According to the Swiss firm Alix Capital, the UCITS Alternative index in June shows losses of 0.23%, following losses of 1.36% in May, meaning that for first half as a whole, the sector shows losses of 0.33%. The UCITS funds of hedge funds index, for its part, has lost 0.77%, following losses of 1.25% in May, resulting in losses of 2.39% since the beginning of the year.All strategies showed losses in June (including CTA, which lost 1.69%), except bonds, which earned 0.30%, and have gained 2% in first half as a whole.
The hedge fund management firm SAC Capital, which is owned by Steve Cohen, has launched SAC Re Ltd in Bermuda. The assets of the reinsurance company will be managed by SAC Capital, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new company began its activities on Monday, after raising USD500m in capital from Cohen, the private equity investor Capital Z Partners, and other investors, including high net worth private individuals. Fundraising was opened in late 2011 and closed last weekend.
Christopher K. Ross last month left Wells Fargo Private Bank to join the wealth management office of BNY Mellon in Washington, DC as a senior portfolio manager. He will report to Susan Traver, regional president.
The value equities team at Vaughan Nelson Investment Management have been selected by Natixis Global Asset Management to actively manage a concentrated fund of 20-40 positions on undervalued US equities of all cap sizes, aimed at long-term equity investors seeking to diversify a portfolio of tracker funds. The new product, launched on 29 June, is managed by Scott J. Weber, with the assistance of Chris Wallis, chairman and CEO of Vaughan Nelson, and Dennis Alff.CharacteristicsName: Vaughan Nelson Select FundAcronym: VNSAX (A share class)Front-end fee: 5.75%Management commission: 1.50%
Finews.ch reports that three employees at RothsInvest Asset Management have been arrested in Italy. They had convinced about 500 people to invest in an investment abroad, promising them returns of 10%. EUR250m are reported to have been channelled into the investment, according to Finews, which calls the case an “Italian Madoff.”The former head of the Swiss financial firm RothsInvest Asset Management, Robert Da Ponte, is also under investigation in Italy for severe infractions (money laundering, fraud, etc.). He is reported to have had some of the money being channelled to the investment scheme in his possession at the time of his arrest. He fled investigators in the month of May. The scandal also includes another element, this time political. Manuel Brandenberg, who is listed as the vice president of RothsInvest, is a member of the Swiss cantonal council, and is a politician of some standing in the Swiss SVP party.
As of the end of May, assets in Swiss funds fell by CHF3.98bn in one month, to CHF664.35bn, despite net subscriptions of nearly CHF1.03bn, according to Swiss Fund Data.Equity funds in particular have seen net outflows of CHF534.9m, and assets have contracted by CHF7.93bn. However, bond an money market funds have seen net inflows of CHF1.13bn nd over CHF1.18bn, while assets have increased by CHF3.36bn and CHF3.37bn, to CHF217.81bn and CHF86.32bn.The two heavyweights in the sector have posted declines in their assets, to CHF157.15bn from CHF158.88bn for UBS and CHF108.92bn compared with CHF110.46n for Credit Suisse. However, the third-largest actor, Pictet, has posted an increase in assets under management to CHF50.1bn, compared with CHF48.9bn.
