The day after the official launch of its new French asset management firm, Russell Investments France, the US firm Russell Investments has announced the recruitment of Alexandre Attal (already named in yesterday’s Newsmanagers) as a portfolio manager and analyst. Attal, who joins the firm from Barclays Wealth Managers France, will report to Alain Zeitouni, CIO at Russell Investments France. He will be in charge of analysis and management of multi-asset class portfolios managed for clients of the Paris office of Russell Investments, and will support its commercial development. The other recruitment is the result of a transfer, as Jean-David Larson, the new director of client solutions, who has spent five years at Russell Investments in Seattle, where he had most recently been chief of staff, is transferred to France. In his new role, he will be in charge of client offerings; he will also participate in the design of multi-asset solutions and to commercial development.

The IFA group Infinitis on 5 April announced that it now has 205 agencies, with 313 member IFAs. Infinitis has seen inflows of EUR115m (excluding real estate) in 2011, with assets under management of EUR287m. All agencies of the group combine have assets of EUR2.7bn. The 2012 objective is to reach 300 agencies, in order to draw nearer to its ultimate goal of 400 member agencies.

BNP Paribas Investment Partners has announced the appointments of François Hullo as head of bond management at BNPP AM and of David Bouchoucha as head of institutional sales for southern Europe. Hullo will lead a team composed of 100 investment professionals in 8 countries, a statement says.Hullo has worked for over 24 years at the BNP Paribas group, half of it at BNPP IP. Before his appointment, he had been head of institutional sales for southern Europe at BNPP IP. Between 2000 and 2004, he set up the alternative investment structure at BNPP IP, and developed a complete range of structured and alternative products.Bouchoucha, for his part, joined BNPP IP in May 2010, as head of mission, reporting to the CEO and deputy head of institutional sales for southern Europe. He joined BNP Paribas in 2007 as head of strategy for the group, and managed several projects in collaboration with the general management.

Finance professionals can be satisfied. According to a survey by eFinancialCareers in the United States, set pay levels for finance professionals rose 6% in 2011. Nearly half of professionals surveyed (47%) say they are “very” or “rather satisfied” with their pay scales in 2011, compared with 43% in 2010. Nearly half of professionals, 54% of respondents, saw a pay raise in the space of one year. The raises were largest at boutiques and alternative management firms, at +14% and +13%.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) has appointed Marcel van Ostaden as director of sales for the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Van Ostaden will be based in Amsterdam. Before joining LOIM, he had been director of sales for the Netherlands at BlackRock, since 2005. LOIM managed EUR28bn as of the end of 2011.

After an extended period of uncertainty and volatility on the markets, several top-calibre operations in first quarter are an indication that the initial public offering market in Europe is rebounding. The “IPO Watch” report from PwC finds that 58 operations were undertaken in first quarter 2012 on European stock markets, totalling EUR2.3bn, compared with EUR0.9bn in fourth quarter 2011, and EUR3bn in first quarter 2011. The average value of the operations is EUR50m, compared with EUR17m in fourth quarter 2011, and EUR39m in first quarter 2011. Although activities remain muted compared with their historic levels, outlooks have been boosted by encouraging transactions by several recent issuers. Thierry Charron, a partner at PwC specialised in capital markets, “initial offering prices are at the high end of the price range, and new issuers overall have been performing well after their initial public offerings, which is clearly a good sign for companies which are considering a launch on the stock market this year. The initial offering from Ziggo may lead other companies financed by private equity funds to follow suit.” The Us IPO market has also rebounded in first quarter 2012, with 44 operations and EUR4.4bn raised, an increase in volume of 33% compared with the 433 initial offerings in first quarter 2011. There has also been strong interest on the US markets from secondary market investors in new issuers following their initial offerings, which has led to positive returns for 80% of companies which launched on the stock markets this quarter.

