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21/11/2011

Hedge funds circle over MF Global

The Wall Street Journal reports that the hedge fund management firm Centerbridge Partners (USD10bn in assets) acquired bank debts from MF Global for USD15m, just after its collapse. David Tepper, who manages about USD14bn at Appaloosa Management, has also invested nearly USD50m in equities, bonds and bank debts from MF Global. The hedge fund management firm Elliott Management is on the creditors’ boardat MF Glboal, and is reported to hold a significant amount of MF Global debts. Other hedge funds also say they have bought MF Global shares, which were trading at USD0.13 per share on Friday, compared with USD8.00 six months ago. These are very high risk bets, and that is why hedge funds are engaging less than 1% of their portfolios. But it could be a very good deal for them, if at least part of the missing USD600m are found.
21/11/2011

Investors on the defensive

The worsening euro zone debt crisis, and the approaching deadline for debt reduction in the United States are driving investors to remain on the defensive in mid-November.In the week to 16 November, investors favoured ETFs dedicated to US large caps, commodity funds specialised in precious metals, and dividend funds, EPFR Global reports.Equity funds have posted net inflows of USD1.51bn in the week under review, of which USD870m are in dividend funds. Since the beginning of the year, outflows have totalled USD92bn. This total would be much larger if there were not such hunger for dividend funds, which ave attracted over USD24bn since January 2011.Bond funds earned net inflows in the week under review of USD2.37bn.Since the beginning of the year, inflows total USD112bn, compared with USD384.3bn in the corresponding period of 2010.EPFR Global also reports, without providing exact figures, that there has been growing interest in the past few weeks in inflation-linked bond funds.
21/11/2011

Changes at the top in asset management at Bankia

Expansión relays reports in Funds People that Bankia has appointed Isabel Bastit, one of the regional heads at Caja Madrid, to head of its asset management unit, Bankia Fondos, replacing Luis Gabarda, who becomes head of Bankia Bolsa. Bastit will report to Fernando Sobrini, head of the retail bank. Bankia Fondos was born of the merger of Gesmadrid, Bancja Fondos and Ges Laetana, and has assets under management as of the end of October of EUR6.34bn, making it the fourth-largest Spanish asset management firm, after, in order, Santander, AM, BBVA AM, and Invercaixa. The private banking unit of Bankia Banca Privada has an asset management firm of its own, Bankia Banca Privada Gestión, which has assets of EUR1.31bn in 189 Sicav funds.
21/11/2011

Discretionary advising activities set to grow strongly

Discretionary activities by independent financial advisers are likely to grow strongly in the next few years, from 59% of assets in 2011 to 71% by 2013, according to estimates by Cerulli («The Cerulli Edge : Advisor Edition, 4Q 20011»).This likely development is a sign of a desire on the part of advisers to increase their discretionary portfolio management activities.From the point of view of the broker/dealer, use of pre-fabricated investment solutions by financial advisers allows for economies of scale and a reduction in exposure to risk. Advisers agree that outsourcing the construction of portfolios may have an impact on the effectiveness of the portfolio, but despite that, they remain hesitant to engage this appraoch. “Our research shows that advisers prefer the freedom of programmes which are open to pre-fabricated solutions,” says Patrick Newcimb, a senior analyst in the managed accounts practice at Cerulli.From another point of view, results of a partial analysis of the capacity of advisers for allocation do not argue in their favour. Pre-fabricated equity offerings have seen setbacks in 2008-2009, but their post-recession returns are encouraging. Package solutions do not yet appear to be favoured by advisers.
21/11/2011

