Frédéric Dodard, responsable de la gestion multiclasse d’actifs chez State Street Global Advisors pour la zone EMEA

Seules les activités incriminées par la justice américaine demeureront dans Wegelin, dont les associés restants géreront le conflit avec les autorités

Madrid menace les communautés autonomes d'intervention si celles-ci ne respectent pas une «règle d'or» pour limiter leurs dépenses

La prochaine enquête sur le crédit de la BCE dira si l'injection à 3 ans a restauré la confiance

La prochaine enquête sur le crédit de la BCE dira si l'injection à 3 ans a restauré la confiance

La progression du PIB de 2,8% au quatrième trimestre est largement due à une augmentation des stocks

Philippe Weber, responsable études et stratégie CPR Asset Management

Le chef de l'Etat propose d'augmenter le taux moyen de TVA de 1,6 point et celui de la CSG sur les revenus financiers de 2 points

Le China Securities Journal indique, en citant des données de TX Investment Consulting, que les pertes cumulées par les 872 fonds d’investissement collectifs en Chine (investis à 78,5% en actions) s’élèvent au quatrième trimestre à 124 milliards de yuans, soit près de 15 milliards d’euros, en repli tout de même de 50% par rapport au trimestre précédent.

Le Premier ministre Wen Jiabao estime que la dette du pays se situe à un niveau «global sûr et sous contrôle» et que la dette locale est contenue

HgCapital a mandaté Morgan Stanley pour étudier la mise en vente de SHL. Le montant de la transaction pourrait s’élever à 700 millions de dollars, selon le quotidien.SHL fournit des services de recrutement à 80% des sociétés membres de l’indice FTSE 100 et 50% de celles du Fortune Global 500, rappelle le quotidien.

La banque allemande songe à lancer un fonds en collaboration avec le new-yorkais Rosebrook Capital au sein duquel seraient logés des actifs illiquides ou toxiques de ses clients dans des hedge funds. Le nouveau fonds cherche à lever 500 millions de dollars, souligne le quotidien qui cite des personnes proches du projet.

La croissance des prêts au secteur privé dans la zone euro a nettement ralenti en décembre à 1,0% seulement sur un an après +1,7% le mois précédent, montrent les statistiques publiées par la BCE. La masse monétaire M3 montre elle aussi un ralentissement marqué avec une augmentation de 1,6% en rythme annuel le mois dernier, après +2,0% en novembre. Les analystes et économistes interrogés par Reuters prévoyaient en moyenne une croissance de 2,2% de M3 et de 1,9% des prêts au secteur privé. En France, le coup d’arrêt est net: sur trois mois annualisés, le taux de croissance des encours de crédit au secteur privé non financier est de 3,3% contre +4,2% à fin novembre et +5,8% à fin octobre. Il tombe même dans le rouge pour les crédits de trésorerie (-11%).

L’Agence France Trésor annonce vendredi la création de l’OAT 3 % 25 avril 2022. Ce nouvel emprunt de référence à 10 ans sera adjugé pour la première fois le 2 février, en même temps que la réouverture des lignes octobre 2018 et 2020. Sur ces trois lignes, l’AFT prévoit d'émettre entre 6,5 et 8 milliards d’euros.

La Bourse de Londres reste en discussions exclusives avec LCH.Clearnet et ses actionnaires pour racheter la chambre de compensation franco-britannique, un temps convoitée par Markit. C’est ce qu’à souligné le London Stock Exchange Group dans un communiqué. Détenir la chambre lui permettrait de se faire une place dans le marché de plus en plus convoité de la compensation.

Pour sa première émission depuis l’abaissement de la note du pays à BBB+ par S&P, l’Italie a emprunté 11 milliards d’euros avec des rendements en baisse. Celui de l'émission de huit milliards d’euros à six mois est tombé à 1,97%, contre 3,25% en décembre 2011. Le ratio de couverture a été de 1,346 fois. L'émission de trois milliards d’euros à un an s’est faite à 2,214% avec un ratio de couverture de 1,821.

Le bénéfice net de Legg Mason est tombé à 28,1 millions de dollars au troisième trimestre de l’exercice fiscal 2011-2012, contre 61,6 millions un an auparavant. Le gérant a notamment enregistré une charge de 42 millions de dollars, liée à la réorganisation lancée en 2010.