European money market funds, which began reducing their exposure to Spain and Italy in summer 2011, had virtually eliminated their exposured to the two countries as of the end of February, Fitch Ratings announced in its most recent monthly bulleting about European money market funds. European money market funds had already reduced their exposure to Greece, Ireland and Portugal to 0% in 2009 and 2010. Fitch states that as of the end of February, European money market funds no longer had any exposure to Italian banks, and allocation to Spanish banks, mostly to Banco Santander, were marginal and would be maturing in the next two months. As of the end of February 2012, funds maintained a significant allocation to issuers in major European countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands), while increasing their investments in Australian, Scandinavian, Japanese and Canadian financial institutions.

The European financial market regulator is in the home stretch to impose new regulations governing exchange-traded funds (ETF) and all UCITS funds which use index replication or securities lending techniques, from second quarter this year. Professionals responded to a consultation launched earlier this year. According to Agefi, the major actors in the sector, Lyxor Am and BlackRock, are satisfied overall with the framework proposed. For example, BlackRock would like to see securities lending, counterparty risks and potential conflicts of interest mentioned in product prospectuses. Actors appear sceptical of ESMA’s collateral diversification proposals.

Following the departure of David Gagnon in January, Anthony Swift, his deputy, becomes AsPac head of transition management & product development at BlackRock, Asian Investors reoprts. Swift has been a member of the transition management team since December 2009, after spending a decade at Barclays Global Investors (BGI).

The British asset management firm M&G Investments has overtaken Invesco Perpetual to become Britain’s largest asset management firm in terms of assets under management, according to statistics from the British investment management association (IMA). Invesco had held the top spot since October 2007. M&G has earned excellent returns in the past year, and its net inflows rose last year by GBP4.4bn, at a time when the sector as a whole was seeing net outflows of nearly GBP70bn. IMA rankings of the top ten asset management firms in the United Kingdom in terms of assets under management (February 2012) M & G Securities Limited £39,464,246,537 1 Invesco Perpetual £39,431,441,702 2 Fidelity Worldwide Investment £26,878,568,253 3 Schroder Investment Management Ltd £25,991,973,342 4 BNY Mellon Fund Managers Limited £25,824,063,802 5 St James’s Place Unit Trust Group Ltd £25,428,811,572 6 Threadneedle Investment Services Ltd £25,379,523,918 7 BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited £24,211,271,760 8 Henderson Global Investors £24,092,777,014 9 Legal & General (Unit Trust) Managers Limited £23,916,470,986 10

The hedge fund sector has done well in first quarter, but has not really shined, according to information from the major press agencies. Third Point Partners by Daniel Loeb gained 7.1% in first quarter, with the Third Point Ultra fund posting gains of 10%. Greenlight Capital by David Einhorn has posted gains of 6.9% for the first three months of the year. There are many good results, but no exceptional ones. Hedge funds have earned an average of about 2.3% in first quarter, according to analysts at BofA Merrill Lynch, compared with gains of 12% for the Standard & Poor’s 500. The hedge fund giant John Paulson is a good illustration of the muted mood for hedge fund quarterly results. The oldest portfolio from the management firm, Paulson Partners, has earned gains of 6.6% in first quarter, and the Paulson Enhanced Fund has gained 13.3%. But the Advantage fund lost 1.05%, and its leveraged version Advantage Plus lose 2.23%. The Glod fund lost 13.41% in March, and has lost 6.37% over the quarter.

The German life insurer Stuttgarter Lebensversicherung has launched unit-linked retirement insurance policies which invest in five ETFs from iShares, Das Investment reports. The funds in question are the following: iShares MSCI World, iShares Dax, iShares Euro Stoxx 50, iShares S&P 500, and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets.

