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30/09/2011

Pimco plans to develop alternative management activities

Pacific Investment Management (Pimco, Allianz group) has appointed Jennifer Bridwell as head of development for alternative products, Bloomberg reports. Bridwell had previously been head of mortgage strategies. The appointment is a sign of Pimco’s desire to develop its activities in hedge funds and distressed debt in a new alternative management unit which will be led by Bridwell.
30/09/2011

OFI AM appoints a new head of projects for Asia

Following the departure of Haiyan Li-Labbé to Carmignac Gestion (see Newsmanagers of 28 September 2011), OFI Asset Management has appointed a new head for its Asian projects. According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, the new head of Xinghang Li, who previously worked with Li-Labbé at ADI Alternative Investments. Like Li-Labbé, Li will be responsible for investment and development projects of the OFI group in Asia, and will lead the management team specialised in Asian markets. He will also manage the Luxembourg-registered SIF fund from OFI AM specialised in China, which invests in local Chinese equities (A-class shares) and is aimed at institutional investors, in cooperation with manager-analysts at Great Wall Fund Management (see Newsmanagers of 7 January 2011).
30/09/2011

KKR and BlackRock woo Axa PE

The Financial Times reports that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and BlackRock are interested in acquiring Axa Private Equity. They are two of several candidates who have been asked to submit an initial offer next week, according to sources familiar with the matter.
30/09/2011

OMAM releases a hedge fund on Lyxor UCITS platform

Lyxor Asset Management and Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK) are launching the first single hedge fund manager on the UCITS Lyxor Dimension Platform. The Lyxor/Old Mutual Global Statistical Arbitrage Strategy Index Fund offers exposure to a pure alpha strategy managed by Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK).Paul Simpson, head of systematic investments and senior portfolio manager at Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK) commented: “Our strategy is a quantitative equity market neutral model exploiting short term pricing opportunities and actively trading large capitalisation equities.” This investment process has been in place since 2007 at Old Mutual. “It is the first time we are implementing it in a UCITS vehicle,” adds Paul Simpson. Launched in 2009, Lyxor Dimension offers investors access to a variety of alternative strategies and themes in a UCITS format. It complements Lyxor’s established offshore managed account platform and consists of more than 10 multimanager funds and one absolute return program. Old Mutual will be the first single hedge fund manager on the platform and Lyxor plans to launch more UCITS hedge funds in the coming months.
30/09/2011

GAM launches an Asean fund

GAM launches GAM Star Emerging Asia Equity, a fund which aims to access the potential of ASEAN markets. The fund, managed by Michael Lai, investment director with Camille Vergara, investment manager, invests in quoted securities in ASEAN markets, primarily Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, with opportunistic allocations to companies in other ASEAN markets, as well as other emerging Asian countries outside China. This results in a high conviction portfolio of 35-45 stocks focused on mid-cap, under researched, overlooked and mispriced companies. The fund seeks to outperform the MSCI AC South East Asia index over the long-term and is authorised for sale in Austria, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Macau, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
30/09/2011

European finance industry highly concerned about FATCA legislation

The FATCA law (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) appears to be attracting a lot of attention worldwide already, particularly in Europe. According to a survey by RBC Dexia Investor Services, only 26% of financial companies surveyed had little or no knowledge of the legislation, which was passed last year, but about which few details are known so far. The survey finds that European financial institutions appear to attach a particularly high importance to the FATCA law, with 86% of respondents familiar with it. Despite questions which remain about the legislation, institutions which know about the law are actively preparing for it. The cost of application for the law is estimated at about USD1m. At the annual conference of the Luxembourg Investment Fund Association (ALFI), held on 27 and 28 September in Luxembourg, the president of the American financial management association (ICI), Paul Scott Stevens, expressed some reservations about the potential impact of the law. “We understand the concerns of foreign actors on this subject. But I don’t think the law can be substantially amended,” Stevens says. “I therefore think that we need to set up a functional framework.” After all, he concludes, “tax evasion is a subject which is not limited to the US tax authorities. Tax evasion is a concern for many authorities worldwide.”
30/09/2011

