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19/04/2012

Pimco to set up shop in Brazil

Pimco will open an office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in September 2012. The new office will be Pimco’s first location in Latin America and will be led by Alec Kersman, a senior vice president and head of Pimco’s Latin America and Caribbean business. He joined Pimco in 2005. Pimco will operate in Brazil as Pimco Latin America Administradora de Carteiras Ltda., and will be regulated by the Comissao Nacional de Valores (CVM).
19/04/2012

First closing for AllianceBernstein U.S. Real Estate Partners

On 18 April, AllianceBernstein announced the first closing for its first private equity real estate fund, the AllianceBernstein U.S. Real Estate Partners fund, with investment commitments of USD680m. These engagements come from several major institutional investors, such as the Singapore sovereign fund Temasek, the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund, and other US, Hong Kong and Japanese institutionals, joined by “many” retail clients and employees of AllianceBernstein. Counting the co-investment capital provided by some strategic investors, the fund may have as much as USD900m in capital. So far, the fund has invested USD200m in six operations. It is aiming for investments per holding of USD20m to USD100m.
19/04/2012

SWIP restructures its sales team

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has asked five members of its 14-member sales team to reapply for their positions, following a decision by the firm to redistribute roles, FundWeb reports. The size of the team will not be reduced, SWIP adds. In general, SWIP is hoping to move from a more silo-type client approach to a more holistic approach.
19/04/2012

Investment funds woo Groupama UK

The private equity firms Charterhouse and JC Flowers are front-runners to take over the activities of Groupama in the United Kingdom. The reports on the website Insurance Times have been confirmed to Agefi by a source familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, the CEO of Eiffage, Pierre Berger, on Wednesday announced at a general shareholders’ meeting that Groupama, its fourth-largest shareholder, is interested in selling its stake if the share price rises.
19/04/2012

bfinance recruits for international and alternative activities

bfinance is adding to its teams. The consultant has announced the appointment of Douglas Hansen-Luke, who had previously been CEO of Robeco Middle East, as CEO for Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. He will be assisted by Alex Denby, who joined bfinance as a partner in the Middle East, after working previously at Osborne & Partners and Robeco Middle East. Brian Cyr joins the bfinance office in Montreal as director of clients serving Canadian investors, after twelve years in assets management, with manager selection or institutional mandate management duties at Pyramis Global Advisors (an affiliate of Fidelity Investments), Standard Life PLC and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. In Germany, Michael Wolfram will soon join the bfinance office in Munich as institutional client representative. Since December, he has been working in the bfinance research team in London. Chris Jones, previously chief investment officer at Key Asset Management, has joined bfinance as head of alternative investments, a newly-created position.
19/04/2012

Bank downgrades may drive BlackRock to change partners

BlackRock has announced that it may have to reduce its trading volumes with banks that will be downgraded by Moody’s, the Financial Times reports. Some clients set minimal credit ratings for counterparties to some transactions. A downgrade could thus provoke a transfer to other partners, says Larry Fink, CEO of the asset management firm, whose statements were first reported by the New York Times.
19/04/2012

Unigestion continues sustained pace of private equity fundraising

Unigestion is maintaining a good pace of fundraising in private equity, despite a difficult environment in the sector. The Swiss asset management firm, which has EUR10bn in assets (one quarter of them in France) has launched a vehicle dedicated to European midcaps, Agefi reports. The fund, a Luxembourg-registered Sicav, “will be made available on the French market in the form of an FCPR vehicle not investing primarily in France, so as to offer diversification. We hope to raise over EUR250m by third quarter 2012, one fifth of which will come from the French portion,” says Christian Dujardin, head of development for private equity activities at Unigestion. A themed fund focused on sustainable development held a first closing in June. Meanwhile, “a new vehicle will be launched in early 2013,” says Dujardin.
19/04/2012

Improvement in pension fund coverage in first quarter

The Swisscanto pension fund monitor reveals that in first quarter 2012 there was a “considerable improvement” in the financing situation for Swiss retirement planning institutions, due to the positive evolution of equity markets. Overall, average weighted coverage as a function of assets under management by all retirement planning institutions evaluated increased in first quarter from 97% to 98.8%. Due to this development, the financing situation for Swiss retirement planning institutions has approached its early 2011 levels. The retirement planning institutions evaluated have earned average returns, weighted according to asset volumes, of 2.4% since the beginning of 2012. The proportion of retirement institutions with insufficient coverage has declined. The estimated proportion of private pension institutions with inadequate coverage is considerably lower, at 17%, than at the end of 2011, when it was 26%.
19/04/2012

