La Tribune reports that investors seeking to put an end to their involvement in the Madoff caper may sell their fund shares. Although the products are effectively worthless now, and most of them have entered liquidation, the Hedgebay Trading cross-border platform offers a way to put sellers and buyers of shares in the funds in contact. According to the newspaper, as much as USD5m in trades on the Fairfield and Plazza hedge funds are reportedy taking place. Some institutional investors have even approached the platform to buy illiquid shares “transparently.” The new owners of the shares are hoping that Irving Picard, the US liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s assets, will recover more money than expected. The unfortunate investors selling their shares will also have the relief of recovering some limited amount. The platform reports that the rebound in trading of these shares has brought their value back up to only 8% of the value of the initial investment.

Russell Investments and RepuTex, a consulting firm specialised in the analysis of risks on global carbon trading markets, have announced that they have signed an agreement to launch environmental indices, dedicated to businesses which actively manage their carbon emissions-related financial risks. RepuTex will use its in-house methodologies to analyse the 2,500 shares of the Russell Global Developed Large Cap index on the basis of their carbon emissions, and to identify businesses which are engaging with clean technologies and alternative energies. The new range of indices will be launched in fourth quarter 2010.

In its annual report, published on the website of the Bundesanzeiger (official gazette), Sal. Oppenheim states that it lost EUR1.27bn in 2009, compared with EUR163m the previous year. The private bank, which has been taken over by Deutsche Bank on 15 March 2010, says that it will be necessary to create new structures to generate growth and to return to profitability, which will involve a re-examination of back-office functions, in order to create synergies with Deutsche Bank. In particular, savings will be necessary in IT. The firm will now concentrate on wealth management for private clients, institutional management, and management of retail and institutional funds. Sal. Oppenheim predicts that it will return to profitability in two to three years. The 2010 accounts will be dragged down by one-time costs related to restructuring and the sale of assets owned directly by the bank. Further write-downs may be necessary for some credits, as well as investments in real estate. Operating profits, however, are expected to increase to a satisfactory level this year.

Georges Zecchin has been appointed as director of the Crédit Agricole (Switzerland) private bank in Asia, based in Hong Kong. Zecchin will be in charge of teams based in Singapore and Hong Kong, and will oversee development of their activities in the region. His experience and expertise will allow him to consolidate and develop the position of Crédit Agricole Switzerland in this part of the world in the field of private banking. Zecchin joined Crédit Agricole in Switzerland in 2001, where he served as head of compliance. He was then appointed secretary general, then a member of the executive board, and then a member of the general direction committee.

Asian Investor reports that Andrew Cohen has been appointed CEO for wealth management activities at JP Morgan Private Bank for the Asia-Pacific region. In his new role, he replaces Paul Scibetta, who has been promoted within the firm. Cohen, currently head of Southern Californian activities at JP Morgan Private Bank, will move to Hong Kong in the next few months.

F&C is embroiled in a legal battle with two hedge fund managers - Francois Barthelemy and Anthony Culligan -, says the Financial Times. The case centres on a limited liability partnership set up in 2004 between the asset management company and the two men. The two men, who hold 20% each in the partnership, allege that after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, F&C, which has a 60% interest, «wanted to shut down the LLP» and «recognised they could not do that under the agreement without buying the individual partners out under the options». They claim that F&C «started to run the business down without even informing the individual partners» and from mid-December 2008 «they sought to impose . . . cuts that would . . . have undermined the business altogether», according to the FT.

Six managers and directors at Gartmore, including chief executive Jeff Meyer, have bought GBP557,162 worth of shares, says Financial News. But one prominent name has not joined in the buying spree - star manager and major shareholder Roger Guy.

Fund Strategy reports that Collins Stewart Fund Management and Corazon Capital are planning to merge their funds of funds, in the wake of the acquisition of Corazon by Collins Stewart in March of this year. The time-frame has not been set in stone, say sources at Collins Stewart, adding that the operation will not involve any layoffs.

The private equity investor Inflexion and F&C Private Equity Trust have sold their stakes in ICS to the US management firm Blackstone, for a total of GBP110m-GBP125m. F&C says that it received GBP6.3m in cash and GBP0.5m in loan notes, which, along with subsequent payments, will bring the internal return rate to 73% after 22 months.