A l’occasion du Forum économique mondial, qui se tient à Davos jusqu’au dimanche 29 janvier, près de 40 chefs d’Etats, 200 membres de gouvernements et 1 000 entreprises débattent de nouveaux modèles économiques qui pourraient favoriser une croissance « juste et durable ». Au programme, notamment, la question de la croissance et de l’emploi. Sophie des Mazery, directrice de Finansol, propose de mettre la finance au service de l’utilité sociale. « S’il y avait une mesure à prendre en France, mais aussi au niveau européen, ce serait d’investir 1% de l'épargne financière dans l'épargne solidaire. Cela permettrait de financer des entreprises à fort impact social, dans le domaine de l’environnement, de la solidarité internationale ou encore du logement social. En France, l’encours de l'épargne solidaire ne représente que 3,1 milliards d’euros contre 3 500 milliards pour l'épargne traditionnelle. Ce 1% d’investissement en plus permettrait de multiplier par 10 l’encours actuel de l'épargne solidaire, et donc de créer des centaines de milliers d’emplois ».

The Barclays group is hoping to continue development of its wealth management activities in 2012, the head of Barclays, Bob Diamond, has announced on Bloomberg television, Money Marketing reports.Alongside Africa, wealth management is one of the major priorities for the British group in the current year. In the past two years, wealth management has seen double-digit growth, both in terms of volume of activity and pre-tax profits.Barclays has put in place a five-year development plan which sets goals that would make the firm one of the heavyweights in wealth management worldwide.

The investment boutique from Robeco specialised in sustainable investment, SAM, on 26 January released its 9th annual report, The Sustainability Yearbook, at the Davos global economic forum. The report, undertaken in collaboration with KPMG, presents businesses recognised as leaders in sustainability in 58 different sectors. The businesses were evaluated through a detailed study undertaken annually by SAM. The leaders in each sector are businesses which set the standards in the industry for environmental, social and governmental practices. Three French businesses were recognised as standard-bearers in their respective industries for sustainability. These leaders in their respective sectors are Air France-KLM (airlines), Alcatel-Lucent (communications), and Sodexo (hotels, restaurants, bars and leisure).

The Cologne-based Oppenheim Fonds Trust GmbH (OPFT) has announced that on 1 March it will be extending its range to include open-ended funds from Investec Asset Management. OPFT has been retained as exclusive distrbutor for these products in Germany. The German firm, an affiliate of Sal. Oppenheim (Deutsche Bank group), as of the end of November managed EUR15.5bn, while assets at Investec currently total about USD83bn.

The Swiss firm Diapason Commodities Management has registered the UCITS-compliant fund Diapason Commodities with the CNMV, Funds People reports. The asset management firm will be represented in Spain by Atrium Portfolio Managers.

At the request of members seeking more intimate understanding of asset management techniques that are sometimes poorly understood and relatively underdeveloped in France, the French association of institutional investors (Af2i) on 26 January published its “Guide to alternative management investments and operational due diligence” (on sale form the website http://www.af2i.org/ for EUR100). The 50-page document was created by a working group led by Vincent Ribuot (UMR) and Francis Weber (Réunica), vice-presidents of the association, and composed in partnership with HDF Finance and Reinhold & Partners. The pedagogical guide aims to bring institutional investors better understanding of the particularity of alternative management funds, their strategies, and the various types of actors and vehicles encountered in the industry, and of regulatory constraints which apply to French investors.

The NYSE Euronext trading platform in Paris on 26 January admitted a new Amundi ETF based on government bonds, replicating the EuroMTS Highest-Rated Gvt 1-3 Y, to trading. The addition brings the listings on the European markets of NYSE Euronext to 586 ETFs, listed 684 times. Name: Amundi ETF HR 1-3 ISIN code: FR0011161215 TER: 0.14%

The strategy of the former BlackRock Income Portfolio has been loosened in order to allow the management team a wider choice of potential sources of revenue and performance, including alternative sources of revenue such as master limited partnerships (MLP), REITs, and other instruments. The name of the fund has also been changed to BlackRock Multi-Asset Income Fund (acronym: BAICX); the product will be offered to retail and high net worth private clients.The product has no constraints, and will be managed by the team at BlackRock Multi-Asset Client Solutions (BMACS), which includes 150 people, and as of the end of December managed USD80bn for retail clients. BMACS develops institutional-type tactical allocation strategies for foundations, pension funds, sovereign funds, 401(k) corporate savings plans, and retail clients. The objective of the tactical allocation is to exploit a vast range of possibilities while limiting volatility. For the new fund, volatility will be maintained at a lower level than a traditional balanced portfolio (60/40).