Cheyne Capital is releasing two Irish-registered funds, a long/short credit fund and a real estate bond product.The first of these, Cheyne Global Credit Fund UCITS, deploys a long/short strategy for investment grade or crossover bonds in Europe and North America via direct investment in assets and derivatives. Leverage will be used to provide returns which are expected to exceed the Libor by 500 to 700 basis points.The second fund, Cheyne European Real Estate Bond Fund UCITS, will focus on senior real estate backed bonds. It is aiming for returns of 600-800 basis points, without the use of leverage.CharacteristicsName: Cheyne Global Credit Fund UCITS ISIN code: IE00B76XH336Management commission: 1%Performance commission: 10% with high watermarkName: Cheyne European Real Estate Bond Fund UCITSISIN code: IE00B4MBZ034Management commission: 1.25%Performance commission: 10% of performance exceeding the Libor (hurdle rate)
The emblematic founder of New Star, John Duffield, has launched his first fund and announced the next two from his new business, Brompton Asset Management (see Newsmanagers of 6 January). The first product, IFDS Brompton Global Income, is a sub-fund of the Brompton Multi-Manager OEIC.The fund, launched on 2 July, will invest in the United Kingdom as well as abroad, with a proportion of 30% to 60% equities. The fund is primarily aimed at retail investors; it is managed by Gill Lakin, CIO and head of private clients, former CIO of Thornhill Investment Management, who had been head of UK Equity research at Société Générale Asset Management.Brompton is also planning to launch two other funds by the end of September, IFDS Brompton Global Growth and IFDS Brompton Diversified, FundWeb reports.CharacteristicsName: IFDS Brompton Global Income FundISIN code: GB00B7DC6589Front-end fee: 5%Management commission: 1.5%Administrative charge: 0.25%
The US firm Wells Fargo Asset Management, with seven funds totalling EUR2bn already on sale in Europe, has registered six more funds fore sale in the United Kingdom, all sub-funds of its Luxembourg Sicav, Fundweb reports.These include two emerging market products (Emerging Markets Equity II and Emerging Markets Income and Growth), two funds focused on the US (US Premier Growth and US Short-Term High Yield Bond), and the Global Opportunity and Precious Metals funds.For these products, minimal subscription is set at GBP1,000. TER for the products ranges from 1.60% to 2.25%.
Money Marketing reports that Henderson Global Investors has decided to close its Indian equity fund on 3 August. The reason for the decision was low asset levels (GBP10.8m) and uncertainty about the future development of local tax regulations. Fund management had been provided by Tata Asset Management.
On 29 June, JO Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) launched a global version of its UK Opportunities equity fund (GBP900m in assets) launched in November 2005. The portfolio of the new JOHCM Global Opportunities fund will include 25 to 40 holdings. It will be managed by Ben Leyland, with the assistance of John Wood; these two senior portfolio managers were already co-managers of the UK Opportunities fund. They will be joined by a dedicated analyst, Robert Lancastle.The new fund will have no benchmark constraint, although performance will be measured by comparison with the MSCI AC World Total Return index. The all-cap fund may invest in equities from developed countries and emerging countries with equally-weighted positions ranging from 2.5% to 4% of assets.CharacteristicsName: JOHCM Global Opportunities FundISIN code: IE00B4XXMP2Front-end fee: 5%Management commission: 2.47%Performance commission: 15% of annual performance exceeding the MSCI AC World TR index
In the Swiss financial sector, the number of job offers as of the end of June was a toal of 15% lower than twelve months previously, according to statistics from Jobdirectory cited by finews.On the websites of 1,400 banks, insurers and other financial sector businesses (account commissioners, IT, advising, etc.) in Switzerland, there were 3,436 job openings as of 30 June.The UBS bank, for its part, is recruiting more personnel than a year ago. Since the beginning of the year, job openings at the Swiss bank rose 70% to 336 positions.
Stephen Tharyan, head of credit at Henderson Global Investors, has announced at a presentation in Paris on Monday that for the moment, the exposure of the Credit Alpha absolute return long/short fund (GBP510m) to US high yield bonds is constrained due to a lack of specialists in this market, but that in the next three months, the British asset management firm may announce the recruitment of a team of one or more portfolio managers and three or four analysts dedicated to this segment.The Credit Alpha strategy, which uses 80% of derivatives, represents total assets of about GBP620m, also counting USD150m in a segregated account on the Lyxor platform. Henderson will apparently decide to soft close the fund when the strategy reached GBP800m, and a hard close at USD900m. However, these limited may be virtually doubled if planned recruitments for the team of US market specialists are realised.
The asset management affiliate of Nordea, Nordea Investment Management, has signed a partnership with ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, a joint venture of the Indian bank ICICI and the British firm Prudential, IPE reports.Under the agreement, ICICI Pru AMC will as adviser to Nordea funds focused on India, which represent about EUR203m in assets, while Nordea IM will showcase ICICI Prudential AMC exclusively as its Indian adviser/sub-adviser of choice throughout its retail, private banking and institutional segments across Europe.
Agefi reports that Apollo Global Management has announced the appointment of Martin Kelly, head of financial controlling at Barclays, as its new chief financial controller. Kelly, who will succeed Gene Donnelly, who has resigned, will begin in his new role on 1 October this year.