Graham Kitchen, who manages several equities funds at Henderson, says that several fund managers at the firm bought a total of 2% of the shares in Jupiter released as part of its IPO, as they considered the issue price of 165 pence per share highly attractive, Investment Week reports. Since Thursday, the shares have been trading at about 190 pence per share. The first listing will take place this Monday. Jupiter, whose share offering was more than 2.5 times oversubscribed, has not posted a single quarter of net redemptions in the past 10 years.

By a vote of 91.64% in favour, 4.27% against, and 4.09% abstaining, shareholders in F&C at a general meeting on Friday approved the firm’s planned acquisition fo the management firm Thames River for about GBP53.6m, of which GBP33.6m will be paid in cash.

In January-May, the price of natural gas in the United States fell 22%, and many market trend-oriented hedge funds were then caught off-guard when the trend suddenly reversed, with gains of 15% in natural gas prices since the beginning of June, the Wall Street Journal reports. Among the funds which have lost out on the market are five funds from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which lost more than USD120m out of USD640m it had invested. The same fate awaited the Bristol Energy Fund (which had USD500m invested) and several smaller funds from SandRidge Capital, which lost 19%, 15% of it in the first 15 days of June. Superfund USA also lost money on its bets on natural gas, which represented 1% of its assets of Usd1.25bn. However, Auspice Capital Advisors made money on natural gas, via a specialised ETF and a diversified commodities fund. The Claymore Natural Gas Commodity ETF has gained 7.4% since the end of May, and the London-based BlueCrest Capital Management has also posted returns of 2% in the first half of June, as its USd10bn BlueTrend Fund made gains on natural gas trading. The fund had lost 8% in May.

Agefi reports, citing Bloomberg, that the Qatar sovereign fund is planning to invest USD2.8bn in the initial public offering by the Agricultural Bank of China.

Since 10 June, investors are required to disclose short positions exceeding 0.2% of capital in any Spanish corporation to the CNMV, and when these short positions exceed 0.5%, the regulator renders the information public. Cinco Días reports that several firms have declared short positions on 15 Spanish firms totalling EUR1.218bn. The most heavily shorted firms by percentage of capital are BME (3.9%), Grifols (3.4%), and Banco Popular (3.2%). Deutsche Bank has bet the most (EUR750m) against the Spanish firms BBVA, Banco Popular, Gamesa and Grifols. The US-based hedge fund management firms Amber Capital, Morton Holdigns and Eminence Capital also have large short positions; others include Mason Capital Management, John A. Griffin, and Marshall Wace.

La Tribune reports, citing Bloomberg, that the alternative management affiliate of the Citigroup bank is seeking to increase its private equity assets by USD1.5bn, and its hedge fund assets by USD750m, this year. Citi is also planning to increase its assets by USD1bn next year.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) announced on 18 June that it has acquired a 12.7% stake in London’s Gatwick airport for GBP106m (USD155m) from the infrastructure fund Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). GIP led the acquisition of Gatwick from BAA in December 2009 for about GBP1.5bn. The acquisition of the stake represents a first direct investment by CalPERS as part of its infrastructure program, launched in 2007, which aims to invest 1.5% of the pension fund’s total assets in infrastructure.

From 1 July 2010, Vigeo will include the “transparency and integrity of influence practices” in the criteria it uses to rate the social responsibility of businesses. With this new criterion, Vigeo will measure what businesses publicly disclose about the engagements they take on, staff and resources they mobilize, either internally or through the use of specialised organisations (think tanks, lobbying agencies, professional associations, etc.), to affect expertise and legislative and regulatory processes likely to have an impact on their interests. In an environment in which the power of the professional lobbying industry is growing, with observable consequences in the absence of consistent international regulation, the risks of accusations of improper conduct are not negligible for businesses which are inadequately transparent in this area. On the other hand, businesses which make the effort to provide information on the positions they support, and on the organisation and budget dedicated to managing their relationships with public decision-makers, may see a benefit to their reputation, as well as increased legal security, increased investor confidence, and thus better attractiveness to investors as well as more permissive attitudes on the part of shareholders, and more generally, better social acceptability for their brand. The development of the ratings criteria was undertaken by vigeo with the support of the French section of Transparency International under a partnership agreement between the two organisations signed in July 2009.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the SEC is extending its investigation of the activities of the hedge fund management firm Magnetar Capital, founded by Alec Litowitz, a former trader from Cidatel Investment Group, the Wall Street Journal reports. The regulator is seeking to determine the exact role of Magnetar in the CDO markets, in which the hedge fund manager bought some of the highest-risk categories of derivatives, and made considerable amounts of money on CDS used to hedge against defaults on these assets.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Citi Capital Advisors, the alternative management platform from Citigroup, will seek to raise about USD1.5bn for private equity and USD1.75bn for hedge fund investments, the Wall Street Journal reports, adding that according to Bloomberg, the asset management firm will give itself two years to raise this amount of capital. The plans come ahead of the future “Volcker rule” which will forbid commercial banks from making speculative investments with their own capital. This point is also particularly sensitive for JP Morgan Chase, which owns the hedge fund management firm Highbridge Capital Management, and for Morgan Stanley, whose affiliates include the hedge fund management firm FrontPoint Partners.

