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09/01/2012

Stenham launches a global macro fund

Stenham Asset Management has launched a new Global Macro fund of hedge funds – Stenham Helix. The investment manager has been invested in Global Macro hedge funds since the 1980s and its flagship macro fund of hedge funds, Stenham Trading, has achieved an annualised return of +9.07% since inception compared to the HFRX Macro Index which has posted a return of 6.51% and the MSCI World Equity Index which was 4.13% over the same period.The Stenham Helix fund aims to invest in similar types of macro managers but to assemble a portfolio where the liquidity provided by the underlying managers allows Stenham to offer monthly liquidity with 35 days’ notice. The fund will consist of a concentrated portfolio of around 15 managers with a target return of Libor +5% to 6% and low volatility. The minimum investment is US$ 25,000 with no lock up period. The Stenham Helix fund has launched with USD 36 million and is available in USD, GBP and EUR share classes.Stenham has over USD 1.1 billion invested in Global Macro hedge funds and has USD 2.7 billion invested in hedge fund strategies overall.
09/01/2012

LGIM enters ETF market

Legal & General Investment Management is expected to announce the launch of its first ETF this Monday, in partnership with Source, according to reports in Financial Times Fund Management. The new product will be a commodity ETF. It will track a composite of four commodity indices from Barclays Capital, Citi, JPMorgan and UBS.
09/01/2012

Funds will benefit slightly from tax increases

An increase in taxation on savings in Spain will make investments in the form of shares in investment funds more competitive, since the subscriber will deal with the tax office only when selling off the investment. In addition, the investor will remain able to modify the investment profile without paying taxes, as trades between funds retain a tax exemption, Cinco Días reports.These advantages will prove more important if the higher taxes on savings are truly limited to two years, as announced.Cinco Días reports that the investment fund sector has suffered considerably due to the crisis, with assets now back to their 1996 levels.
09/01/2012

Axa launches a EUR2.5bn real estate fund

Axa has raised a fund which will invest up to EUR2.5bn in the development of offices and shopping centres in continental Europe, in order to profit from a gap left open by the withdrawal of banks and other credit providers from the real estate market, the Financial Times reports. The fund has raised EUR585.5m, largely from pension funds and insurers.
09/01/2012

European MPs hostile to complex products

Members of the European parliament are highly reticent about complex financial products. More than half of them (57%) would like to forbid complex or manifestly risks financial products, according to a survey by Cicero Consulting and ComRes of a sample of 100 European MPs about the regulatory and gestation framework for the asset management sector. A majority of MPs estimate that financial establishments which hold savings should be subject to much stricter regulations. One of the few sources of disagreement between MPs is about the impact of reforms on the flow of capital to offshore financial centres. 36% of respondents say that tighter regulations would reduce the flow, while 37% think the opposite.
09/01/2012

GlobeOp in talks with private equity investors

The hedge fund services firm GlobeOp Financial Services is in talks with the private equity firms Advent International and TPG over a potential takeover bid, Reuters reports. GlobeOp, whose assets under administration total USD173bn, is being advised in the talks by Evercore Partners. The talks are still at a preliminary stage, GlobeOp states.
09/01/2012

CVC Capital Partners and Resource America found a new firm

The private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and Resource America have signed an agreement to combine the firms CVC Cordatus Group and Apidos Capital Management to create the firm CVC Credit Partners. CVC Credit Partners, led by Marc Brighton, managing partner, will be responsible for USD7.5bn in assets distributed over more than 20 vehicles in the United States and Europe. Resource America, whose CEO will become chairman of the new entity, will hold a 33% stake in the new firm.
09/01/2012