Financial innovation and ETFs under the eye of ESMA

ETFs remain of central concern for the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA). “Activities such as securities lending, or specific forms of ETFs, such as synthetic ETFs, require more attention from the point of view of financial stability,” ESMA’s chairman, Steven Maijoor, said in a speech in Vienna on 29 September. Maijoor says that ESMA is planning to launch a consultation on proposals for legislation of ETFs and UCITS funds by the end of this year, with the primary objective of improving the transparency of these products. The ESMA chairman also stated that a permanent financial innovation committee (FISC) has been recently created, and will play a central preventative role in the area of financial products.
30/09/2011

BlackRock recruits its first head of fixed income for Asia

BlackRock has recruited Joel Kim for the newly-created position of head of fixed income for the Asia-Pacific region, Asian Investor reports. Kim previously worked at ING IM, and left that firm two weeks ago. He will begin in his new role in November or early December. He will be based in Singapore, the centre of fixed income expertise for Asia ex Japan. Kim will aim to improve coordination of bond specialists’ work in the region, which is spread out over seven countries, and had previously been overseen by different heads. He will also be in charge of development of the bond product range in the region.
30/09/2011

Sovereign funds may invest more in alternative assets

The disastrous situation on the markets may lead sovereign funds to pull out of equities in favour of alternative investments, Reuters reports. More than half of all assets in sovereign funds are often invested in equities, 31% in bonds and cash, and the remainder in alternative strategies, hedge funds, commodities, real estate, and infrastructure. This distribution may yet change, due to the disappointing performance of equity markets in the past ten years. According to statistics from Thomson Reuters, the real estate sector represented more than 12% of total acquisitions by sovereign funds in the past twelve months, behind the financial, energy and industrial sectors.
30/09/2011

Frontier markets do not carry higher risk than emerging markets

Investing in frontier markets does not involve more risk than investing in most countries considered emerging markets, according to the most recent publication from the Research Foundation at the CFA Institute, on the subject of frontier markets (“Frontier Market Equity Investing: Finding the Winners of the Future”). The study encourages investors not to underestimate the potential of frontier markets. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the economies of many frontier markets have been totally restructured, and have become more emerging than stagnant, from an economic point of view. Frontier markets offer investors a way to identify high potential investments, which have previously been ignored by the traditional investment community. Frontier markets are not merely distant stock markets: they represent more than 1.2 billion people, a total market capitalisation of USD270bn, and daily liquidity of USD388m.
30/09/2011

State Street recruits a head for client relationships in Italy

Marietta Cisari has joined State Street as head of client relationships for Italy and southern Europe in the Global Relationship Management Team. She will be based in Milan, and will report to Thomas Bergenroth, CEO and global head of the Global Relationship Management team at State Street. Before joining State Street, Cisari spent six years at BNY Mellon in London, where she was head of key accounts for the EMEA region, covering investment banks, insurers, fund managers, large corporations, and banks.
30/09/2011

Swisscanto forms a partnership with Allfunds in Italy

Swisscanto Asset Management International has formed a partnership with Allfunds Bank, by the terms of which the platform will distribute the 23 funds of the Swiss group registered for sale in Italy, Bluerating reports. The firm of the Swisscanto group, which has been present in Italy since September 2010, will also soon be converting its Italian representative office into a branch office, once it obtains permission from the Bank of Italy.
30/09/2011

Etica Sgr has a new major investor

According to information obtained by Bluerating, the Italian regional bank Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna has entered the capital of the small asset management firm specialised in socially responsible investment Etica Sgr. The bank is reported to have invested EUR500,000.
30/09/2011

Arle Capital renonce à céder Capital Safety Group

Le quotidien britannique croit savoir, sans identifier sa source, qu’Arle Capital Partners a renoncé à vendre Capital Safety Group pour un milliard de livres, l’équivalent de 1,15 milliard d’euros. Le vendeur n’aurait tout simplement pas trouver preneur au prix espéré. Un porte-parole a refusé de commenter l’information au quotidien.
30/09/2011

Londres demande plus de temps sur les dérivés

Le Chancelier de l’Echiquier, George Osborne, devrait se rendre au Luxembourg la semaine prochaine afin de négocier un délai avec l’Union européenne concernant la loi sur les dérivés de gré à gré qui contraindra les britanniques à céder le contrôle de certains marchés clés à l’Europe, selon le quotidien qui ne cite pas de source. Londres paraît isolé dans son hostilité à cette nouvelle législation européenne.
30/09/2011

