According to a Forsa survey commissioned by comdirect bank, the Börsen-Zeitung reports, more than half of retail investors in Germany have never heard of “sustainable” investment products, and only one tenth of them know about “green” investments, though they do not use them. Only 2% have already subscribed to a sustainable investment product, while 15% have considered investing in such products, but have not yet made the choice to do so.

Stoxx Limited has announced the launch of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index. The new strategy index uses Harry M. Markowitz’ Modern Portfolio Theory to create a hypothetical, long-only risk-optimized portfolio that selects and weights constituents of the Stoxx Europe 600 Index in such a way that the portfolio’s expected variance is minimized.The iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index has been initiated by and licensed to Ossiam, an asset manager dedicated to ETFs partly owned by Natixis Global Asset Management, to underlie an exchange-traded fund. «The methodology of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index, initiated by Ossiam’s quantitative Research and Investment team, combines the best attributes of passive and quantitative management,» said Fabien Dornier, chief investment officer of Ossiam. " «The launch of the iStoxx Europe Minimum Variance Index provides investors with an efficient portfolio management tool.»

Rothschild Private Banking & Trust has made two appointments to its investment team, both in newly created roles. The business has appointed Marco Schaller as head of service management & offering development and Andreas A. Bickel as head of strategic asset allocation and advisory, Switzerland. Andreas Bickel will head up both research operations and wealth management mandates for ultra high net worth (UHNW) clients. He will also be responsible for the management of the Rothschild Bank AG pension fund. Andreas Bickel joins Rothschild from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Portfolio Management Group, a member of the extended management committee and employee representative on the Foundation Board of the pension fund. Marco Schaller’s role was created to better address the complex and very individual needs of clients in Rothschild’s core markets. He holds an MBA from Cranfield University and is an expert on structured products. He joins Rothschild from UBS where he has held various positions in the investment and product areas.

Agefi reports, citing a spokesperson for the financial services firm Investec, that the firm, which is active in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom, is seeking to sell its private banking affiliate in Switzerland. The affiliate, which has offices in Zurich and Geneva, has GBP1.95bn in assets under management.

Lesley-Ann Morgan, who spent 18 years at the consultancy firm Towers Watson, most recently as senior investment consultant and head of the client delivery group, has been hired by Schroders for the newly created role of senior strategist within the global strategic solutions team.

Among the three bills to be transmitted to the Cortes General, Spain’s legislature, a law which transposes the European OPCVM IV directive into Spanish law was adopted by the council of ministers on 24 June. A statement from La Moncloa (the seat of the Spanish government) states that the new regulations increase the supervisory powers of the CNMV and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

The board of trustees at Invesco PowerShares Capital Management on 21 June approved the liquidated of the actively-managed ETFs PowerShares Active Alpha Multi-Cap and Active AlphaQ, whose acronyms on NYSE-Arca are PQZ and PQY, respectively, on 30 September. The funds were launched in April 2008, and have respective assets of USD3.6m and USD10.1m.Ben Fulton, managing director of global ETFs, states that Invesco PowerShares considered it “in the best interests” of investors to refocus its resources on areas which are sustaining the most interest from clients.

Lee Robinson, manager of the hedge fund firm Trafalgar, is raising money for a planned hedge fund in Monaco, where he resides. He has already received approval form the FSA in the UK for the new firm, Altana. The fund will use a global macro strategy, according to reports in the Financial Times. The launch is reported to have angered Goldman Sachs, which via its Petershill fund owns a minority stake in Trafalgar, which it bought at a high price in 2008.

The Hong Kong management firm Kong Quam Asset Management has recruited Simon Potter as director, to serve in the newly-created position of head of portfolio development for alternative products, Asian Investor reports. Potter previously worked at Triple A Partners in Hong Kong. Assets under management at Quam AM as of the end of March totalled about USD80m.

Mid-sized hedge funds experienced the largest net asset growth in 2010, according to a Citigroup research cited by the Financial Times. Assets under management across managers with assets between USD1bn and USD5bn rose by USD85bn in 2010, versus a net increase of USD30bn among managers with an AUM of between USD5bn and USD10bn, and a net increase of USD72bn for funds with more than USD10bn under management.

