L’allemand Universal-Investment vient de lancer avec le danois Global Evolution un nouveau compartiment de la sicav luxembourgeoise Saxo Invest, le Saxo Invest-Global Evolution Frontier Markets (Fixed Income) qui se spécialise sur les obligations souveraines des pays frontières (actuellement 33 pays différents). Les valeurs en portefeuille affichent une notation moyenne de «B» (single B) et un rendement à échéance de 11 %, l’objectif de performance étant une fourchette de 10 à 12 % annuels. Le risque de change du dollar contre euro est couvert, mais l'équipe de gestion table exclusivement sur des gains de change pour les émissions dans les autres monnaies des pays concernés.Le nouveau fonds bénéficie déjà d’un agrément de commercialisation en Allemagne, en Autriche, au Royaume-Uni et en Suède. Il sera suivi d’autres fonds marchés émergents de Global Evolution.CaractéristiquesDénomination : Saxo Invest-Global Evolution Frontier Markets (Fixed Income)Codes Isin : LU0501220429 (parts R retail)LU0501220262 (parts I institutionnelles)Droit d’entrée : maximum 5 % (parts R)Frais de gestion : 1,5 % (parts R) et 1 % (parts I)Commission de performance : 10 % avec high watermarkSouscription minimale : 300 euros (parts R)1 million d’euros (parts I)

Membre du directoire de Commerz Real, Heiko Beck a rejoint le comité directeur du gestionnaire de fonds immobiliers Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE), où il prend la responsabilité du contrôle de gestion, de la comptabilité, des affaires juridiques et des questions fiscales. De plus, il sera chargé de la gestion centrale des immeubles.Avec l’arrivée de Heiko Beck, l'équipe dirigeante d’UIRE compte cinq personnes sous la présidence de Reinhard Kutscher, qui se trouve désormais déchargé du contrôle de gestion et de la gestion centrale des immeubles.

Cristobal Mendez de Vigo, le responsable de la distribution institutionnelle de F&C Asset Management, a quitté la société à la fin de la semaine dernière, selon Financial News. Il compte se tourner vers un projet entrepreneurial.

L’assureur néerlandais Aegon NV a annoncé le 16 août la cession de sa filiale britannique Guardian Financial Services (contrats vie et retraites) à un fonds du capital-investisseur Cinven pour 275 millions de livres. Aegon Asset Management continuera de gérer 7,4 milliards de livres pour Guardian.

Selon Investment Week, Barings vient de recruter Ajay Argal en qualité de responsable des actions indiennes. Il sera basé à Hong Kong et devrait prendre ses fonctions en septembre.Il travaillait précédemment chez Birla Sunlife AMC où il était responsable des actions internationales et gérait les fonds India Advantage et Excel India.

Using the USD100m quota it has been granted by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) under a QFII license obtained in December 2010, Swiss-based Julius Baer on Wednesday announced it is launching a Chinese A-shares fund, the Julius Baer China Fund.

The financial services provider AWD, a German affiliate of the Swiss Life group, in first half earned operating profits up 7%, to EUR21.8m, on earnings up 1% in the period under review to EUR265.5m (compared with EUR262.9m the previous year), Swiss Life announced in a statement on 17 August. Swiss Life has also earned an operating profit of CHF452m in first half 2011, a growth rate of 9% compared with first half 2010, despite negative currency effects (compared with CHF415m the previous year). Net profits totalled CHF403m (compared with CHF269m the previous year): the improvement here amounts to 50%, thanks to a one-time tax break of CHF89m. The Investment Management sector of the SwissLife group, which grew by 24%, (CHF57m compared with CHF46m in 2010), largely due to development and ongoing activities in the real estate sector, made a strong contribution to results.

Union Bancaire Privée, UBP SA and ABN AMRO Bank N.V. on Tuesday announced that they have entered into an agreement whereby UBP will acquire ABN AMRO Bank (Switzerland) AG. The cash transaction is subject to the usual completion conditions and the approval of the relevant regulatory bodies. It is expected to be finalised during the fourth quarter of 2011. The financial terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.ABN AMRO Bank (Switzerland) AG is a Swiss private bank which held EUR11bn in client assets under management as at the end of the first quarter of 2011. It employs over 350 staff and has operations in Zurich, Geneva, Lugano, and Basle.With this acquisition, UBP adds 20% to its overall assets under management and expands its core Swiss private banking business.