Schroders launches Schroder ISF Global Multi-Asset Income

Schroders has announced the launch of Schroder ISF Global Multi-Asset Income. This fund will aim to provide sustainable quality income by dynamically investing in attractive income opportunities across a range of asset classes, regions and sectors. Aymeric Forest, senior Multi-Asset fund manager, will manage the fund with the objective to pay a 5% per annum distribution in equal quarterly or monthly instalments, with an expected 7% total return per annum over a full market cycle. “We are currently seeing interesting opportunities within equities in healthcare in the UK and Japan, consumer staples in the US and Asia, and telecoms in China and South Africa. We are also finding attractive yields in some US municipal bonds and high yield debt and in local currency emerging markets with a loose monetary policy. We are cautiously positioned within our exposure to financials and prefer bonds issued by US and UK insurers to those issued by banks,” he comments.
19/04/2012

Franklin Templeton cuts back UK fund range

Fundweb reports that Franklin Templeton has decided to absorb the Templeton UK Equity Fund into the Franklin UK Managers’ Focus Fund, and to absorb the Franklin US Equity Fund into the Franklin US Opportunities Fund. Meanwhile, the Franklin Biotechnology and Franklin Global Reit funds will be liquidated at the end of May. These moves will increase the efficiency of the range, which will concentrate on OEIC sub-funds, says Ian Wilkins, country head for Franklin Templeton in the UK.
19/04/2012

BBVA launches a partially guaranteed fund

On 13 April, the CNMV registered the BBVA Crecimiento Bolsa BP fund from BBVA Asset Management, a fund guaranteed at maturity, on 9 December 2015, with a redemption of 95% of the net asset value as of 8 June 2012. The fund carries the potential for additional gains depending on the evolution of the Ibex 35 index. If losses are limited to 5%, or 1.453% per year, gains for the fund will have a ceiling of 75% of a 25% rise in the index, or 5.026% per year. From 9 June, the fund will invest in bonds issued by EU governments or Spanish autonomous communities rated at least A-, with a maximum of 20% corporate bonds, covered bonds, or securitisations.CharacteristicsName: BBVA Crecimiento Bolsa BP, FIISIN code: ES0113466009Front-end fee: 5%Management commission: 1.97%Early withdrawal penalty: 5%
19/04/2012

New non-food commodity fund from LBBW AM

LBBW Asset Management, an affiliate of the German Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) has announced that on 11 April it launched a non-food commodities fund entitled LBBW Rohstoffe 3 Ex-Food, inspired by the LBBW Ex-Food-Rohstoff-Index ER index, currently composed of 18 commodities. It invests in futures contracts on ten commodities in the precious metals, base metals and energy sectors, as well as timber and cotton. Cash is placed in highly-rated bonds with a short maturity.The fund is available in R (retail) and I (institutional) share classes.CharacteristicsName: LBBW Rohstoffe 3 Ex FoodISIN codes:DE000A1H7292 (R share class)DE000A1H7284 (I share class)Front-end fee: 5% (R share class)Management commission:1.50% (R share class)0.80% (I share class)Minimal subscription: EUR75,000 (I share class)
19/04/2012

EDHEC-Risk: Two hedge fund strategies show losses in Q1

In first quarter, only two hedge fund strategies out of 13 monitored by EDHEC-Risk show losses: CTA Global (-0.6%), and short selling, which shows losses of 12.5%, but lost only 0.93% in March.The best performance in the first three months of the year were for emerging markets (6.4%), distressed securities (6.3%) and long/short equity (6.2%).Since January 2001, the best results have been for distressed securities and emerging markets, with annual returns of 10.5% each.
19/04/2012

M&G Investments opens an office in Singapore

M&G Investments has opened an office in Singapore, composed of five people, including Andrew Hendry, who has been appointed to the newly-created position of managing director, Asia. He is tasked with building a team in Singapore and Hong Kong who will service the growing number of M&G distribution partners in the region. Hendry joined the British asset management firm last year, after working at Capital International, where he was responsible for global distribution relationships.
19/04/2012

South-East Asia head leaves Coutts

The British private bank Coutts has announced the departure of its head for South-East Asia, Manfred Liechti, following a restructuring, Asian Investor reports. Liechti joined Coutts in 2010, and was in charge of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Meanwhile, Coutts has appointed his successor, Ranjit Khanna, as head for South-East Asia. Khanna had previously been head of products and services for Asia.
19/04/2012

