Hedge funds have been affected by a move by the Swiss National Bank (BNS) to fix the value of the franc against the euro, Agefi Switzerland reports. Global markets and quantitative funds have been among the largest victims of the exceptional measure taken on Tuesday. By introducing a limit of CHF1.30 to EUR1, the BNS cost operators who bet on the Swiss franc as a safe heaven asset.

The US banking group Wells Fargo has announced its acquisition of the administration services provider Lacrosse Global Fund Services from Cargill. The operation will bring the group and its specialised affiliate Wells Fargo Corporate Trust Services (CTS) a complete range of hedge fund administration services.

Qosmos (www.qosmos.com), a leader in intelligent network technologies, on 8 September announced that it has raised EUR19.8m from a group of investors including the European venture capital firm DFJ Esprit, the Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement (FSI) and Alven Capital. The operation will increase owners’ equity at Qosmos, via a capital increase and an issue of convertible bonds, and also includes the repurchase of shares from the former investor Sofinnova by the three firms cited above. Krishna Viavanathan, a partner at DFJ Esprit, and a representative of the FSI will join the supervisory board at Qosmos. The round of fundraising will provide financing for expansion at Qosmos in North America and Asia-Pacific, and to support the development of new products, international marketing activities, and potential acquisitions. Qosmos, which has been profitable since 2009, in 2010 posted earnings up 40%.

Although the firm showed a net outflow in first half 2011, in phase with a market trend for OPCVMs, inflows to La Banque Postale Asset Management (LBPAM) from retail investors and entities turned positive again in July and August 2011, the firm announced on 8 September at a presentation of its quarterly results. As of 30 June 2011, LBPAM had nearly EUR126bn in assets under management, which puts it in fifth place among asset managers in France. Global earnings from retirement planning (individual and collective) managed by La Banque Postale Prévoyance, a joint venture owned 50/50 by La Banque Postale and CNP Assurances which provides the retirement planning product range from La Banque Postale, totalled Eur209bn as of the end of 2011 (+0.8% compared with 2010).

Sycomore Asset Management is beginning to offer its funds in Germany and Switzerland, Laurent Deltour, the firm’s president, announced on the occasion of the asset manager’s 10th birthday. In order to offer its products in Germany, the French boutique is working with an independent partner, Kerstin Fischer, managing director of Fischer Financial.Deltour also points out that Sycomore has recently added to its management team with the recruitments of Olivier Mollé, in charge of the Sycomore L/S Market Neutral fund, and Arnaud d’Aligny, an analyst and manager for European equities. In addition, the firm has recently launched an emerging markets fund and an SRI fund.

Fitch Ratings on 8 September announced that it is maintaining its asset manager rating of M2- for Sycomore Asset Management. In general, firms rated M2 are thought to be less vulnerable to operational and management errors.The ratings agency’s comments are full of praise, and highlight the stability of teams at Sycomore, which have recently been strengthened with the recruitment of four managers to assist in the development of new products.Fitch also emphasizes that the primary challenge for Sycomore remains international development and development of long/short and diversified fund management, and adapting processes and decision-making tools to a more extensive product range and to new market conditions. The “company and teams” and “investment administration” ratings have been improved slightly, to 2.75 from 3, and 2.25 from 2.50.

Citi Global Transaction Services (GTS) has won a mandate from the fund of fund specialist Sandalwood Securities, to provide administration and custody services.

In an article on BlackRock, the Economist observes that the size of the world’s largest asset manager may already be a problem. According to analysts, the firm has seen about USD149bn in outflows since 2010, many pension funds feeling that they have too much money invested with BlackRock. Due to its size, the firm may be declared a “systemically important financial institution” by the US government in the next few months. Another source of concern is how BlackRock will grow. One of the answers is to develop more on the retail market. But the hardest challenge for the management giant, in these volatile markets, will be to maintain its performance.

Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) on 8 September announced the appointment of Paloma Pedrola as international head for custody and depository services. Pedrola will be based in Paris and will report to Etienne Denau, and will be in charge of coordination of existing custody and depository services in Western Europe (Germany, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom), central and eastern Europe (Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Slovenia) and Africa (Egypt, Morocco and South Africa). She will also be responsible for development of services in new countries, particularly Tunisia, Ivory Coast and Bulgaria. Pedrola was appointed head of SGSS for Spain in 2006. Nathan Derhy has been appointed country head of Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) for Ireland. He is responsible for development of the main activities of SGSS in the country, particularly for custody and depository services, fund administration and distribution services. Derhy, reviously head of SGSS in India, replaces Christian de Beaufort. He will report to Bruno Prigent, who will become Director of SGSS from 1 October. De Beaufort has been appointed as head of investor services for SGSS in Spain. He will report to Etienne Denau, Director of custody and depository services. De Beaufort is in charge of developing the services of SGSS in that country. Murali Narasimhan has been appointed as the new country head and head for SGSS in India. He will report to Philippe Huerre, deputy director of emerging markets at SGSS. He also becomes deputy CEO at SBI-SG Global Securities Services Pvt Ltd, a joint venture of SGSS and State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank in the country; the joint venture provides custody services to local and foreign investors in India.