Union Investment Real Estate, an affiliate of the central asset management firm for the German co-operative banks, has acquired the office property Rosmarin Karree, located on Friedrichstraße in Berlin, for an undisclosed amount for the portfolio of its UniImmo: Deutschland open-ended real estate fund.The property, with 11,76 square metres of office space, 3,196 square metres of rental apartmnets and 2,61 square metres of shops, is leased for the long term to the DSGV association of savings banks, which now controls 100% of DekaBank, the central asset management firm for the savings banks.

The British activist investment fund The Children’s Investment fund (TCI) has decided to file a lawsuit against the Indian government and the state-run business Coal India for failure to respect the interests of minority shareholders, Les Echos reports. The coal producer Coal India was IPOed in 2010, in order to reduce India’s budget deficit. The British fund bought 1.01% of Coal India, which makes it the second-largest shareholder in the group, which is 90% controlled by the Indian government.

One of the largest commodity hedge funds, BlueGold Capital, is liquidating its portfolio and returning capital to investors, the Financial Times reports. The fund is hoping to be able to repay 98% of invested capital by May. Last year, the portfolio of BlueGold lost 34% of its value. After assets one year ago of about USD2.4bn, assets under management have fallen to slightly over USD1bn.

The US bank JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay USD20m to the commodity futures trading commission (CFTC), the Financial Times reports. The US regulator accused the firm of illegally managing the separate accounts of Lehman Brothers clients.

Switzerland and Germany on 5 April signed a new tax agreement, according to a statement released by the Swiss federal finance department (DFF). The protocol comes as an amendment to an agreement signed in September 2011, and defines the tax rate for regularising offshore assets. The tax rate, initially planned to be between 19% and 34%, will now be between 21% and 41%. The entry into force of the new regulations will take place at the start of next year. The law is extended to apply to inheritances taking place after the entry into force of the agreement. In case of succession, the heirs may choose either to pay a tax of 50% or to declare the assets, the DFF states. Meanwhile, the maximum number of authorised requests for information from the time the agreement comes into effect will be raised from 999 to 1,300 for a period of two years. There will no longer be a way to transfer assets from German taxpayers in Switzerland to other third-party countires without declaring the transfer. The DFF claims that the agreement is a significant contribution to tax equality. It respects the protection of the privacy of banking clients in Switzerland, while guaranteeing that legal taxes are recovered in Germany. There are also plans to improve procedural aspects related to activities between the two states in the financial sector. Strengthened collaboration of the surveillance authorities in the two countries and respect for national legislation will allow for improvements to banking procedures for Swiss banks in Germany, making them simpler and faster. The changes will have little effect on the opinions of the German opposition, who hold a majority in the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German Parliament, which represents the regions, and is planning to block the passage of the bill.

The French financial market authority (AMF) on 5 April announced that it has integrated guidelines by the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) on automated trading into a position published on that date (issue 2012-03). The terms of the regulations will be effective from 7 May 2012, the AMF states. The guidelines, based on financial market instrument directives (MiFID) and market abuse regulations, lay out the appropriate way to apply certain directives, and introduces specific clauses related to their application in the particular area of automated trading, including high-frequency trading. The regulations apply primarily to the following activities: operation of an electronic trading system by a regulated market or a multilateral trading system (SMN); use of an electronic trading system, including trading algorithms, by an investment firm, for trading on its own behalf or execution of orders for clients; provision of direct access to the market or sponsored access to an investment business to execute orders on behalf of its clients.

The Wall Street Journal reports that US bankruptcy judge Burton R. Lifland on Wednesday evening ruled that Irving Picard, trustee for the business interests of Bernard Madoff, may modify his initial lawsuit in order to seek about USD5.5m from the daughters-in-law of the fraudster, Stephanie Mack, widow of Mark Madoff, Susan Elkin, his first wife, and Deborah Madoff, wife of Andrew Madoff.

The German asset management firm Deka Immobilien has acquired “The Rock” (30,000 square metres), an office property located in Amsterdan, from Evans Randall for about EUR132m. The property will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund WestInvest InterSelect, bringing the proportion of the portfolio invested in Netherlands properties from 8.1% to 10.5%, with the strategy of slightly reducing the exposure of the portfolio to Germany, and to bring younger properties into the portfolio.