AllianceBernstein on 26 January announced the European launch of the AB Select US Equity Portfolio fund (LU0683600562), managed by Kurt Feuerman. The Luxembourg-registered fund is focused on US large and midcaps, selected on the basis of bottom-up analysis and macroeconomic information. Feuerman, who joined AllianceBernstein in June 2011 after leaving Caxton Associates, has nearly 30 years of experience in the sector, and a track record proven over several market cycles. His US equity portfolios have consistently outperformed the S&P 500 since their creation. The strategy is not subject to any constraints in terms of market capitalisation, style, or sector. The team targets businesses which it considers to be well-established, with strong profit growth combined with reasonable valuation, transparent activity models, solid management teams, business policies favourable to shareholders, payment of dividends and share repurchases, and an imminent catalyst factor, such as profit announcements that will be likely to surprise investors with their solidity or to dissipate investor concerns.

Are they beginning to recover their health? European money market funds, which were widely avoided by investors again last year, are beginning to draw interest from investors seeking safety again. Statistics do not really argue in their favour, but outflows have slowed considerably from 2010 to last year.Signs of recovery in inflows have even been observed. In November, Swiss money market funds atrracted nearly CHF2bn, Cerulli reports in a research on money market funds. And the flagship fund from SWIP, the Sterling Global Liquidity Fund (GBP17.8bn), attracted about EUR840m in institutional assets in the first 10 months of 2011. SWIP hopes to continue in this vein in 2012, as institutionals begin to manifest interest in these vehicles that present reduced risk of loss once again.According to the research agency, the highly-regulated instruments that are money market funds may attract investors even though they may have lost their status as risk-free investments in the financial crisis.Asset management firms claim that the time has come to tap the aversion to risk of investors by launching new money market funds. ING Investments is working on a range of money market products to meet demand for “ultra-safe” investments. The boutique Prime Rate Capital, based in London, has launched a new “Cash Plus” product, aimed at investors seeking to park their money not only for a few days or weeks but for a few months, and who are therefore seeking slightly more attractive returns.Managers also state that the attraction of money market funds is expected to increase in parallel with investors’ revisions of their relationships with banks, whose ratings have widely been lowered by ratings agencies, and who are seeking to diversify their short-term exposure.

This year, as in 2011, the protection of savings investors will be at the centre of the efforts of the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). The watchdog is planning to scale up its actions to promote improvement in sales conditions for financial products, with the creation of a Savings Observatory, the chairman of the AMF, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, announced on 26 January at a press conference. Having gained much knowledge in the past few months, “we will also clarify the doctrine applicable to investment advising services, for example in the area of training of sales staff and the traceability of advising,” says Jouyet. This doctrine will be elaborated in a concerted manner with the ACP in a joint unit, which Natalie Lemaire has led since the beginning of the year.Investor protection will also be a reason for the AMF to address two major challenged: preparation of the UCITS V legislation, which will aim to harmonise regulation of depositories, and the transposition of the MiFID directive for alternative management. A working group led by Monique Cohen and Jean-Luc Enguéhard will present its conclusions by the end of June for the future of alternative management in France.Shareholder rights will also be on the agenda for 2012 at the AMF, with areas of improvement in the operation of shareholders’ meetings, where rules will be formulated on the basis of the findings of a working group led by Olivier Poupart-Lafarge. The findings of the working group will be open for consultation in the first few weeks of February.In the area of efficiency and integrity of markets, Jouyet points out that the new market direction was intended to become the central interlocutor for financial intermediaries. The AMF will also extend its surveillance to reporting on a significant portion of derivative transactions, which will be included in AMF databases.Jouyet has also reiterated the AMF’s opposition to the introduction of a tax on financial transactions. “The Paris financial centre will be better preserved if we do not penalise it,” the AMF chairman says. Citing the competitiveness of the market and continued efforts to develop bond platforms and allow for CDS settlement in Paris.

A tax on financial transactions would bring in EUR1bn per year, four times more than the market tax repealed in 2008, Les Echos reports. The government will target all securities traded in Paris. Equities would be taxed 0.1%, as stipulated in the European directive. Bonds would not be taxed.

As a complement to the Focus Nordic Cities fund, laucnhed in 2007, the German firm Catella Real Estate (EUR1bn in assets) has launched the Catella Scandia Chances, an institutional real estate fund which will focus on Norway, Sweden, Finland, and potentially Denmark, and which will be aimed particularly at insurers and pension funds, Fonds Professionell reports.The objective is a maximum of EUR250m in inflows by 30 June 2013, which will be invested in core/core plus assets. The performance objective is 5.5%-6.5%, and distribution will total 3.5% to 4% per year.