GLG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Man Group, has announced the closure, from 30 June 2011, of the GLG European Alpha Alternative Ucits fund, managed by Philippe Isvy and Pierre Valade. The temporary closure to new investors, which will involve no modification to the prospectus, follows a net inflow of USD1bn since the launch of the fund in 2009. The fund was also the first UCITS-compliant hedge fund made availabel by GLG, which has already closed two other funds since the beginning of this year.“The success of the product is largely the result of its highly readable management process (which involves a large proportion of pair trades), whose strengths are brought to the fore by the UCITS format, which offers daily liquidity. The strategy of the UCITS vehicle is also perfectly comparable to that of the offshore vehicle, which has been in operation since 2004. The performance is largely generated by stock-picking (over 90%). We aim for a performance objective of about 8% to 9% per year, with total annual volatility of about 4%,” Isvy, manager of the fund at GLG, explains.Concern to maintain performance has also been the motive for the closure of the fund. “We are not closing the fund due to questions of liquidity. But it is a good idea to keep transaction sizes under control, in order to maintain our ability to generate performance,” Isvy says.Due to institutional investors’ increased appetite for UCITS funds, the group has several new UCITS products in the works. “We are working on the launch of a UCITS long/short fund dedicated to US equities, and we are also considering creating a thematic (multi-sectoral) UCITS long/short fund. We are also considering launching a fund of house UCITS funds, whose asset allocation would be composed of all of our UCITS hedge funds. In addition to long/short equities, we might mention emerging markets (equities, fixed income, currencies), CTA, and macro,” says Olivier Dubost, managing director in charge of fund distribution for Man-GLG in France.

Deutsche Bank on 15 June launched the DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia fund, a UCITS-compliant version of its Sloane Robinson Asia Fund, as announced six months ago (see Newsmanagers of 21 December 2010).The new product, denominated in US dollars, is managed by the same team as the original fund, with Richard Chenevix-Trench and Jonathan Barnett as co-managers, with the same approach, a bottom-up construction of the portfolio with top-down risk management.Since its launch in January 1994, the Sloane Robinson Asia Fund has generated annual returns of 18.17%, with a tracking error of 19.54%, and maximal losses of 36.50%.CharacteristicsName: DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia FundISIN code: LU0559141501Management commission: 1.81%Performance commission: 20% with high watermark

The Swedish government has launched an examination of its pension funds as a whole, which may result in the closure of two of them, IPE reports. Last year, the returns earned by the funds were already considered less than satisfactory. The Swedish finance minister has stated that the developments observed on the financial markets and the lessons learned from the past decade justified a re-examination of the system established ten years ago. At that time, the minister proposed a reconsideration of the recommendations which limit invesrtment in private equity and infrastructure. As of the end of December, assets in the five largest pension funds totalled nearly SEK900bn, or about EUR99.5bn.

HSBC is planning to launch ETFs covering Russia, India, European emerging markets and the CIVETS countries (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), Money Marketing reports. The emerging markets range from the asset management firm will be complete by the end of the year, says Farley Thomas, global head of ETFs and wealth management solutions.

Money Marketing reports that F&C Management is considering an overhaul of its product ranges, which would involve jettisoning the Thames River brand.F&C, when asked about the reports, stated that it would like to recruit a new head of marketing, but that no decision has been taken at this time concerning the future of the Thames River brand.

Irving Picard, trustee for the business activities of Bernard Madoff, has decided to increase the amount he is seeking from J.P. Morgan Chase to USD19bn, from USD5.4bn previously. He is basing the increased claims on new evidence that the bank ignored or dismissed warning signs that fraud was taking place, while its relationship with the fraudster allowed it to make hundreds of millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports.Separately, Picard is seeking to recover USD400m from allegedly fraudulent transfers, and “at least” USD500m in revenues made by J.P. Morgan off the back of Madoff’s victims.The arguments have been rejected by the bank as baseless.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) on 22 June announced that the broker Morgan Keegan has agreed to pay USD200m to settle charges related to the sale of securities based on subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Two employees of Morgan Keegan, one of whom has been barred from the profession, have also agreed to pay fines due to their responsibility for inexact valuations of five funds managed by Morgan Asset Management between January and July 2007.