Wegelin working on a new bond strategy

The Swiss bank Wegelin, a specialist in quant strategies, is preparing a new investment approach in bonds, in close collaboration with the Ecole polytechnique fédérale in Zurich. The concept is to develop a new strategy on sovereign debt, based on an index which measures the quality of the debt. “In government bonds, the traditional index is not very intelligent, insofar as it gives priority to the quantity of debt. The higher the amount of debt, the higher its weighting. We will rather take into account the quality of the debt,” explains Magne Y. Orgland, managing partner at the Swiss bank. In addition to the quality of the debt, Orgland also insists on the importance of variable liquidity. Based on these two essential factors, a range may be created in the first month of 2012. Assets under management at the bank total about CHF25bn, olf which two thirds are in private banking, and one third from institutional clients. Since the beginning of the year, inflows have been near zero, Orgland says. This development is linked to a desire on the part of the bank no longer to sers US clients, due to the FACTA regulations. That process is underway, and means that the firm will need to replace CHF500m in assets. In France, the bank has gained some notoriety for its double product range: on the one hand, its flagship strategy Active Indexing, available in France since November 2010, and on the other the Global Diversification strategy, launched in mid-June 2011, which is based on an equally-weighted risk allocation. Assets under management in the Global Diversification fund total slightly over EUR200m, while assets in the Active Indexing strategy total about EUR1.5bn.
21/11/2011

BVK awards a "discovery" mandate to UBS Real Estate

The Bavarian pension fund for self-employed persons Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK, EUR50bn in assets) on 16 November awarded the Munich-based UBS Real Estate Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbh an initial mandate of EUR500m for a real estate fund of funds. The fund will invest in core portfolio funds, as well as in niche products, with the objective of avoiding overlap with other real estate investments by BVK as much as possible.In order to do that, the management firm will explore new segments, such as hotels, parking facilities, properties under construction, and major shopping centres. It may also move into risk classes such as “value add” and “opportunistic.”BVK has stipulated that UBS RE much also invest in funds which themselves invest in BRIC coutnries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), where BVK does not yet have any holdings. Daniel Just, vice-chairman of the managing board and chief investment officer at BVK, says that the mandate comes as an addition to direct real estate investments (which currently total EUR3.2bn), and investments in institutional real estate funds (EUR2.7bn).
21/11/2011

iShares launches an ETF of international preferential equities

BlackRock has announced that its iShares division has launched the first ETF which allows investors access to preferential equities from developed countries outside the United States on the NYSE Arca platform. The fund is the iShares S&P International Preferred Stock Index Fund (acronym: IPFF), which is the international version of its US sibling, the iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index Fund (PFF), which has already attracted USD7.2bn in assets.The new product is aimed at investors seeking regular returns outside the US market. It replicates the S&P International Preferred Stock Index, a cap-weighted index, which is “rebalanced” every quarter. The heaviest exposures are currently to Canadian, British and New Zealand equities. The index has a strong bias in favour of the financial sector.
21/11/2011

Fidelity launches an emerging markets inflation-linked bond fund

Fidelity Worldwide on 16 November launched an inflation-linked bond fund dedicated to emerging markets, Investment Week reports. The new fund, managed by Andrew Weir, will invest in government debt in local currencies in Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia, in order to benefit from long-term inflationary movements in emerging markets. The benchmark index is the Barclays Emerging Market Tradable Inflation Linked Index. The fund is aimed at qualified investor clients. The minimal investment for “Y” class shares is USD1m.
21/11/2011

Hugau Gestion releases a prudent high yield product

Although Monéterme remains the top fund from the asset management firm, with EUR600m in assets and EUR200m in net inflows since the beginning of the year, Hugau Gestion has ambitions for its Obli 1-3 fund, even though it has seen outflows of about EUR100m, to EUR200m, and for tis High Yield Recovery fund, launched on 20 May, but still not actively promoted or marketed.The new product is an UCITS-compliant, French-registered FCP fund, with 20-25 positions, in companies whose activities bring recurring cash flows to pay off debts. The fund is a prudent high yield fund, which invests in “5B” bonds, on the line between investment grade and high yield (BB-/BBB-), a universe where volatility is 3.3%, compared with 9.1% for high yield.The fund, which so far has only EUR13.1m in assets (of which 20% come from retail investors), meets the needs of investors who are seeking additional income beyond a short/mid term euro bond investment, by trying to capture outperformance from issuers who choose not to be rated (such as Lagardère), non investment-grade issuers with investment grade profiles (Pernod), default risks which have already been anticipated by the market (Lafarge), and aberrations in the euro zone (short flows on PIIGS corporates).The management team will make an effort to benefit from regulatory sales of bonds by investors who are required to unload assets when downgrades are announced. It will also buy when issuers are moved to high yield following external growth deals which are estimated to create value, but which are financed through debt, and when issuers are about to be promoted to investment grade.CharacteristicsName: Hugau High Yield RecoveryISIN code: FR0011033984Management fees: 1%
21/11/2011