Fidelity International would like to maintain the coexistence of bundled and non-bundled commissions, Fund Strategy reports. Following the publication of a working document by the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) on the subject of distribution platforms which raises the question of commissions, the management firm has undertaken a survey of 350 British independent financial advisers (IFAs) which finds that 80% of them favour the status quo. Two thirds of advisers estimate that the cost of investments would rise if the FSA intervened to forbid kickbacks.

Toby Hogbin, head of product development at Martin Currie, says that asset management firms which do not consider the British market their top priority will take the introduction of the UCITS IV directive on 1 July 2011 as an occasion to merge their British and continental product ranges, using a Luxembourg master fund and British feeder funds, Money Marketing reports. This will result in staff reductions in back-office and compliance in the UK.

In a first verdict over Madoff investments, Santander was sentenced on Thursday by a court in Madrid to reimburse an investor who subscribed in May 2006 to a structured product based on a basket of investments in the Multistrategy, Strategic US Equity and Arbutraje funds from Optimal, Cotizalia reports. The investor requested a redemption of his investment within the deadlines, before the Madoff scandal reduced the value of his investment to zero on 30 November. The judge found that the bank did not fulfil its obligations in failing to reimburse the subscriber, citing the arrest of Bernard Madoff and the suspension of his funds as the cause. However, the judge did not sentence the bank to reimburse the full initial value of the investment, but only its value just before the scandal broke.

The Moscow city government and Paris Europlace on 18 June signed a protocol agreement in Saint Petersburg in the presence of the French minister of the economy, Christine Lagarde. The protocol sets out the basis for an increased cooperation between the financial markets of Paris and Moscow in the area of financial services. The cooperation agreement will result in the establishment of concrete relations to exchange information and expertise for financial practices, development of services, and new products, especially in the area of debt management, where Paris and Moscow both play a top-tier role worldwide. It also provides for the organisation and management of an Institute for Risk Management, and for regular exchanges in the area of market infrastructure, in line with the evolution of securities rights and good international practices. A joint working group will structure the exchanges, which may also lead to the organisation of specific seminars and local and reciprocal assistance provided to French and Russian financial actors in the development of their commercial, institutional and public relations.

As of 28 June, the Eurex platform will open trading of futures based on six more commodities indices. The futures are based on sub-indices of the Dow Jones UBS commodity range, covering soft commodities, grains, precious metals, energy, oil, and livestock. Since March 2009, Eurex has offered futures based on the composite Dow Jones UBS index and the three sub-indices for soft commodities, energy and metals.

Despite the financial crisis, a large majority of French students and young graduates in finance remain open to job opportunities abroad, according to a survey undertaken by eFinancialCareers.fr of 206 students and young graduates planning to work in the finance sector. Only 21% are concentrating their job searches on the French market. Of the 79% of respondents who are prepared to move abroad, more than half would like to work in a European country, with London their preferred European city to begin a career in the finance sector (cited by 62% of them).

