La boutique d’investissement basée» à San Francisco, Matthews International, spécialisée sur l’Asie, qui a créé une sicav luxembourgeoise en 2010, vient d’obtenir le feu vert pour la promotion de trois de ses fonds sur les marchés suisse et britannique, rapporte Citywire.Les trois véhicules sont le Pacific Tiger (Asie hors Japon), le fonds Chine et fonds Asia Dividend. Ces produits utiliseront les mêmes stratégies d’investissement qu’aux Etats-Unis et ils seront gérés par la même équipe selon un processus «bottom up» basé sur la recherche fondamentale. Les actifs sous gestion de Matthews International s'élèvent à environ 19 milliards de dollars, ce qui fait de la boutique le plus gros investisseur américain spécialisé sur le marché asiatique.

Duilio R. Ramallo, gérant du fonds luxembourgeois Robeco US Premium Equities I USD shares (LU02269543469) a indiqué le 8 février à NewsManagers que l’encours de ce produit actions américaines de 4 milliards de dollars a drainé l’an dernier environ 1,2 milliard de dollars de souscriptions nettes qui se sont ajoutées aux plus de 400 millions d’effet de marché positif liés à une performance d’environ 14 % (la stratégie, initiée en octobre 2005, pèse 7 milliards de dollars, dont 200 millions pour le mutual fund américain lancé en juillet 2002).Le portefeuille comporte environ 110 lignes sur un univers de 4.000 valeurs, dont la plus pondéreuse est JP Morgan (3,5 %). Si l’indice de référence est le Russell 3000 value, environ 75 % des valeurs en portefeuille n’en font pas partie. La sélection de titres s’effectue en «bottom-up» sur des actions qui présentent le triple avantage d'être faiblement valorisées, de présenter des bilans sains avec des bénéfices en hausse, et d’offrir un catalyseur aux yeux du gérant. De plus, les «paris actifs» ne se traduisent pas seulement par des surpondérations mais aussi par des impasses. Actuellement, la sélection de valeurs fait en sorte que deux secteurs sont surpondérés : les financières -JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, BB&T, Morgan Stanley) et les services au consommateur (Kohl’s), ce qui cadre avec le redressement progressif des premières et avec l’amélioration du climat de la consommation aux Etats-Unis. Le gérant apprécie également les technologiques comme Texas InstrumentsPour 2011, Duilio Ramallo compte sur une augmentation moyenne de 13 % des bénéfices des sociétés américaines, ce qui devrait se traduire, sur la base présente d’un multiple de 13,5, à une hausse de 20 % des actions américaines, dont 5 % ont déjà été capturés durant les premières semaines de cette année.Interrogé sur les limites de capacité du fonds luxembourgeois, Duilio Ramallo estime que Robeco devra opérer une «soft closing» du fonds lorsque ce dernier s’approchera des 8 milliards de dollars. Elle pourrait prendre la forme d’une fermeture aux nouveaux investisseurs et d’un arrêt du marketing actif.

Architas, le pôle de multigestion du groupe Axa, envisage de lancer trois fonds de fonds passifs à sa gamme existante, rapporte MoneyMarketing. Le calendrier de ces lancements n’est pas programmé mais l’objectif est de renforcer la gamme qui comprend déjà trois fonds de fonds passifs lancés en novembre 2008.A terme, Architas espère pouvoir proposer six fonds passifs et six fonds actifs, chacun d’eux correspondant à l’une des 17 catégories de risque déclinés par la société de gestion.

Selon L’Agefi suisse, le conseil d’administration de la Banque Heritage a élu Bernard Stadler président du conseil d’administration. En outre, Jorge Esteve a été nommé membre du conseil. Président du conseil d’administration de la Banque Cantonale du Valais (BCVs), Bernard Stadler a occupé plusieurs fonctions auprès d’UBS, Citibank et du groupe Clariden, respectivement Clariden Leu, de 1991 à 2007, dont celle de CEO pendant près de 10 ans. Jorge Esteve a travaillé auparavant auprès de HSBC Mexico.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Federal prosecutors in Manhattan yesterday announced the arrest of two hedge fund managers, Agefi Switzerland reports. Samir Barai, head of Barai Capital Management, and Donald Longueuil, who in the past had worked for the titan SAC Capital Advisors. According to legal documents, Barai is accused of market fraud, conspiracy and obstructing law enforcement. Two other professionals – Noah freeman, former analyst at Sonar Capital and later portfolio manager at the Boston office of SAC Capital until January 2010, and Jason Pflaum, an analyst who worked with Barai – have chosen to plead guilty. Although the name SAC has come up frequently in investigations, the newspaper reports, the hedge fund is not directly implicated in the investigations.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The French minister of the economy, Christine Lagarde, on 8 February announced at the convocation of the financial sector consulting committee (CSSF) that she would like to make consumer protection an area of focus for the French presidency of the G20. At the G20 Finance summit on 18 and 19 February, Lagarde will propose to her counterparts that the G20 Finance meeting in October 2011 should be a time to lay out common consumer protection principles for financial products. At the October meeting of G20 finance ministers, Lagarde will hold a high-level conference on consumer protection for financial products, in partnership with the OECD, to which she will invite G20 finance ministers. Lagarde stated in her address to the CSSF that the French G20 presidency represents “an opportunity not to be missed to protect consumers of financial products,” as, she said, “not to team up with consumers would be to forget that irresponsible sales practices for loans in the United States contributed to the sub-prime crisis.”