Ken Hsia has taken over as manager of onshore and offshore European equity funds at Investec, as part of a reshuffle at the South African asset management firm, InvestmentEurope reports. Hsia, who has been at Investec for seven years, will be responsible for equity funds, including the European (GBP27.6m in assets under management) and Continental European (GBP60m in assets). He replaces Nigel Hankin, who will continue to serve as sectoral head in the 4Factor equities team at Investec.

Expertise du patrimoine immobilier de placement détenu par le RSI en sa qualité de propriétaire bailleur d’immeubles de bureaux, de commerces et d’habitation loués à des personnes morales ou physiques. 63 immeubles dont 39 immeubles à usage d’habitation et 24 immeubles à usage commercial (bureaux et boutiques). Pour lire l’avis complet: cliquez ici

La Caisse de Prévoyance Sociale Te Fare Turuutaa (CPS) est une personne morale de droit privé chargée d’une mission de service public et dotée de l’autonomie financière. Elle fonctionne sous tutelle du Gouvernement de Polynésie Française. En novembre 2011, la CPS a investit 84 millions d’euros sur un mandat de gestion obligataire zone euro, avec l’aide de son consultant, Amadeis.

La Société Générale aura mis une semaine à comptabiliser les voix des 160 actionnaires d’Altamir-Amboise s’étant exprimé à l’assemblée générale du 29 mars dernier. Les taux d’approbation ont été plutôt bas pour la validation des comptes (72,5%), la fixation du dividende (68,4%), les conventions réglementées (71%) et les renouvellements de deux administrateurs (72,2%). La proposition de dividende à un euro présentée par Moneta et l’Adam a été approuvée par 31,3% des actionnaires, mais 49,8% des actionnaires hors la participation de Maurice Tchenio, patron d’Altamir, et des associés Apax.

La Banque d’Angleterre a maintenu sans surprise son taux directeur à 0,5%, son niveau depuis mars 2009, et laissé sans surprise inchangé le montant de son programme de rachats d’actifs, alors que se multiplient les signes augurant d’un retour à la croissance de l'économie britannique.

L’économie russe tournerait au-dessus de son rythme de croissance potentielle, selon un porte-parole du FMI. «L’augmentation prévue du déficit non pétrolier en 2012 pose un risque de surchauffe» a estimé Gerry Rice. Il ajoute que «le gouvernement devrait tirer profit du prix élevé du pétrole pour réduire son déficit non pétrolier et mettre dans le fonds de réserve les revenus tirés du pétrole».

Les prix alimentaires mondiaux ont augmenté pour le troisième mois consécutif en mars et cette hausse devrait se poursuivre, selon l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO). L’indice de la FAO s’est établi en moyenne à 215,9 en mars, contre 215,4 (chiffre révisé) en février. S’il est encore inférieur au pic de 237,9 atteint en février 2011, il dépasse le niveau auquel il se trouvait lors de l’envolée des prix alimentaires en 2007-2008.

Les inscriptions hebdomadaires au chômage ont diminué moins que prévu aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 31 mars mais elles sont néanmoins tombées à leur plus bas niveau depuis près de quatre ans, à 357.000 contre 363.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente, a annoncé le département du Travail. Les inscriptions de la semaine au 24 mars ont été révisées en hausse par rapport à une estimation initiale de 359.000.

La production manufacturière britannique a accusé sa plus forte baisse en près d’un an en février, prenant les prévisionnistes à contre-pied et jetant un doute sur le scénario d’une hausse modeste de l’activité au premier trimestre qui permettrait au pays d'échapper à la récession. L’Office national de la statistique a annoncé jeudi une baisse de 1% de la production manufacturière en février après un recul de 0,3% (révisé) en janvier.