In light of references in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms and the Consumer Protection Act, the SEC announced on 22 June that it has arrived at a legal definition of family offices, which will continue to be exempt from the requirement to register with the regulator, as they were already under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, if they had under 15 clients. This interpretation will come into force 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.Family offices which will continue to be exempt from the registration requirement under the Investment Advisers Act will be those which:-provide investment advice exclusively to family clients-are wholly controlled either by family members or by family entities-do not serve the public as investment advisers.

In order to avoid another “flash crash” like the one which took place on 6 May 2010, the SEC has approved an extension of the emergency cutoff system (circuit-breakers) to all equities and ETFs listed for trading in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reports. The US stock markets are planning to put the extension into effect by 8 August, but are continuing to negotiate with the regulator over the adoption of a substitute system which would perform better.Meanwhile, trading in equities and ETF worth USD1 or more will be suspended if there is a variation of 30% or more in any five-minute period. For shares which cost less than USD1 each, the suspension will be put in place if there is a rise or fall of more than 50% in five minutes.Currently, the suspension takes place after five minutes if there is a variation of over 10%, but this system applies only to shares of the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000, as well as the 344 most heavily-traded ETFs.

Les Echos reports that the French government has announced that laws which will transpose the European UCITS IV directive into French law “have been transmitted to the Council of State». They will be passed and published before the holidays. France will be one of the leaders in transposing the regulations. The plans are ambitious, and all actors have preferred to take the necessary time to ensure a successful transposition. Participants at the beginning of the year had estimated that the bill would be passed by the end of first quarter.

Les hedge funds de taille moyenne (entre 1 milliard et 5 milliards de dollars) ont connu la plus forte croissance de leurs encours en 2010, selon une étude de Citigroup citée par le Financial Times. Les encours des fonds de cette catégorie ont augmenté de 85 milliards de dollars, alors que ceux affichant des encours compris entre 5 milliards et 10 milliards, ont grossi de 30 milliards de dollars. A plus de 10 milliards de dollars, la hausse a été de 72 milliards.

GLG, la filiale à 100% de Man Group, annonce la fermeture effective, à compter du 30 juin 2011, du fonds GLG European Alpha Alternative Ucits géré par Philippe Isvy et Pierre Valade. Cette fermeture temporaire aux nouveaux investisseurs, sans modification du prospectus, fait suite à l’enregistrement d’une collecte nette de 1 milliard de dollars depuis le lancement du fonds en juin 2009. Ce fonds était d’ailleurs le premier fonds alternatif au format Ucits lancé par GLG qui a déjà fermé deux autres fonds depuis le début de l’année.Le fonds est un fonds de type long/short market neutral, avec un effet de levier de 100% à 150%, investi principalement en actions d’Europe continentale, dont quelque 45% d’actions françaises, et visant un rendement absolu ainsi qu’une volatilité réduite. La stratégie mise en œuvre s’appuie sur une analyse fondamentale et analyse technique couvrant un univers de 300 à 350 valeurs large et mid-cap. Le fonds comprend de 80 à 100 lignes, la durée de détention moyenne étant de 35 jours. «La réussite du produit tient pour beaucoup à la grande lisibilité du processus de gestion (une part importante de «pair trades») mis en valeur par le format Ucits qui offre une liquidité quotidienne. En outre, la stratégie du véhicule Ucits est parfaitement comparable à celle du véhicule offshore, que nous avons mise en place depuis 2004. La performance est en grande partie générée par le stock picking (au-delà de 90%). Nous visons un objectif de performance de l’ordre de 8% à 9% par an, avec une volatilité annuelle contenue autour de 4%», explique le gérant du fonds chez GLG, Philippe Isvy. C’est d’ailleurs le souci de la performance qui a motivé la fermeture du fonds. «Nous ne fermons pas le fonds pour des questions de liquidité. Mais il convient de maîtriser la taille des transactions pour maintenir notre capacité à générer de la performance», souligne Philippe Isvy. Les investisseurs dans le fonds sont des banques privées pour 45%, des compagnies d’assurance (26%) des fonds de fonds (12%) et des entreprises (6%). Compte tenu du biais actions françaises, le fonds a d’abord séduit les investisseurs français, présents à hauteur de 35%, devant les allemands et les autrichiens (20%), les italiens (20% également) et les espagnols et portugais (12%). Par ailleurs, compte tenu de l’engouement des investisseurs pour les fonds Ucits, le groupe a plusieurs projets de produits de cette nature en chantier. «Nous travaillons par ailleurs au lancement d’un fonds Ucits long/short dédié aux actions américaines et nous réfléchissons également à la création d’un véhicule Ucits long/short thématique (multi-sectoriel). Nous envisageons enfin de lancer un fonds de fonds Ucits «maison» dont l’allocation d’actifs sera composée de l’ensemble de nos fonds Ucits alternatifs. En effet, outre le long/short actions, on peut mentionner les marchés émergents (actions, taux, changes), le CTA ou encore le macro», indique Olivier Dubost, Managing director en charge de la distribution des fonds Man-GLG en France.