Hildebrand scandal: Sarasin files charges against employee

In the scandal over personal forex trades conducted by Philipp Heldebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank (BNS), Banque Sarasin has announced that on 5 January it filed criminal charges in a Zurich court against the employee the firm dismissed on 3 January.The firm states that the former employee “stole” screenshots revealing the portfolio and transactions of the Hildebrand family, and sent them to a lawyer he knew, rather than reporting the trades which appeared to him subjectively to be dubious to his line manager or to the compliance department.The charge is infraction of the law of banking confidentiality and commercial secrecy. It also names third parties for inciting these infractions.Banque Sarasin states that it reserves the right to file other legal proceedings, including civil proceedings seeking damages and interest, and/or a filing before the Swiss Press Council for erroneous reporting of the facts by a Swiss weekly newsmagazine (possibly Weltwoche; see Newsmanagers of 5 January 2012).
09/01/2012

Heavy decline in activity for ETFs on Euronext in December

A slowdown in ETF trading continued in December on the European markets of NYSE Euronext, which posted an average of 7,734 on-book trades per day and a volume of EUR268.7m per day, compared with 10,965 trades and EUR405.8m the previous month. For the year as a whole, transaction volumes have fallen 43.2%. December was the month last year when activities were at their lowest.Block trading of shares in December declined to EUR930.5m, from EUR974.9m in November, but rose compared with a total of EUR47.5m in December 2010.The average spread in December averaged 36.6 basis points, compared with 40 in November. It had been 36.3% in October, 38.83% in September, and 28.5% in August.The number of new funds launched increased for 2011 as a whole to 157 (of which 129 were primary listing and 28 were secondary listings), from 133 in 2010 (111 and 22, respectively).NYSE Euronext states that the four major underlying indices for ETFs traded on European markets last year were the CAC40 (28%), Euro Stoxx 50 (24%), the CAC40 Leverage (13%), and the Dax (6%).
09/01/2012

Source lists an ETF in Frankfurt

On 6 January, Source announced that the Nomura Voltage Mid-Term Source ETF has been admitted to trading on the XTF segment of the German Xetra electronic trading platform (Deutsche Bank). The fund is an Irish, German-registered product (DE000A1JQQZ6), and the listing comes in addition to the version of the product already available in US dollars on the London market (VOLTLN). It allows investors to invest in euros and provides them simple and rapid access to an instrument exposed to volatility.The ETF, which charges fees of 0.30%, replicates the Nomura Voltage Strategy Mid-term 30-day USD TR index. It applies a tactical approach to volatility, which allows investors to profit from volatility peaks, while reducing the costs associated with permanent long positions on volatility. Assets in the fund, launched in April 2011, total over USD165m.
09/01/2012

Iridian Asset Management closes a hedge fund

Iridian Asset Management has closed its largest hedge fund, the Iridian Opportunity fund, following a decline in assets and disappointing returns in 2010 and 2011. The fund lost 8,90% between January and October of last year, Absolute Return Alpha reports. The global equity hedge fund was launched in 2005 by former managers from Arnold and S. Bleichroeder Advisors.
09/01/2012

Life insurance returns down sharply in 2011

Returns on funds in euros are expected to fall again, Les Echos reports. The average rate paid out in 2011 is expected to be about 3%, compared with 3.4% in 2010 and 3.7% in 2009. The return rate, a historic barometer of the market, will be released tomorrow by Afer, the French association of savings investors. The profession is not expecting much in the way of inflows in 2012.
09/01/2012

South Korea's NPS granted a QFII license in China

The National Pension Service (NPS, USD300bn), the fourth-largst pension fund in South Korea, on Sunday announced that it has obtained a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license from the Chinese authorities, and is planning to make its first direct investments in equities and bonds denominated in Chinese yuan this year, the Financial Times reports. The chairman of NPS, Jun Kwnag-woo, says that he is aiming for 25% of investments abroad by 2014, up from 10% in 2010.
09/01/2012