According to reports in Financial Times Deutschland, the German governing coalition has called off plans to bring taxation of unit-linked retirement savings policies into line with taxation of life insurance policies as part of a proposed law to improve retirement planning, which would have come into force in early 2013. The news will be viewed as a defeat for the investment fund sector and for its professional association, the BVI.
Pepijn Heins, head of business development Europe, has told Investment Europe that the US firm Eaton Vance, which has been present in London since 2001, will be focusing its sales efforts in Europe on the United Kingdom, Benelux (primarily the Netherlands), and Scandinavia. France and Germany will not be overlooked, but they are not core targets for the moment.The manager says the goal is to attract long-term investors, and marketing and sales efforts to improve the visibility of Eaton Vance in Euorpe, before concentrating on pension funds and fund selectors.Heins also states that his intention is not only to release more products in Europe, but also to bring more people from the Boston head office, both in order to improve relationships with European investors, and to allow some managers to be closer to the assets they invest in.
Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) in Luxembourg on Monday, 9 July announced that it has been selected by Titanium Finance to serve as depository, transfer agent and bookkeeper for its first asset management firm to be launched in Luxembourg.Titanium Finance is a Swiss capital management firm founded in 1998, whose assets under management total CHF220m.
Franck Paoli, gestionnaire de portefeuille à Coface dans un article paru dans Option Finance numéro 1179 : Il est très difficile de dire si on est acheteur ou non d’un produit qui n’existe pas encore sur le marché. Les investisseurs soulèvent plusieurs conditions pour investir dans ce type de produits. La première concerne la notation. Les investisseurs institutionnels ont une appétence pour les produits obligataires quand ils se situent dans la catégorie investment grade. Si les euro-obligations entrent bien dans cette catégorie, elles seront donc considérées comme intéressantes, en particulier si leur notation se situe à AA ou A. Selon plusieurs études, dont une réalisée par Natixis l’an passé, les euro-obligations pourraient bénéficier d’une notation AA+ au moins jusqu’en 2014, soit un niveau supérieur à celui de la Belgique et de la France actuellement, mais légèrement inférieur à celui des Pays-Bas ou encore de l’Allemagne. Les investisseurs seront néanmoins vigilants sur la réalité de ces prévisions.
Les ministres des Finances de la zone euro se dirigent vers un accord pour assouplir les objectifs de réduction du déficit budgétaire fixés à l’Espagne, a déclaré Pierre Moscovici, le ministre français de l’Economie. Selon Reuters, la Commission européenne va proposer mardi de réviser les objectifs de déficit budgétaire de l’Espagne sur les trois années à venir, à 6,3% du PIB cette année, 4,5% pour 2013 et 2,8% pour 2014.
Le Fonds européen de stabilité financière (FESF) a mandaté Crédit Agricole CIB, Morgan Stanley et UniCredit en tant que co-chefs de file pour son émission obligataire à cinq ans qui devrait être lancée dans un futur proche, en fonction des conditions de marché. Les trois établissements ont été sélectionnés parmi ceux qui composent le «EFSF Market Group».
Le ministère de l’Ecologie et de l’Energie a fait part de la décision du gouvernement français de limiter à partir du 1er août les hausses de tarif de l'énergie et du train à l’inflation, soit 2%. Cette augmentation concerne le gaz, l'électricité pour les ménages et les trains Intercités et des TER.
Devant les parlementaires européens, le président de la Banque centrale européenne a indiqué que l’institut d’émission pourrait continuer à faire pression sur les taux après la décision prise la semaine dernière de les abaisser à 0,75%. «Nous devons examiner la situation, étudier les données et les derniers développements et ensuite, nous déciderons lors du Conseil des gouverneurs des prochaines mesures à prendre», a-t-il expliqué.
La France a émis 7,7 milliards d’euros de dette à court terme à des taux historiquement bas. Lors de son adjudication hebdomadaire de Bons du Trésor, l’Agence France Trésor a ainsi placé 3,917 milliards d’euros de bons à 13 semaines (trois mois) au taux moyen pondéré de -0,005% (contre +0,04% la semaine dernière), 1,993 milliard de bons à 24 semaines (six mois) au taux moyen de -0,006% (contre 0,096%) et 1,793 milliard d’euros bons à 50 semaines (un an) au taux moyen de 0,013% (contre 0,163% lundi dernier). Le montant total émis se situe dans le haut de la fourchette annoncée (6,6 à 7,8 milliards d’euros) et le ratio de couverture s’est établi à 2,65%, la demande ayant dépassé les 20 milliards d’euros.