In 2010, European fund assets under management (AUM) looked healthier than they did in 2008 and 2009, with EUR5.2tn, according to a new survey. But they have not recovered to pre-crisis levels.Moreover, in September 2010, 66.7% of the European mutual fund assets under management were captive, according to Cerulli, which has surveyed the 30 most prominent cross border fund managers in Europe. Even if this share is going down from the 2008 level (71.4%), it remains high.But Europe’s retail markets must be studied in context, and pan-European averages should be treated with caution. And the development opportunities differ from one country to another.For Cerulli, Italy remains one of Europe’s key markets for international funds and third-party provision, but assets and flows have yet to recover their former vigor. «Yet international and cross-border players are looked upon favorably by institutional and retail investors. Big banks still dominate but will call in outsiders for specialist asset classes and portfolios», according to the research. Funds of funds and segregated wraps were the channel of choice until five years ago; but MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) implementation, poor performance, and a lack of confidence have reduced their appeal of late.In Spain, like its banking system, the distribution channels face upheaval. The number of distributors is being reduced as mergers are forced through, which may actually be good news for third-party groups. But investors need a lot of convincing before they rush back to mutual funds, warns Cerulli.Further North, German retail investors are under-diversified, which is for third-party fund providers. Private banks, IFAs, and funds of funds present the best opportunityfor third-party fund access, according to Cerulli. The United Kingdom for its part is leading the way in banning commissions from fund sales in the key IFA channel, which has several consequences. «Advisors must cut costs and slim unprofitable client bases to survive. They are outsourcing fund selection andusing platforms to ease the administrative burden and strip costs out of new business models. Thousands ofadvisors may quit the business. Others will concentrate on high-net-worth clients with GBP100,000 or more in investable assets. That will boost the direct to consumer (D2C) channel, which is primarily online», says the survey.Finally, in France, «captive asset managers are not just fat, they are successful too», notes Cerulli. They are taking their funds to the wider European market and Asian territories. On home ground, they are not letting go of their stranglehold on distribution. If the independent financial advisor (IFA) channel could get its act together and speakwith one voice, it could capture a decent marketshare.

The Californian pension fund CalPERS on 15 August announced that it has approved a USD200m investment programme for new managers specialised in real estate, whose assets under management are under USD1bn. CalPERS has also announced that the financial ratings agency Fitch Ratings has confirmed its AAA rating, due to its financial stability.

Fidelity Investments has announced that its Institutional Services unit has been renamed as Financial Advisors Solutions, in order to highlight its investment management solutions for financial advisers and institutional investors. The division works with over 4,000 financial institutions, and 54,000 financial advisers; it manages USD385bn.Financial Advisors Solutions will be led by Scott Couto as president, a position which he had previously held for the interim. He had previously been executive vice president, product management & marketing; he joined the Fidelity group in 2009, after several years in management positions at Evergreen Investment Management, most recently as COO. He will report to Gerard J. McGraw, chairman of Fidelity Institutional.

Boyce Greer, head of Institutional Investments at Fidelity, died on 14 August in a kayaking accident in Idaho, the website Union Leader.com reports. Greer, 55, leaves a wife and three daughters. He had served as vice president of Pyramis Global Advisors, and was also president of Strategic Advisors and the global asset allocation group at Fidelity. Overall, Greer spent 25 years at the US management firm.

As of 31 July, assets under management at Franklin Templeton Investments increased to USD747.2bn, compared with USD734.2bn as of the end of June, and USD670.7bn as of 31 December 2010. This increase is due to equities funds, which are up to USD313.6bn from UDS309.8bn as of 30 June, and USD296.1bn as of the end of December, and to bond funds, at USD312.7bn, compared with USD303.1bn and USD262bn, respectively.Invesco, for its part, reports a dip in its total assets to USD652.8bn as of the end of July, compard with USD653.7bn one month previously, although assets under management in ETFs, unit investment trusts and passive funds increased to USD95.4bn from Usd91.8bn.Legg Mason has announced that its total assets were down to USD655.4bn as of 31 July, compared with USD662.5bn as of the end of June, and USD671.8bn seven months earlier. The decline is largely due to money market funds, at USD108.6bn, compared with USD115.6bn as of 30 June, and USD131.8bn as of 31 December 2010.

In January-June, net profits for the German-Austrian asset management firm C-Quadrat fell to EUR1.96m, from EUR8.5m previously. Although management commissions rose to EUR23.2m from EUR16.2m, performance commissions fell to EUR0.24m from EUR9.8m.Assets in funds and the volume of mandates under administration fell in first half by 6%, to a total of EUR3.13bn, compared with EUR3.33bn.