Five years in prison for a hedge fund manager

Joseph “Skip” Skowron III, former hedge fund manager at FrontPoint Partners, was sentenced on 18 November to five years in prison, the Wall Street Journal reports.Skowron confessed to using insider information in 2008 about the results of clinical trials of Hepatitis C medication from Human Genome Sciences, which was supplied to him by a French doctor, Yves Benhamou. The insider information allowed the manager to avoid USD30m in trading losses.
21/11/2011

MF Global: two pension funds sue seven banks

The IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund and the Plumbers & Pipefitters’ Local #562 Pension fund have sued seven banks which the two US pension funds accuse of having misled them about MF Global’s USD6.3bn exposure to European government debt, the Telegraph reports. The defendants are RBS, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Jefferies.
21/11/2011

Blackstone acquires a large distressed real estate portfolio

One of the real estate funds from Morgan Stanley has opted to sell Blackstone a portfolio of 16 office properties (3 million square feet), rather than pay off debts of USD820m which were set to mature next month, the Wall Street Journal reports. The properties were added to the portfolios of Morgan Stanley upon the acquisition of the Glenborough Realty Trust in 2006.Blackstone already holds about USD225m in junior debt from Glenborough, which it acquired over a year in small instalments from banks and insurers. That now allows it to take control of the properties, and not to take on the USD600m in debt.Blackstone manages USD41bn in real estate assets, and has already raised USD4.6bn for a global real estate fund, for which it is aiming for total volume of USD10bn.
21/11/2011

Gregory McGreevey takes over as head of bonds at Invesco

Invesco on 17 November announced the recruitment of Gregory McGreevey as head of Invesco Fixed Income (IFI), effective from 28 November. In his new role, McGreevey will have operational responsibility for fixed income activities. He will be based in Atlanta, and will report directly to Karen Dunn Kelley, senior managing director. McGreevey has previously worked as chairman of Hartford Investment Management Company, and executive vice president and chief investment officer at The Hartford Financial Services Group. IFI employs more than 150 investment professionals worldwide, who as of the end of September, managed over USD200bn in assets.
21/11/2011

JO Hambro plans to launch a long/short fund

The British asset management firm JP Hambro is planning to launch a long/short fund, but has no plans to move into the fixed income sector, or absolute returns, Money Marketing reports. “We are going to launch a long/short fund. That’s a strategy that falls within our area of expertise, and which could represent a way to diversify our offerings. We have launched four new funds in the past twelve months, and launching new products next year is unlikely. We remain an equity management firm, and we are not going to get involved in fixed income,” says Gavin Rochussen, CEO of JP Hambro.
21/11/2011

Axa IM preparing an international strategic bond fund

The British press reports that the local arm of Axa IM has announced plans to place an international strategic bond fund which will be launched in 2012 to Nick Hayes, formerly of New Star and Henderson, who since June 2010 has been manager of the Axa Sterling Strategic Bond Fund. Hayes will be assisted by Chris Iggo, CIO for bonds.
21/11/2011

Thematic opportunity fund soon to be released by Alliance Trust

Alliance Trust Asset Management has confirmed plans to launch the Global Thematic Opportunties fund, which will be managed by Ilario Di Bon, head of global equities, in December. Fundweb reports that the former head of institutional global equities from Fidelity will be assisted by Jürgen Lanzer, senior investment manager.
21/11/2011

La Chine poussée à introduire une taxe carbone

Selon Feng Fei, un des responsables d’un groupe de recherche chinois (le Conseil chinois pour une coopération internationale sur l’environnement et le développement), la Chine devrait progressivement introduire une taxe carbone d’ici 2015. Un premier seuil devrait être fixé à 10 yuans par tonne de dioxyde de carbone en 2012.

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