p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BNP Paribas Wealth Management on 14 January announced a reorganisation of its Asian wealth management activities, and the creation of a new affiliate dedicated to its ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients. As a part of the reshuffle, BNP Paribas is redeploying its affiliates in Asia as key markets, with a separate director in charge of each market: Serge Janowski for Hong Kong, Mignonne Cheng in the interim until a head is appointed for China, Henry Pang for Taiwan, Stephane Honig for India, Serge Forti for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and Eric Morin for the other Asian Markets, including Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. The bank will also set up an affiliate dedicated to ultra-high net worth clietns, which for most establishments in the sector, requires a minimum of USD30m (EUR22m) in assets to invest. The identity of the heads of the new affiliate dedicated to high net worth clients will be announced at a later date, BNP Paribas Wealth Management says in a statement. In the interim, Mignonne Cheng, who will retain her position as chairman and CEO of wealth management for the Asia-Pacific region, will also become head of UNHWI & Independent Wealth Managers for Asia-Pacific. Ernest Leung has also been appointed head of strategy and development of wealth management activities for Asia-Pacific, and will work in partnership with the market heads to develop initiatives in the region.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Bank Julius Baer on 13 January announced the appointment of David Lim as CEO of Bank Julius Baer Singapore, effective immediately. Thomas Meier, a member of the executive board and CEO for Asia and the Middle East, who was also CEO for Singapore, will continue to be based in Singapore as a member of the executive board, and will direct activities and promote Asia as the second major market for the firm, after Switzerland.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Some major asset management firms have shown that an investment in their own shares brings better performance than the funds they offer, Expansión reports. Shares in Schroders and Aberdeen have gained 48% and 75% in value in the past twelve months. Shares in F&C have gained 33%, and T. Rowe Price is up 21%, while shares in Henderson gained 20.7%. Shares in Invesco were in line with the market, rising 11.5%, while BlackRock shares lost 16%.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Since 2006, when the asset management and real estate management activities were merged, Alexander Klein has been COO in charge of all back-office activities at SEB Investment, the fund management firm of SEB Asset Management Germany. He has been appointed as a board member at SEB Investment from 1 January 2011, and will retain his position as COO. He will be in charge of finance, risk management, controlling, and IT.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to financial industry sources, Deutsche Bank is rumoured to have backed down from plans to sell BHF-Bank as a single entity, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. LGT may now acquire only the wealth management and SMB banking activities, while Deutsche Bank would retain some market activities of BHF.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Peter Vogel, head of sales for structured funds at Bank of America Merrill Lynch since December 2009, has been recruited by MainFirst Asset Management, an affiliate of MainFirst Bank, as head of sales and marketing. He will also be a member of the asset management committee at MainFirst.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 12 January, the management of the fund Capital UFF FCP, which is eligible for PEA (equity savings plans), has been contracted to Carmignac Gestion, and the product renamed UFF Grande Europe 0-100. The product was previously managed by Aviva Investors France, which helped to redefine the orientation of the fund: “the uncertain evolution of conjuncture and the new fiscal situation in 2011, which makes PEA once again attractive, has led the Union financière de France (UFF) to analyse its range of funds eligible for PEA,” the product presentation states.The fund invests at least 75% of its assets in equities from the European Community. Stock-picking selects the shares with the most potential, and up to 25% of the fund is invested in the best “opportunities” from countries outside the European Union (including Turkey and Russia). From this point of view, the fund faithfully reflects the management undertaken by Carmignac Gestion for its Carmignac Grande Europe fund.The exposure of UFF Grande Europe 0-100 to equities markets is completely flexible, and may vary from 0 to 100%, due to the use of derivative instruments, which implies a wholly separate management, both from the range of funds available from UFF through its PEA, and from funds currently managed by Carmignac Gestion for its own clients. This highly reactive mode of management is “particularly well-adapted to confront periods of volatility on the market such as we may see in 2011,” explains Nicholas Schimel, president and CEO of UFF. CharacteristicsName: UFF Grande Europe 0-100ISIN code: FR0000034548 Minimal subscription: EUR762.25 (C and D shares); EUR300,000 (V shares)Management fees: 2.25% (from 1 March 2011) for C and D shares; 1.75% for V sharesPerformance commission: 10% of net performance of funds exceeding 7.5% in annualised terms