Calpers is suing former Lehman Brothers executives and investment banks that served as underwriters on the bond offerings of the bank, accusing them of misleading investors about the bank’s condition, according to the Financial Times. The US pension fund is seeking to recover losses it experienced on Lehman stocks and bonds that it had bought between June 2007 and September 2008.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Architas, the multi-management arm of the Axa group, is planning to launch three passively-managed funds of funds as additions to its existing range, MoneyMarketing reports. The calendar for the launches is not set, but the objective is to strengthen the range, which already includes three passively-managed funds of funds launched in November 2008. Eventually, Architas hopes to offer six passive and six active funds, each corresponding to one of the 17 categories of risk defined by the management firm.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Matthews International, an investment boutique based in San Francisco and specialised in Asia, which created a Luxembourg Sicav in 2010, has obtained approval to promote three of its funds on the Swiss and British markets, Citywire reports. The three vehicles are the Pacific Tiger (Asia ex Japan), the China fund, and the Asia Dividend fund. These products use the same investment strategies as in the United States, and will be managed by the same team, with a bottom-up process based on fundamental research. Assets under management at Matthews International total about USD19bn, making it the largest US investor specialised in Asian markets.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Duilio R. Ramallo, manager of the Luxembourg fund Robeco US Premium Equities I USD shares (LU02269543469), told Newsmanagers on 8 February that the US equities product with USD4bn in assets last year attracted about USD1.2bn in net subscriptions, in addition to over USD400m in positive market effects related to a return of about 14% (the strategy, initiated in October 2005, weighs in at USD7bn, of which USD200m are for the US mutual fund, launched in July 2002).The portfolio includes about 110 positions, of which the largest is JP Morgan (3.5%), out of a universe of 4,000 shares. Although the benchmark index is the Russell 3000 value, about 75% of the shares in the portfolio are not part of this index. Stock-picking is bottom-up, of equities which present the double advantage of having low valuations, healthy balance sheets with rising profits, and a catalysing factor in the judgement of the manager. In addition, active bets may involve not only overweight positions but the shares which are in the index and that the fund deliberately doesn’t own.When asked about the capacity limitations of the Luxembourg fund, Ramallo estimates that Robeco will need to soft close the fund when it nears USD8bn. This may take the form of a closure to new investors and a discontinuation of active marketing.

In order to address the recent sub optimal performance of its UK Life Company funds and to build a stronger UK equity proposition for the future, Ignis has taken the decision to restructure the US equity team. Since his appointment as CIO equities in October 2010, Mark Lovett has conducted a detailed review of Ignis’ UK equity proposition. «Whilst the performance of our third party retail funds has improved substantially our Life Company funds have performed below expectations», Ignis said. As a result of Mark Lovett’s review, Ignis has taken the decision to restructure the team. Head of UK equities, Neil Richardson, and four other members of the UK equity team will be leaving their current posts (Gary McAleese, Finlay MacDonald and Jon Stewart). Stacey Cassidy will also be leaving the team but will be joining the Asia Pacific team. «We are currently consulting with former members of the team concerning opportunities that may exist in the new structure or elsewhere within the company», Ignis adds. Mark Lovett will become head of UK equities as well as CIO of equities and will be directly responsible for the management of the Life Co funds. Management of retail funds – which are performing well - remains unaffected. Ralph Brook-Fox, Martin Brown and David Clark will remain lead managers of their respective funds – UK Focus, Equity Income and Smaller Companies.