Bank of America is in exclusive negotiations to sell off most of the real estate investments of Merrill Lynch, made in more prosperous times, to Blackstone, the Financial Times reports. According to sources familiar with the matter, the transaction may total between USD800m and USD1bn, for real estate properties in Europe, the United States and South Africa. Negotiations are not yet assured of success, sources tell the FT.

Investors believe that the global economy will slow significantly in the coming 12 months, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers made on 244 panelists with USD718 billion of assets under management from 5 to 11 August. Cash holdings have soared to their highest levels since the depths of the credit crisis. Cash balances have climbed close to their high of 5.5 percent in December 2008.Global investors hold an average of 5.2 percent of portfolios in cash, up from 4.1 percent in July. A net 30 percent are overweight cash compared with their benchmark. Both numbers are at their highest level since March 2009.Meanwhile, asset allocators have scaled back equity positions faster than in any previous month in the survey’s history. A net 2 percent remain overweight equities, down from a net 35 percent in July.Asset allocators have reduced their positions in the U.S. more aggressively than in any other region and at the sharpest rate the survey has ever recorded. A net 1 percent of the panel is underweight this month, compared with a net 23 percent overweight in July. At the same time, U.S. fund managers have demonstrated a U-turn in economic sentiment. A net 14 percent of the U.S. panel believes their economy will weaken, in contrast to the net 29 percent predicting a stronger economy in June.

Heiko Beck, a board member at Commerz Real, has joined the board of directors at the real estate fund management firm Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE), where he will be in charge of management controlling, accounting, legal affairs and fiscal issues. He will also be in charge of central property management. With the arrival of Beck, the management team at UIRE includes five people, led by Reinhard Kutscher, who is now relieved of his responsibility of management controlling and central property management.

In the first ten days of August, hedge funds held out well overall against the market disturbances, Hedgeweek reports. In the period to 10 August, the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund index lost 3.7%, compared with losses of 13.6% for the Dow Jones Global index.The vast majority of hedge fund managers, who now provide daily net asset value figures, attained their capital preservation objectives, generally with much larger cash positions than usual.

The German asset management firm Universal-Investment has launched a new sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Saxo Invest with the Danish asset management firm Global Evolution, entitled Saxo Invest-Global Evolution Frontier Markets (Fixed Income). The product will specialised in government bonds from frontier markets (currently 33 countries). The securities in the portfolio will have a rating of at least single B, and yield to maturity of 11%, with a performance objective of 10% to 12% per year. Currency risks for the US dollar against the euro will be hedged, but the management team is planning exclusively for currency gains for issues in other currencies from the countries concerned.The new fund is already licensed for sale in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Sweden. He will be followed by other emerging markets funds from Global Evolution.CharacteristicsName: Saxo Invest-Global Evolution Frontier Markets (Fixed Income)ISIN codes: LU0501220429 (retail R share class)LU0501220262 (institutional I share class)Front-end fee: maximum 5 % (R share class)Management fee: 1.5% (R share class) and 1% (I share class)Performance commission: 10% with high watermarkMinimal subscription: EUR300 (R share class)EUR1m (I share class)

The German affiliate of the Swedish group SEB is launching a Luxembourg-registered specialised investment fund, Forst Invest - Waldfonds S.C.A. SICAV-SIF, which will invest exclusively in forested land located in Germany, for the independent fnancial services provider Deutsche Forst Invest GmbH. SEB will provide administration, accounting, valuation and reporting for the fund, while Forst Invest will manage the fund. The first closing for the institutional product, available with a minimum subscription of EUR0.5m, will take place on 31 October. Revenues for the fund will be generated by sales of wood and appreciation in the value of the land due to the gradual transformation of forested plots of land to multiple types of trees (resinous and deciduous).

The CEO for the Asia-Pacific region at RCM, Mark Konyn, has announced that the firm is planning to step up its distribution efforts directed at Western investors, especially Americans, Europeans and Australians, Asian Investor reports. RCM is planning to promote its entire product range covering Asia, including Chinese equities, at a time when Western institutional investors are increasingly interested in specialised mandates. Despite the market turbulence of the past few weeks, investors will be likely to continue to be interested in high-risk assets, particularly in emerging markets, Konyn predicts, if only due to the Federal Reserve’s plans to maintain its interest rates at their current levels until 2013.

Investment Week reports that Barings has recruited Ajay Argal as head of Indian equities. He will be based in Hong Kong, and will begin in September. Argal previously worked at Birla Sunlife AMC, where he was head of international equities, and directed the India Advantage and Excel India funds.

Cristobal Mendez de Vigo, head of institutional distribution at F&C Asset Management, left the firm at the end of last week, Financial News reports. He is planning to dedicate himself to an entrepreneurial project.