The European securities specialist Nicolas Walewski, founder of Alken Asset Management, on 14 January in Paris announced the launch of an absolute return fund, Alken Absolute Return Europe (AARE).The European long/short equities fund, which complies with the UCITS III directive, has daily liquidity, aims for capital growth in the mid-term, and invests largely in European equities, with the main objective of generating alpha in the case of long as well as short-term investments.The objective is to remain focused on the best ideas which generated absolute returns of 64% for the Alken Capital One fund since its launch on 21 July 2008 in European equities, through active management of the portfolio.The fund aims for gross exposure of 50% to 150%, and net exposure of -20% to 75%. For the long portion of the portfolio, which is not highly concentrated, absolute return will be the priority, and when opportunities present themselves, the fund will also make small arbitrages, For the short portion of the portfolio, the fund, which will invest in individual shares as well as indices and baskets, will act as a hedge fund and directly.An initial share class will be offered from 17 January with a commission of 0.9%, instead of 1.5%, The offering is scheduled for 31 January.As of 31 December, assets under management at Alken AM totalled over EUR2.7bn, of which EUR2.18bn were in the Alken European Opportunities fund, which has outperformed the Stoxx 600 index by 21% since its launch in January 2006, and by over 6% in 2010.

Jim O’Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who invented the term «Bric», plans to add Mexico, South Korea, Turkey and Indonesia into a new grouping with Brazil, Russia, India and China that he dubs “growth markets”.“It’s just pathetic to call these four emerging markets,” he told the Financial Times.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The IT specialist firm Markit on 17 January announced the launch of a series of emerging market debt indices. The Markit iBoxx USD Emerging Markets Sovereigns indices, which aim to meet growing demand on the part of investors for emerging market debt, come as additions to the GEMX index, launched in 2008, which tracks the performance of government debt from emerging markets in local currencies.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to sources familiar with the matter cited by Reuters, Clive Cowdery is preparing a takeover bid for the asset management firm Pioneer, via his firm Resolution, which has been contacted by the potential seller, UniCredit, the Börsen-Zeitung reports.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Maria Cassinello has been appointed head of Banif Advisory, a new service which the Santander private banking arm offers its clients with liquid savings of at least EUR3m, who do not contract out the management of these savings, Funds People reports.Each dedicated adviser at Banif Advisory will contact the client in real time to inform them about market developments and investment opportunities, and will provide information about the bank’s recommendations. The final decision will be made by the client. The adviser at Banif Advisory will work in a team with the private banker in charge of the account. The objective is to provide portfolio advising similar to what clients who have contracted the management of their Sicav to Banif receive.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } La Tribune reports that in connection with the Madoff case, an Irish court has asked the British bank HSBC to provide documents in relation to the UCITS-compliant feeder fund Thema International (EUR1.1bn in assets), for which the bank was the depositary. “The bank is required to produce the documents, justifying respect for article 39(d) of the transposed UCITS 3 directive,” and it “must provide its accounts to investors, understood as the parties able to demonstrate that they are economic beneficiaries of the fund,” judge Frank Clark states in his opinion.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Italian arm of the French firm Européenne de Gestion Privée has been liquidated by the Italian minister of the economy and finance, at the request of Consob and with a supporting opinion from the Bank of Italy, Bluerating reports. The move comes in response to irregularities and violations of regulations which occurred in the administration of the Italian entity.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Gruppo Banca Leonardo announced on Friday, 14 January that it has acquired Sal. Oppenheim jr & Cie Corporate Finance (Suisse) SA, a consulting firm dedicated to corporate finance. Sal. Oppenheim CF Switzerland has 12 years of experience in this market, and has a client base composed of Swiss mid-sized and large businesses, multinational corporations and private investors. The Swiss firm has 14 employees, and has undertaken more than 60 missions in the past 10 years for a transaction volume of over CHF30bn, a statement says. Sal. Oppenheim CF will continue to cover mergers and acquisitions and equities markets, and will provide services in the area of debt restructuring in the entire sector, including real estate. As a part of the operation, the asset management affiliate 4IP and the real estate expertise activity will be separated. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } AXA Winterthur has announced the appointment of Kamila Horackova as head of Asset Management Agefi Switzerland reports. At the same time, she becomes a member of the board, where she will begin on 14 March. She succeeds Mattias Henry, who was appointed CFO on 6 December, who has been the interim director of asset management. Horackova has been director of asset management for AXA Czech and Slovakia since 2007.