Selon Money Marketing, Mark Lovett, CIO d’Ignis Asset Management, a passé les fonds d’actions britanniques au banc d’essai et a decide de se séparer de Neil Richardson, head of UK equities ainsi que de quatre analystes, dont un - Stacey Cassidy- a été réaffecté à l'équipe Asie. Les trois analystes restant et Neil Richardson sont toujours en attente d’autres mission au sein d’Ignis.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Asian Investor reports that HSBC Global Asset Management has scaled up its capacities in the wealth management sector in Asia, particularly in the multi-asset class segment, with the objective of diversifying to counterbalance the volatility expected to affect all asset classes in 2011. With this in mind, HSBC has recently transferred Simona Paravani from London to Hong Konf as global chief investment officer for wealth management.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } DBS Private Bank has recruited two senior bankers, as additions to the team specialised in Indonesia, which will now have 40 members, FinanceAsia reports. Stanley Puah Soon Kwang and Tan See Wee joined DBS in January of this year, and are both based in Singapore. Indonesia, like China, India and Taiwan, are priority growth markets for DBS, which employes more than 330 people in the region. Kwang, who was previously senior director at HSBC Private Bank in Singapore, joined DBS as senior vice president, in charge of a team of 10 private bankers. Wee, who previously worked at the regional entity Great Eastern Life Assurance as chief strategist, joined DBS as senior vice president and deputy team head.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } After a difficult start, marked by the financial crisis and then the Lehman Brothers crisis, Laffitte Capital Management, an asset management firm founded in 2007, has finally had a “normal” year in 2010, says David Lenfant, founding partner at the firm, which also includes three other market professionals. The firm’s flagship fund, the Laffitte Risk Arbitrage, dedicated to merger and acquisition arbitrage in the Euro zone and the United States, now has nearly EUR100m in assets. The second fund, the Laffitte Equity Abitrage, launched in late 2009, has only about EUR6m in assets. But the asset management firm is planning to more actively market this fund this year. In total, assets at the firm represent EUR127.3m, more than double the total as of the end of 2009 (EUR45.6m). They are managed in equal proportions for institutionals, retail investors, and multi-management. International investors represent 20% of assets. The asset management firm has signed distribution agreements in Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg, and is now planning to develop in southern Europe. The declared objective is to reach EUR250m in assets in 2011.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, Benjamin de Frouville, head of development at Keren, will soon join M&G France, where he will succeed Violaine de Serrant, who left the firm a few weeks ago (see Newsmanagers of 20 December 2010). De Frouville will start in his new role in early March. Like de Serrant, he will be in charge of services to the IFA market.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Union Financière de France on February, 9th, announced that as of 31 December 2010, total assets under management came to EUR7.2bn, up from EUR6.8bn as of 31 December 2009. This increase in assets is partly due to valuation of assets (market appreciation), and partly to net subscriptions of EUR48m.In terms of product sales, UFF reports that flexible and corporate bond funds have been popular with clients, which “boosted new business in life insurance on the retail market,” with contributions up 10%.Sales of real estate investments were poor (-11%), after a very dynamic year in 2009.UFF announced a consolidated net profit of EUR35.9m, compared with EUR21.3m in 2009.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Alicia Frank, portfolio manager and analyst on a Fidelity team in charge of USD6bn in assets in emerging markets equities, has joined BNP Paribas Investment Partners as senior portfolio manager in the global emerging equity assets team, which managed USD3bn as of the end of December, with a growth bias.Frank will be based in Boston, and will report to Gabriel Wallach, CIO for global emerging markets equities. Overall, BNPP IP manages more than USD60bn in emerging markets equities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } JP Morgan announced on 7 February that its affiliate JP Morgan Worldwide Securities Services would accept physical gold from counterparties as collateral in securities lending and repo operations.

L’Association européenne de la gestion d’actifs (Efama) a lancé le 8 février une nouvelle publication, le «FPP Portal Briefing», qui se propose de fournir toute les informations actualisées sur l’adoption de la norme FPP (Fund Processing Passport) en Europe.L’association professionnelle a lancé en juin 2010 son portail en ligne où les investisseurs pouvent trouver toutes les informations opérationnelles sur les fonds par le biais des FPP avec l’objectif de simplifier le processus dd’achat des fonds en Europe.L’Efama précise dans un communiqué que la norme FPP est désormais utilisée par 69 sociétés de gestion de toutes tailles qui ont produit 4.318 FPP pour des fonds domiciliés dans neuf pays. Le standard FPP a également été adopté par six fournisseurs qui proposent aux sociétés de gestion des outils pour produire et/ou distribuer des FPP pour leurs fonds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Nick Brooks, regional director, who for eight years has been client services manager for the Middle East in London, will be the head of the new representative office which LaSalle Investment Management has opened in Dubai to serve the markets of the region.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Jean-Pierre Mustier, the former head of Société Générale’s corporate and investment bank, has been selected to head the corporate & investment banking division of UniCredit, replacing Sergio Ermotti, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports, confirming speculation in recent weeks. The choice of the Frenchman was announced on Tuesday by the appointments committee. It will become official on Thursday at an extraordinary ad-hoc board meeting.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In January, funds on sale in Italy posted experienced net outflows of EUR3.7bn, according to the most recent statistics from Assogestioni (the Italian association of asset managers). Bond funds and money market funds both saw redemptions of EUR2.2bn. Hedge funds are also in the red, with outflows of EUR514m. Flexible funds, balanced funds and equities funds, however, had net inflows (of EUR745m, EUR304m and EUR171m, respectively). At the end of January, assets were down to EUR446bn, from EUR452bn as of the end of December, of which 23% were in equities funds, 4.8% in balanced funds, 40.9% in bond funds, 13.4% in money market funds, 15.1% in flexible funds, and 2.7% in hedge funds. Asset management firms with the largest inflows in January were Gruppo Generali (EUR169.6m) and JP Morgan Asset Management (EUR66.6m). The firms with the heaviest net outflows were Pioneer Investments (EUR732.9m) and Gruppo Intesa Sanpaolo (EUR680.2m).