French financial association opposes Tobin tax on France alone

The Paris Europlace association, which promotes and develops the Paris financial market, has declared its opposition to the establishment of a tax on financial transactions if it is not applied throughout Europe. A tax which would specifically sanction the French financial sector would be inappropriate, the association claimed on Friday, 6 January, pointing out the limitations and risks of such an initiative.Though the law would aim to combat financial speculation, its overly broad application would affect transactions made by private investors, businesses and institutional investors, and would cause significant risk distortions. Its cost would also penalise French banks, asset management firms and insurers, and toughen borrowing conditions for businesses throughout the French economy. It would also lead to substantial losses for the Paris financial industry, and that would come in addition to the already high cost of new financial regulations being put in place (Based 3, Solvency 2), a statement from Paris Europlace claims.The association of financial sector businesses and their retail and business clients claims that they would be at a disadvantage of the plans are put into action. If the law were applied only in France, it would inevitably lead to “a delocalisation of the activities concerned at banks, insurance companies and asset management firms, in favour of the major global financial centres, and would consequently reduce control of financing conditions in our economy and the role of the Paris market in the European and global economies,” the association claims.
09/01/2012

Assets under management in China down

Assets under management in China have fallen 13% in 2011, from CNY2.479trn as of the end of 2010 to CNY2.169trn, according to Z-Ben Advisors. The decline was particularly marked for equity funds, where assets contracted from CNY927bn to CNY704bn, and for balanced funds, which declined from CNY741bn to CNY544bn. However, the fixed income category saw an increase in assets, from CNY302bn to CNY464bn. The majority of this has gone to money market funds, where assets total CNY295bn. Between September and December 2011, this category saw a 133% leap in its assets. But the trend is expected to reverse in early 2012, Z-Ben Advisors predicts. Pessimism about the markets has led to a decline in interest in funds on the part of investors, Z-Ben Advisors notes. During the final three months of 2011, the average product launch attracted assets totaling just CNY1bn, compared with CNY2.6bn in fourth quarter 2010. However, the lower level is also due to a 43% increase in the number of funds launched in 2011.
09/01/2012

Anthony Bolton loses GBP1m on Chinese fund

Anthony Bolton has personally lost more than USD1m due to heavy losses from his China fund last year, the Financial Times reports. The decline represents one third of the value of his 2.5 million shares in the Fidelity China Special Situations fund. The fund, which raised GBP460m at its launch in April 2010, saw a decline in its share price of one third in 2011.
09/01/2012
Gestion d'actifs

Le FRR a opté pour une large diversification pour optimiser le couple risque/rendement des actifs obligataires

Dans un entretien à L’Agefi Hebdo, Philippe Aurain, responsable des investissements du Fonds de réserve (FRR) pour les retraites, estime que la notion d’actif sans risque est relative à chaque passif. Une solution au questionnement des actifs sans risque pourrait alors être de constituer des paniers d’actifs à faible risque, avec les obligations les plus solides afin de diversifier les risques. Concernant la stratégie d’investissement du FRR, le raccourcissement de son horizon et l’avancement des premiers décaissements à partir de 2011 nous ont obligé à opter pour une politique d’investissement à la fois prudente et active, souligne Philippe Aurain. Le portefeuille a ainsi été scindé en deux : une poche de couverture et une de performance. Dans la poche de couverture, dont l’objectif est de couvrir 85 % du passif et qui représente 60 % de l’actif, nous sommes investis à moitié en OAT et le reste en crédit et obligations internationales. Nous étions donc déjà depuis 2010 dans une logique de panier avec ce type d’allocation. Pour optimiser le couple risque/rendement d’un actif de taux, nous avons opté pour une large diversification, conclut le responsable des investissements du FRR.
Gestion d'actifs
09/01/2012

Pékin en guerre contre la spéculation sur les IPO

Citant un haut responsable du régulateur boursier chinois, le Shanghai Securities News assure que les pouvoirs publics entendent lutter contre la spéculation lors des introductions en Bourse. Assistant du président de la CSRC (China Securities Regulatory Commission), Zhu Congjiu, assure au quotidien que Pékin souhaite notamment accroître la part réservée aux institutionnels.

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