The Swiss asset management firm Fisch Asset Management, which has previously specialised in convertible bond funds, on 31 May launched a corporate bond fund investing in liquid and investment grade emerging market bonds denominated exclusively in Euros or US dollars, entitled Fisch Bond Value Investment Grade, and managed by Philipp Good and Kurt Fisch. The objective for the product, which offers daily liquidity, is to outperform the JP Morgan Corporate Emerging Market Bond Index Broad Investment Grade index. To date, the fund has sales licenses only in Luxembourg and Germany. Characteristics Name: FISCH Bond Value Investment Grade Fund ISIN: LU0504482315 Management commission: 1.2% (retail shares), 0.6% (institutional shares) Minimal subscription: EUR100/CHF100/USD100

Selon la Tribune qui cite Bloomberg, la filiale de gestion alternative de la banque Citigroup cherche à augmenter de 1,5 milliard de dollars ses encours sur le private equity et de 750 millions de dollars ses actifs sur les hedge funds cette année. Citi envisage même d’augmenter ses encours de 1 milliard de dollars l’an prochain.

Au plus tard avec le retour de Mohamed El-Erian après une brève incursion à la gestion de la fondation de Harvard (lire notre dépêche du 12 septembre 2007), les professionnels ont pris conscience du fait que Pimco (groupe Allianz Global Investors) n'était plus un «simple» gestionnaire obligataire, aussi important soit-il (avec plus de 1.000 milliards de dollars). Pimco dispose d’une capacité multi-classes d’actifs internationale, mais aussi de produits matières premières, d’allocation d’actifs, de REIT, d’immobilier et de MBS.Le gestionnaire californien, qui a préalablement recruté les gérants value de Templeton Mutual Series, Anne Gudefin et Charles «Chuck» Lahr (lire notre article du 8 décembre 2009) a confié à ces deux vedettes voici deux mois la stratégie value actions, arbitrage de fusions-acquisitions et distressed, sous la forme du fonds Pathfinder (lire notre article du 19 avril) qui a déjà collecté 600 millions de dollars auprès des particuliers et des brokers-dealers. La commission de gestion est fixée à 0,89 %."La philosophie d’investissement «bottom-up» est exactement la même pour le nouveau Pathfinder Europe, qui n’est pas encore agréé en France», explique Anne Gudefin à Newsmanagers. «Nous fonctionnons avec un horizon de 3-5 ans, dans une optique officieuse de performance absolue. Pour entrer un titre en portefeuille, il faut qu’il présente une décote de 30 à 40 % sur la valeur à laquelle nous l'évaluons et, bien entendu, que la société ait une vraie valeur intrinsèque. Il ne s’agit pas qu’elle soit bon marché parce qu’elle ne mérite pas mieux». Déploiement de forceCette stratégie présente une volatilité correspondant à 60 % de celle de l’indice, et le portefeuille comprend entre 70 et 80 lignes. Le taux de rotation envisagé se situe entre 20 et 30 %. Anne Gudefin et Chuck Lahr, peuvent compter pour leur stratégie sur le soutien de 6 gérants de portefeuille pour le cash, de 30 analystes crédit, de 5 spécialistes de la dette distressed (plus un gérant), de 27 gérants de portefeuille focalisés sur les devises et de trois autres professionnels de la réduction du risque grâce aux techniques de couverture. L'équipe va être renforcée par un analyste spécialisé sur les fusions-acquisitions, d’un product manager qui viendra lui aussi de Franklin Templeton et de deux analystes secteurs l’un pour les matières premières/énergie, l’autre pour les valeurs industrielles. De plus, Nell Kashkari, ancien vice-secrétaire au Trésor chargé du programme TARP, devient head of new business initiatives.Depuis mai 2005, en rétropolant la stratégie appliquée pour Pathfinder par Anne Gudefin chez Mutual Series, la performance de ce genre de produit aura été de 44,8 % en cumulé, avant frais, contre 22,63 % pour la catégorie Lipper Global Multi-Cap Value et 6,64 % pour le MSCI monde.Au 30 avril, le portefeuille se composait de 74 % d’actions value gérées activement et de 21 % de cash, gérés activement par Pimco -ce qui permet de dégager entre 20 et 30 points de base de surperformance, insiste Anne Gudefin, qui ne voudrait pas voir son fonds assimilé à un monétaire. De même, la couverture active du risque de change par les spécialistes maison représente entre 50 et 60 points de base de surperformance.

Selon l’Agefi qui cite Bloomberg, le fonds souverain du Qatar a prévu de participer à hauteur de 2,8 milliards de dollars à l’introduction en Bourse d’Agricultural Bank of China.

Selon les données mensuelles d’iShares pour « L’Agefi », la dette souveraine a suscité un vif intérêt. Côté actions, l'Europe est privilégiée