Les taux de prêts interbancaires dans la zone euro ont touché de nouveaux plus bas historiques lundi, alors que le marché continue de digérer la baisse des taux directeurs de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) annoncée la semaine dernière. Le taux Euribor à trois mois, considéré comme le taux de référence pour les prêts entre banques, a connu vendredi sa plus forte baisse jamais enregistrée. Lundi, il est tombé à un plus bas record de 0,531%.
La croissance devrait avoir été nulle au premier semestre de cette année, a déclaré François Hollande, en ouvrant la grande conférence sociale avec les partenaires sociaux. Selon l’Insee, la croissance a été nulle au premier trimestre et devrait l'être également au deuxième, avant une reprise à +0,1% au troisième et +0,2% au quatrième, qui porterait la croissance sur l’ensemble de 2012 à 0,4%. La Banque de France a quant à elle confirmé lundi prévoir une baisse du PIB de 0,1% au deuxième trimestre. «Chacun sait que pour le premier semestre de l’année, la croissance sera nulle, dès lors nous devons mobiliser toutes nos forces pour une croissance durable pour les prochaines années», a dit le chef de l’Etat, ajoutant qu’une croissance élevée était une «obligation» pour développer l’emploi.
Le moral des investisseurs en zone euro a reculé pour le quatrième mois consécutif pour tomber à un plus bas de trois ans en juillet alors que la crise de la dette dans la région a affecté l’Allemagne et d’autres pays hors de l’Europe. L’indice mesuré par le cabinet d'études Sentix est tombé à -29,6 ce mois-ci, après -28,9 en juin. Les analystes interrogés par Reuters attendaient à l’inverse une amélioration du sentiment en zone euro, à -26,7.
L’excédent des comptes courants japonais a accusé une chute de 63% sur un an au mois de mai pour tomber à 215,1 milliards de yens (2,2 milliards d’euros) avec une chute de 14,8% sur un mois des commandes de machines, selon les chiffres publiés ce matin par le ministère des finances. Le consensus Bloomberg tablait sur un recul plus modéré à 493,1 milliards de yens.
Le gouvernement chinois compte poursuivre une gestion proactive alors que les pressions baissières sur l’économie restent «relativement importantes», a indiqué le Premier ministre Wen Jiabao à l’agence Xinhua. Les mesures mises en œuvre depuis avril ont néanmoins, selon lui, permis de stabiliser l’économie, avec objectif de croissance maintenu à 7,5% en 2012. Et d’ajouter que les autorités «maintiendront une politique monétaire prudente et résoudront de manière efficace la contradiction structurelle entre l’offre et la demande de crédit», tout en continuant à contrôler « indéfectiblement » les prix de l’immobilier. L’inflation est tombée à 2,2% en juin, son plus bas niveau depuis vingt-neuf mois, laissant des marges de manœuvre pour de nouveaux assouplissements. Citigroup anticipe une nouvelle baisse des taux directeurs de 25 points de base et deux baisses de 25 pb du ratio des réserves obligatoires d’ici la fin de l’année.
Le spécialiste des surgelés, entre les mains de Lion Capital, va être repris par ses créanciers junior dans le cadre d’une restructuration obligataire, ont confié à Bloomberg plusieurs sources proches du dossier. Lion Capital, qui soutient la proposition d’échange de dette en participation au capital, conservera une part d’environ 30%. Les créanciers mezzanine souhaitent finaliser l’opération de restructuration d’ici la fin du mois après le feu vert des créanciers détenant plus de 80% des prêts senior. Selon les termes du plan piloté par Lion Capital, Highbridge Capital Management et JPMorgan, les créanciers junior effaceront plus de 200 millions de livres de dette mezzanine en échange d’une participation. Ils injecteront 220 millions de livres dans le groupe, dont 125 millions pour rembourser la dette senior au pair. Ces créanciers apporteront également 70 millions de livres sous la forme d’une facilité de crédit à court terme.