Blackstone sort les griffes en Inde

Le quotidien indien cite le responsable de la société de capital-investissement dans le pays, Akhil Gupta, qui estime entre 500 et 800 millions de dollars (jusqu’à 590 millions d’euros) la capacité d’investissement local de Blackstone. Ce dernier est particulièrement «agressif» en Inde dans des projets liés aux infrastructures ou à l’énergie.
30/09/2011

Le CERS réclame un cadre plus strict pour les ETF

Dans une réponse à l’Esma, le Conseil européen du risque systémique plaide pour un renforcement de la transparence sur le marché des fonds indiciels cotés. Il souligne également un risque croissant de liquidité des contreparties avec la montée des ETF synthétiques.
30/09/2011

Le S&P 500 et le Dow Jones sous une même bannière

De sources concordantes, passant par Bloomberg, le Financial Times ou le Wall Street Journal, MacGraw-Hill et CME Group seraient en négociations afin de créer une coentreprise regroupant leurs indices de marchés actions. Une telle entité regrouperait ainsi les indices S&P 500 et Dow Jones Industrial Average. Ce qui ne manquerait pas de susciter l’attention des autorités de la concurrence, même si le premier indice est avant tout scruté par une clientèle professionnelle, le second par les particuliers. MacGraw-Hill détiendrait 75% du nouvel ensemble, CME Group abandonnant une partie du solde à News Corp, qui détient une part minoritaire de 10% de Dow Jones Indexes. Les discussions, qui dureraient déjà depuis une année, pourraient cependant encore échouer. MacGraw-Hill a fait part ce mois-ci d’un projet de scission de ses acticités en deux parties.
30/09/2011

Deutsche Bank teste une dette senior non sécurisée

Pour la première fois depuis juillet, une banque européenne, Deutsche Bank, a réussi à émettre une dette senior non sécurisée de 1,5 milliard d’euros. De là à anticiper une vrai réouverture du compartiment, il convient de rester prudent, selon des professionnels. D’abord parce que Deutsche Bank est une signature de qualité et aime jouer les pionniers: la banque allemande avait déjà été la première à revenir sur les marchés de dette senior non sécurisée après la faillite de Lehman. Ensuite, le groupe s’est contenté d’une échéance courte, 2 ans, et d’une dette à taux variable. Il a dû payer 98 pb au-dessus de l’Euribor 3 mois, contre 40 pb en février sur une opération similaire. De sources de marché, d’autres belles signatures du cœur de la zone euro réfléchiraient à des transactions identiques – du 2 ans à taux variable. Mais il faudrait davantage de visibilité sur la crise des dettes souveraines en zone euro pour que l’hirondelle Deutsche Bank fasse le printemps.
30/09/2011

Repli des inscriptions au chômage aux Etats-Unis

Les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 24 septembre, à 391.000 contre 428.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente, a annoncé le département du Travail. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 420.000 inscriptions au chômage.
30/09/2011

Maple prolonge son offre sur TMX

Le consortium composé d’institutions financières canadiennes a déclaré hier qu’il prolongeait jusqu’au 31 octobre son offre hostile de 3,8 milliards de dollars canadiens (2,7 milliards d’euros) sur TMX Group, l’opérateur de la Bourse de Toronto. Il a par ailleurs indiqué qu’il continuait à travailler en vue d’obtenir le feu vert réglementaire pour son offre de 50 dollars canadiens par action.
30/09/2011

La Grèce emboîte le pas sur les ventes à découvert

Dans le sillage de mesures similaires prises mercredi par la France, l’Italie et l’Espagne, l’autorité grecque de régulation des marchés a décidé hier de prolonger jusqu’au 9 décembre l’interdiction des ventes à découverts à la Bourse d’Athènes. L’interdiction, qui avait pris effet le 9 août, devait expirer le 9 octobre.
29/09/2011

Forte baisse du sentiment économique dans la zone euro

Le sentiment économique des 17 pays partageant l’euro a fortement baissé en septembre, selon les chiffres publiés par la Commission européenne. L’indice du sentiment a perdu 3,4 points, à 95 points, revenant à ses niveaux de fin 2009. Le marché attendait 96. Dans l’industrie, l’indice est à -5,9 contre -2,7 en août. Dans les services, il est à zéro, contre 3,7 le mois précédent. Celui du consommateur plonge à -19,1 contre -16,5. Dans le commerce de détail, il plonge à -26, contre -23,4.

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