New CEO at AC Gestión

Following Miguel Ángel Rodríguez’s decision to take on new challenges outside the Ahorro Corporación group, Enrique Sánchez del Villar has replaces him at CEO of the asset management affiliate AC Gestión, Funds People reports. Rodríguez joined the financial group of the savings banks in 2008, and focused primarily on relationships with savings banks.Sánchez del Villar says that asset management is a strategic profession for Ahorro Corporación, and that his role will be to conclude multiple partnerships to bring an increase in assets under management. He is planning to sign sales agreements with international groups, whose products would complement funds on offer to Spanish groups.
19/04/2012

Profits and assets up at Sparinvest

In 2011, the Danish asset management firm Sparinvest has announced pre-tax profits ot EUR13.7m, of which EUR0.8m are due to the acquisition of EgnsInvest, compared with EUR12.5m in 2010, and EUR10.1m in 2009.As of the end of 2011, assets totalled EUR9.1bn, compared with EUR8.8bn and EUR7.5bn respectively at the end of 2010 and the end of 2009.However, ROE has fallen to 22%, compared with 29% in 2010.
19/04/2012

Madrid veut porter son différend avec l'Argentine devant l'OMC

L’Espagne va demander à l’Union européenne de saisir l’Organisation mondiale du commerce afin que soit ouverte une procédure contre l’Argentine qui a pris le contrôle d’YPF, filiale de l’espagnol Repsol, a rapporté Reuters de source gouvernementale. Madrid a brandi la menace de rétorsions économiques et diplomatiques après la décision de la présidente argentine Christina Fernandez de nationaliser 51% d’YPF. Le gouvernement argentin a en outre décidé d’exproprier une société locale de gaz naturel détenue en partie par Repsol.
19/04/2012

Timothy Geithner salue la décision chinoise sur le yuan

Le secrétaire américain au Trésor a qualifié la décision de la Chine d’élargir la bande de fluctuation du yuan de «très importante et très prometteuse». Timothy Geithner a toutefois souligné lors d’une conférence organisée par la Brookings Institution que «bien entendu, ils ont encore un long chemin à parcourir dans ce processus, notamment sur le taux de change».
19/04/2012

La SEC finalise les règles de définition des swap dealers

Le régulateur américain a approuvé à l’unanimité un texte définissant l’univers des swap dealers, ce qui contraindra les acteurs concernés à respecter des exigences de capital, de marge et de conduite d’activité. Ces règles s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la législation Dodd-Frank, qui donne autorité à la SEC et à la CFTC pour réguler le marché des dérivés OTC.
19/04/2012

François Hollande promet d'amender la procédure du LBO

A la rencontre dans l’Oise des salariés de Still Saxby, François Hollande a promis de revenir sur la procédure du LBO en cas d'élection. «Au départ, cette procédure dite LBO était destinée à des cadres ou à des salariés qui voulaient reprendre eux-mêmes leur entreprise. C'était un bon principe, mais ça a été détourné au profit de groupes financiers», a déclaré le candidat socialiste. «Et donc le législateur aura à revenir sur ce dispositif de façon à le réserver exclusivement aux salariés ou aux cadres d’une entreprise», a-t-il ajouté.
19/04/2012

Les ETF soutiennent BlackRock

Le premier gestionnaire d’actifs mondial a enregistré un bénéfice net de 572 millions de dollars (3,14 dollars par action) au premier trimestre, contre 568 millions (2,89 dollars par titre) un an plus tôt. Les clients ont plébiscité les ETF. Ils ont en effet injecté en net 18,2 milliards de dollars dans iShares, une hausse de 74% par rapport au premier trimestre de 2011.
19/04/2012

Votaccess se dote d'un conseil scientifique

La plate-forme électronique suscitée par l’AFTI, avec le concours de l’ANSA, s’est dotée d’une structure de concertation baptisée «conseil scientifique». Ouverte aux associations professionnelles concernées, à des représentants des sociétés émettrices, à des banques et à des représentants des actionnaires et de l’Université, elle vise entre autres à suivre la montée en charge du vote électronique, à gérer un outil statistique et à formuler des propositions d’amélioration.
19/04/2012

La Chine devrait baisser sélectivement ses droits de douane

Selon le journal chinois qui cite Jia Kang, responsable d’un institut de recherche au ministère des Finances, la Chine devrait procéder à une baisse sélective de ses tarifs douaniers, alors que les gouvernements locaux pourraient augmenter le niveau des taxes sur les PME.

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