As of the end of 2010, assets in pension funds in the 13 largest retirement markets in the world (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) totalled USD26.496trn, an increase of 12% compared with the end of 2009. This is a record level, according to Towers Watson, the compiler of the data. However, this total represents only 76% of GDP, which is lower than the percentage in 2007 (78%). Growth is largely due to the good performance of financial markets.In 2010, retirement assets expressed in US dollars increased in all markets analysed by Towers Watson, except Ireland and France.The largest pension fund market remains the United States, at 58%, far ahead of Japan and the United Kingdom, at 13% and 9% respectively.But the country which showed the largest increase in assets in US dollars is South Africa, with 28%Pension fund allocations from the seven largest retirement markets (Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States) remained relatively unchanged compared with 2009: 47% in equities, 33% in bonds, 1% in cash and 19% in other asset classes (real estate and other alternative investments). The United Kingdom, the United States and Australia had the highest exposure to equities compared with other markets.In France, Towers Watson estimates that pension fund assets total Usd133bn, or only 5% of GDP (the lowest percentage in any of the 13 countries). As of the end of 2000, this total was USD85bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The consulting firm Hennessee Group LLC on 9 February announced that its hedge fund benchmark index gained 0.65% in the month of January, while the S&P 500 index gained 2.26%.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Fundstrategy reports that GAM is launching a long-only fund dedicated to IT sector equities, the GAM Star Technology fund, to benefit from new trends in the sector and the “profound defiance” which it inspires. The manager of the fund, Mark Hawtin, will invest in IT sector shares worldwide, particularly in the United States, which will represent more than 70% of the portfolio. Hawlin says that research into IT shares has considerably diminished since the bubble of 2000, as a result of which the sector is misunderstood and there are many price aberrations. Management fees are set at 1.50% per year, and performance commissions are 10% of gains exceeding the benchmark index (MSCI World IT).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 1 February, Kai-Uwe Pohl has joined the sales team at SEB Asset Management Germany as head of institutional distribution. He was most recently head of distribution at WestLB Mellon Asset Management KAG in Düsseldorf, and previously head of the institutional fund management division at Allianz Global Investors in Frankfurt. The recruitment of Pohl is part of a growth drive at SEB AM in the institutional area.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Dennis Selinas, country manager and managing director for Germany at Charlemagne Capital, has been recruited by Shedlin Capital as head of property investments. He will be in charge of local investment teams and will share his time between the the Nuremberg, London and Bucharest offices.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Hamburg branch of Berenberg Lux Invest and Germany-based Universal-Investment are joining forces to launch the German-registered fund Berenberg Deutschland Dividenden PLUS-Universal, which aims for regular returns through investment in equities from German companies which pay high dividends and earning premiums on options, while limiting risk with a covered call strategy, relying on volatility data which make it possible to actively manage maturities for each option. Stock-picking relies on a quantitative process which identifies businesses with solid balance sheets, higher than average profits, and attractive dividends.CharacteristicsName: Berenberg Deutschland Dividenden PLUS-UniversalISIN: DE000A1C7DF9Front-end fee: 5.50% maximumManagement commission: currently 1.55%Performance commission: 10% of outperformance on the Dax, with high watermark

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The XTF segment of the Xetra electronic platform from Deutsche Börse has gained four ETFs based on French government bonds. They replicate four of the five indices of the new Eurogov France range from Deutsche Börse for French government bonds in euros. The bond issues must have residual assets of at least EUR4bn and zero coupon issues are excluded from the universe. The number of issues incuded in the index is limited to 15.ETFlab, an affiliate of DekaBank, has released the ETFlab Deutsche Börse EUROGOV France, ISIN: DE000ETFL425, ETFlab Deutsche Börse EUROGOV France 1-3, ISIN: DE000ETFL391, ETFlab Deutsche Börse EUROGOV France 3-5, ISIN: DE000ETFL409 and ETFlab Deutsche Börse EUROGOV France 5-10, ISIN: DE000ETFL417, all of which charge fees of 0.15%. The new products bring the total number of ETFs listed in Frankfurt to 771.