F&C has announced plans to enhance flexibility of its cost baseand annual cost savings of GBP12 million. The primary aim of this initiative is to create an operational cost base which will more readily adapt to future changes in F&C’s business profile as the UK asset manager focuses on diversifying its business and caters for new client needs. As a core part of this project the group has been in discussions with a number of potential outsourcing providers and is now close to selecting a preferred partner from a short-list of two (subject to contract, due diligence and completion of employee consultation processes). The asset management company will also reorganise its remaining business processes around the outsourced operational model. The restructuring programme will create an operational cost base that varies with assets under management and transaction levels.F&C estimates this restructuring programme will reduce annual operating costs by at least GBP9 million. Based on the expected implementation timescale, the first of these savings will commence in Q2 2011 and be substantially achieved by Q3 2012. Associated one-off net costs to achieve these reductions are expected to be no more than one full-year of the annual savings.The outsourcing arrangement will affect approximately 110 staff, which represents around 70% of the group’s existing operations staff, a significant number of whom are expected to transfer to the outsourcing provider. This initiative does not affect the staffing of investment, distribution and client service functions.The group has also identified an additional potential annual cost saving of GBP3 million arising from reduced premises requirements following the reduction in head count.In addition to the initiatives announced on Friday, F&C continues to review further opportunities for cost reduction and business simplification, including product rationalisation.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Kevin Addison as head of wholesale sales, replacing Tony Maddock, who has joined Lazard AM. Addison, who joined SWIP in 2008, will report to John Brett, director of sales and marketing at SWIP.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Graham Kitchen will replace Bill McQuaker as head of equities at Henderson Global Investors. When the firm acquired Gartmore recently, McQuaker decided to concentrate primarily on management of his funds. He becomes assistant to his successor.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } RBC Dexia Investor Services announced on Friday, 14 Janyary that it has appointed Sébastien Danloy as Managing Director in Luxembourg, effective from 2 May 2011. Danloy, who will report to Tony Johnson, Global Head, Sales & Distribution, will be in charge of developing the firm’s activities in Luxembourg. “He will place the emphasis on market strategy, management of strategic clients, and the effectiveness of our engagement with governmental, regulatory and industrial entities nationwide,” a statement says. Danloy had previously served as Global Head of Sales & Relationship Management at Société Générale Securities Services. The appointment is subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

L’Autorité des marchés financiers a accordé le 6 janvier la certification à l’agence japonaise Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCRA). Les notations délivrées par JCRA peuvent donc être utilisées à des fins règlementaires dans l’Union européenne, sans que l’agence ait une présence physique en Europe.

Le conseil d’administration de l’Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital (AFIC) a annoncé vendredi la nomination de Paul Perpère au poste de délégué général. Ce dernier était jusqu’alors sous-directeur en charge de la fiscalité directe des entreprises à la direction de la législation fiscale (DLF), rattachée à Bercy.

De sources concordantes, le distributeur textile américain n’a reçu durant la période de «go shop» terminée samedi 15 janvier aucune offre de rachat. TPG et Leonard Green & Partners, qui ont proposé 43,50 dollars par action le 23 novembre, soit au total 2,86 milliards de dollars, restent donc seuls en lice. Sears et Urban Outfitters auraient examiné les comptes avant de renoncer.

Patrick Moonen, stratégiste senior chez ING IM

Matthieu Grouès, directeur des gestions chez Lazard Frères Gestion

Le quotidien indique de sources anonymes que PAI Partners a entamé la cession, pour 800 millions à un milliard d’euros, de la Compagnie Européenne de Prévoyance. Nombre de sociétés de private equity étudient l’opportunité de formuler une offre, dont Apax Partners, Montagu, Cinven et Charterhouse. Rothschild est chargée de l’organisation du bal des prétendants, avec un premier tour d’enchères attendu le mois prochain. La transaction devrait ainsi se traduire par le gain de cinq fois sa mise initiale par PAI. La société de private equity française a acquis la CEP auprès de la famille Bessé en 2005. La société reste détenue à plus de 30% par ses dirigeants.

L’objectif des 3.025-3.045 points, désormais en vue, ne devrait être qu’une étape

Les ministres des Finances se réunissent aujourd'hui mais rendront leurs conclusions fin mars

Avec avoir reçu l'agrément de l'AMF en 2009, la société de gestion mise également sur le développement de mandats en dehors de France

Anne Velot, responsable crédit d'Axa IM