities team at Pictet Asset Management. He will report to Hans Peter Portner, who himself is a UBS veteran who joined Pictet in 1997, Citywire reports.

Carmignac Gestion has announced the appointment of Matthew Wright as head of United Kingdom. His principal task will be to develop relations with financial distributors and wealth managers in the United Kingdom for the French asset management firm.He will report to Davide Fregonese, global head of sales and marketing at Carmignac Gestion.Wright will also be in charge of creating and directing the sales team in the United Kingdom, with a view to opening an a Carmignac Gestion office in London, planned for November 2011. Before joining Carmignac Gestion, Wright was head of professional clients at LV Asset Management.

L’association américaine des fonds et sociétés d’investissement, l’Investment Company Institute (ICI), vient de lancer une branche internationale qui sera basée à Londres, l’ICI Global. Cette nouvelle association compte faire entendre la voix du secteur des fonds internationaux gérés activement. Elle inclura des fonds, enregistrés ou non aux Etats-Unis, qui sont proposés aux investisseurs dans le monde entier. «L’association cherche à faire avancer les intérêts et promouvoir la compréhension par le public des fonds d’investissement mondiaux, de leurs gérants et des investisseurs», précise un communiqué.Dan Waters, un ancien de la Financial Services Authority, a été nommé managing director d’ICI Global. Jamie Broderick, responsable de J.P. Morgan Asset Management en Europe, présidera le comité de direction d’ICI Global.Plusieurs sociétés de gestion internationales ont déjà annoncé leur intention de rejoindre l’association : Capital Research and Management, Federated Investors Funds, Franklin Templeton Investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Invesco, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Legg Mason, Nuveen Investments, PIMCO Funds, T. Rowe Price, Threadneedle et Vanguard.

Selon des sources officieuses citées par Option Finance, Dexia Asset Management et RBC Dexia, filiales de Dexia Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) ne seraient pas concernées par les discussions sur la cession de leur maison-mère. Mais Dexia AM, détenue à 49 % par Dexia Belgique, aurait sucité plusieurs marques d’intérêt de la part d’investisseurs.

Tony Anderson, qui vient de passer 9 ans chez UBS, dont les six derniers comme gérant actions technologies et télécoms, a été recruté comme gérant pour les communications numériques dans l'équipe actions thématiques de Pictet Asset Management, sous les ordres de Hans Peter Portner, lui-même un ancien d’UBS qui a rejoint Pictet en 1997, rapporte Citywire.

Entre 2000 et 2010, sur les 1.549 fonds européens retail ayant modifié leurs frais de gestion annuels, soit 26 % de l’univers, 70 % les ont augmentés, montre une étude de Lipper (Thomson Reuters) portant sur les fonds domiciliés au Luxembourg et en Irlande. Si l’on prend uniquement en considération les fonds actions gérés activement, 784 d’entre eux ont modifié leurs frais de gestion et 80 % les ont relevés. La hausse a été en moyenne de 28 points de base. A contrario, les fonds ayant baissé leurs frais les ont réduits de 39 points de base.Côté gestion passive, 16 fonds indiciels et ETF ont modifié leurs frais, et seulement 9 les ont baissés.S’agissant des fonds monétaires, 57 % des fonds ayant modifié leurs frais ont choisi de les diminuer (71 sur 124 fonds). Enfin, concernant les fonds obligataires, une majorité de fonds ont augmenté leurs frais, mais dans une moindre mesure que pour les fonds actions, ce qui reflète la plus grande sensibilité aux coûts de cette classe d’actifs. Sur les 480 fonds obligataires ayant modifié leurs frais, 288 les ont augmentés (60 %), et le cas échéant, de 17 points de base en moyenne.Par ailleurs, l’étude montre que les frais des fonds n’ont pas tendance à baisser à mesure que les encours augmentent, contrairement à ce qui se passe aux Etats-Unis.

Avec effet immédiat, iShares (groupe BlackRock) a annoncé le 10 octobre à Londres avoir embauché Matt Mack comme head of strategic accounts et Stephen Cohen comme head of investment strategies in EMEA (Europe Moyen-Orient, Afrique). Ils sont subordonnés à David Gardner, head of iShares sales in EMEA.Le nouveau responsable des «comptes stratégiques», Matt Mack, sera chargé du suivi des relations avec les établissements financiers de la zone EMEA. En dernier lieu il était head of UK & Nordic Third Party Distribution chez Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) après avoir été pendant cinq ans executive director for EMEA Hedge Fund Sales, chez GSAM également.Quant à Stephen Cohen, il dirigera dans ses nouvelles fonctions l'équipe EMEA Investment Strategies and Insights. Il vient de Nomura, où il était global head of equity linked strategy, avec la responsabilité des produiés dérivés, convertibles et «delta-one».

La branche américaine d’Aberdeen Asset Management va reprendre deux fonds de Credit Suisse dédiés au marché américain. Le premier, le Credit Suisse Large Cap Blend Fund (273,5 millions de dollars d’encours) sera intégré au fonds Aberdeen U.S. Equity I Fund, qui sera par la même occasion renommé Aberdeen U.S Equity Fund.Le second fonds, le Credit Suisse Large Cap Blend II Fund (65,6 millions) sera fusionné avec le fonds Aberdeen U.S. Equity II Fund.

Longacre Fund Management, une société de hedge funds dirigée par trois anciens traders de Bear Stearns, ferme ses principaux fonds suite à des demandes de remboursements de la part d’investisseurs, rapporte The Wall Street Journal. La société, qui a géré jusqu’à près de 3 milliards de dollars, n’avait plus que 835 millions de dollars d’encours en février dernier.

Le conseil des gouverneurs de l’Investment Company Institute (ICI) a élu le 6 octobre comme président pour un mandat d’un an Gregory Johnson, le CEO de Franklin Resources. L’intéressé, qui succède à Edward C. Bernard, vice chairman de T. Rowe Price Group (qui avait été réélu pour un an le 8 octobre 2010), présidera le conseil des gouverneurs ainsi que le comité exécutif de ce conseil.Par ailleurs, les membres de l’ICI ont élu comme gouverneurs pour des mandats prenant fin le 30 septembre 2014 James Boyle, president de John Hancock Financial Services, Catherine L. Newell, general counsel de Dimensional Fund Advisors et Mary Ann Tynan, administrateur indépendant d’Oppenheimer Funds.

Le marché primaire s'est rouvert discrètement après l'annonce du 6 octobre de la relance du programme de rachats de covered bonds

Un fonds d’investissement représentant les intérêts de l’Emirat vient de racheter la filiale de banque privée de KBC et s’apprête à reprendre Dexia BIL.