The Netherlands-based insurer Aegon NV on 16 August announced that it has sold its British affiliate Guardian Financial Services (life and retirement insurance policies) to a fund from the private equity investor Cinven, for GBP275m. Aegon Asset Management will continue to manage GBP7.4bn for Guardian.

Mohammed El. Erian, executive director and co-CIO of Pimco (Allianz Global Investors group), has claimed in FT Alphaville that, insofar as many market operators were predicting that aid provided by Germany would increase, the reaction of the markets to the Merkel-Sarkozy talks yesterday will not be positive: German and US debt will recover, and the gap that separates them from the peripheral countries will widen, Expansión reports. Pimco considers that the message from Germany and France is clear: steps forward to balance budgets and improve economic management must take priority over new aid plans, “eurobonds,” or other solutions designed to save the most heavily indebted peripheral countries. El-Erian says that the surprising fact is not that Germany is defending this position, but that France is also firmly supporting it. That position probably has something to do with the economic warning signs that emerged last week.

Of a total of USD19.2bn in net subscriptions for ETFs listed in Europe in first half, iShares (BlackRock) accounted for USD9.4bn, and UBS Global Asset Management accounted for USD3.9bn. Source took in USD2.5bn, Amundi ETF USD2.3bn, and Credit Suisse Asset Management Usd1.6bn. iShares and UBS Global AM alone accounted for 69.3% of net inflows to European ETFs, on the basis of statistics published by BlackRock.On the other side, Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale) was the provider to see the largest net outflows, at USD2.4bn, followed by ETFlab (Commerzbank), which saw net redemptions of USD1.5bn. In June, net subscriptions totalled USD3.8bn, of which USD1.6bn went to iShares, and USD1bn to UBS Global AM, with the heaviest net redemptions at db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), at USD0.4bn.In terms of assets, iShares, Lyxor and db x-trackers remain the leaders, with USD116.3bn (36.2% of the European market), USD53.5bn (16.7%), and USD51bn (15.9%).As of the end of June, BlackRock counted a total of 1,185 ETF funds, listed 1,185 times on 23 stock markets, from 40 providers. Assets under management totalled USD321.2bn, a 0.9% increase over the end of May (USD318.2bn), and a 13.2% rise over a total of USD284bn as of the end of December.

Fitch Ratings announced on 16 August that it has revised its ratings criteria for bond funds. As a part of its new approach, the agency has taken into account concentration risks, with the introduction of different risk levels, and has clarified its treatment of issuers in default. This update to the ratings methodology may lead to changes in the ratings for several funds in the next few months, Fitch says in a statement.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced that it has fined a hedge fund manager GBP2.1m, or EUR3.3m, for fraudulent transactions to cover losses for a fund which collapsed during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The fine is the highest ever levelled against a manager. Michel Weiger Visser, CEO of Mercurius Capital Management and manager of the Mercurius International Fund, whose assets under management totalled about EUR35m between July 2006 and January 2008, deliberately misled investors in the fund, manipulating the net asset value to conceal the disappointing performance of the fund and attract new investors. The FSA has also fined Oluwole Modupe Fagbulu, who was head of deontology, GBP100,000. Though Fagbulu did not participate in investment decisions, he approved false and/or incomplete reporting to investors.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Tuesday supported a decision by Irving Picard, the court-appointed receiver for the business interests of imprisoned fraudster Bernard Madoff, to limit reimbursements to victims of the fraud to the amount of their losses, equivalent to USD17.3bn out of a total of USD64.3bn, the Wall Street Journal reports. In other words, investors who were net winners on the activities of Madoff will not be permitted to apply to the receiver for redemption of every dollar that was listed on their account statements.

As of the end of June, assets under management in ETFs worldwide totalled USD1.4427bn, compared with USD1.4466bn. Despite this further decline of 0.3% (following 1.3% in May), the total remains 10% higher than the USD1.3113bn recoded at the end of December, statistics from BlackRock reveal.Overall, as of 30 June there were 2,825 ETFs listed 6,229 times on 490 stock markets, from 146 different promoters. In the first six months of the year, the number of ETFs increased 14.3%, with 393 new funds launched, 8 withdrawn from trading, and 20 merged. Currently, 1,037 ETF funds are under development.Due to their lead over their rivals, the top three providers remain solidly ensconced (see Newsmanagers of 15 June). iShares (BlackRock) remains the top provider, with 474 ETFs, assets of USD620.7bn, and a market share of 43%, followed by State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), with 137 ETFs, USD204.2bn, and a market share of 14.2%, and Vanguard (69 ETFs, USD175.5bn, and a market share of 12.2%).