Sur sa plate-forme DB Platinum, la Deutsche Bank a lancé le 15 juin, comme prévu il y a six mois (lire notre article du 21 décembre 2010), le DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia Fund, version conforme à la directive OPCVM III du Sloane Robinson Asia Fund.Le nouveau produit, libellé en dollars américains, est géré par la même équipe que le fonds original, avec comme co-gérants Richard Chenevix-Trench et Jonathan Barnett, et selon la même approche, à savoir bottom-up pour la constitution du portefeuille et top-down pour la gestion du risque.Depuis son lancement en janvier 1994, le Sloane Robinson Asia Fund a généré une performance annuelle de 18,17 % avec un écart de suivi de 19,54 % et une perte maximale de 36,50 %.Caractéristiques Dénomination : DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia FundCode Isin : LU0559141501Commission de gestion 1,81 %Commission de performance : 20 % avec high watermark

Le gestionnaire central des banques cantonales suisses, Swisscanto (57,6 milliards de francs d’encours au 31 mars), a annoncé en fin de semaine la création le 1er juillet à Luxembourg de sa filiale Swisscanto Asset Management International S.A., et l'établissement de succursales à Francfort sur le Main ainsi qu'à Milan.A côté de la filiale qui existe déjà à Londres (négoce de titres et de fonds et, depuis peu, clientèle institutionnelle), la présence supplémentaire au Luxembourg (résultat de la fusion de filiales locales existantes), en Allemagne et en Italie doit permettre de prospecter ou de suivre de manière plus intensive les partenaires de distribution et la clientèle institutionnelle sur les marchés concernés. La structure de Luxembourg et les deux nouvelles succursales emploieront initialement six personnes au total à l’administration et la prospection des marchés locaux. L’effort commercial portera sur les actions, les obligations et les produits de développement durable.

Le groupe de services financiers, qui opère notamment en Afrique du Sud, en Australie et au Royaume-Uni, songe à céder sa filiale de banque privée en Suisse, a indiqué un porte-parole de l’établissement. Investec a mandaté Fenchurch Advisory Partners afin d’être conseillé sur cette opération, selon Mail on Sunday. La filiale, qui possède des bureaux à Zurich et Genève, affiche 1,95 milliard de livres d’actifs sous gestion.

A l’occasion de la transposition de la Directive OPCVM IV, l’AMF a simplifié les programmes d’activité des sociétés de gestion de portefeuille et les a recentrés sur les éléments essentiels pour l’analyse réalisée par le régulateur : organisation, moyens, commercialisation et dispositif de contrôle.

Dans son rapport annuel, la Banque s’inquiète des pressions inflationnistes et remet la pression sur la Fed alors que le dix ans américain est à 2,86%

Une dégradation de la note souveraine des Etats-Unis à AA ou A conduirait à une hausse de respectivement 2% ou 3,2% du taux 10 ans américain qui contraindrait le Trésor à payer de 2,3 à 3,75 milliards de dollars supplémentaires en intérêts annuels, et une perte pour les investisseurs en obligations souveraines pouvant aller jusqu’à 100 milliards, indique le quotidien qui cite une analyse de la maison mère de Standard & Poor’s.

Nicolas Gouju, gérant de taux chez Groupama AM

Sur l’AIM depuis 2004, le gestionnaire affronte des retraits massifs de la part de ses clients. Il va sortir de la cote et réduire la voilure