La banque helvétique Credit Suisse étudierait, selon La Tribune, qui cite la presse suisse, la possibilité de retirer son activité de banque privée des États-Unis. Elle doit en effet y faire face à la pression des autorités américaines, décidées à lutter contre l'évasion fiscale.

Bloomberg reports that the wealth management division of UBS in Zurich has recruited seven specialists from Turkey, including four advisers and three assistants, who previously worked at Credit Suisse. They will report to Beat Frey, head of the Turkey team.

The Swiss management firm SAM Sustainable Asset Management (Robeco group) and Dow Jones Indexes on 8 September unveiled the revised composition of their Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI).The global DJSI World index has taken on 41 additions, the largest of which in terms of capitalisation are Medtronic, Schneider Electric and Société Générale. 23 companies have been removed from the index, the largest of which are Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard and EnCana. The index now includes 342 companies.To the DJSI Europe index, selectors added 21 equities, the largest of which are, in addition to Société Générale, Zurich Financial Services, Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Atlas Copco, Alcatel Lucent, Alstom, Svenska Cellulosa, Adecco and Orkla. 13 companies were removed from the index, including ING Group, Volkswagen, Arcelor Mittal, Essilor and Crédit Agricole.Modifications were also made to the DJSI North America, Asia Pacific and Korea indices.The corresponding adjustments will take effect at the opening of trading on 19 September 2011.

On the basis of detailed statistics published by the German association of asset management firms BVI (see article in today’s Newsmanagers), open-ended securities funds have seen total net redemptions in the first seven months of this year of EUR370.9m. However, this overall result conceals significant disparities, as some asset management firms have been able to post considerable net inflows, at least for a part of their activities.Three of the four ETF providers have posted major net subscriptions: first among them BlackRock, whose iShares funds took in a net EUR6.43bn. For its part, db x-trackers attracted more than EUR1.86bn, which limited net outflows for the DWS/DB Advisors/Deutsche Bank group to EUR859.3m. ComStage (Commerzbank) attracted a net EUR215.6m. However, ETFlab (Deka) has seen net outflows of EUR1.04bn in the first seven months of the year.Among the major asset management firms, Allianz Global Investors stands out with total net inflows of nearly EUR2.26bn, due to good results at Pimco alone, where inflows totalled EUR5.78bn.Deka (savings banks) and Union Investment (co-operative banks) bore net outflows of EUR6bn and EUR619m, respectively.Universal Investment, a specialist in white-label products, has posted net subscriptions of EUR833.5m.

Fidelity China, the investment vehicle managed by Anthony Bolton, bought back its shares for the first time on Thursday, from shareholders pulling out of the firm due to its weak performance, the Financial Times reports. The investment trust spent more than GBP380,000 to raise its own stake in two separate share repurchases during the day, at a discount of 5% to the firm’s underlying value.

BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced that it is repositioning its range of UK equity funds managed by Newton, one of the asset management affiliates of the group. The objective is to make the product range more visible and comprehensible for investors, a statement says. The Newton UK Equity and Newton Growth Fund will merge, to create a product to be known as the Newton Income Fund, which will have GBP1.3bn in assets. It will be managed by Richard Wilmot and Ben Russon.

In the midst of uncertainty about outlooks for global economic growth, short bets on the markets are booming. Hedge funds and other major investors are making more bets on a drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) than they have for four year, according to statistics released by Bloomberg and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The figures for 30 August show that futures contracts on the S&P 500 betting that the index will fall show a net surplus of 107,913 contracts, a level not seen since September 2007, when there was a surplus of 127,474 contracts. Hedge fund managers may have various motives, as long/short hedge funds may be hedgeing long positions on some shares, while a growing number of macro funds are estimating that the S&P 500 will head downward.

The 2011 annual report from the association dedicated to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI) has found an increasing level fo investor engagement with responsible investment.In the year to the end of August 2011, the report counted 209 new signatories to the PRI, bringing the total number of signatories to 900 companies, with assets of about USD30trn under management.The 2011 report finds that 94% of institutional investors and 93% of asset managers had an established responsible investment policy in the past twelve months. The previous year, the totals were 94% and 87%.Responsible investment is also globalising. The percentage of signatories with an established responsible investment policy increased from 84% to 96% in Latin America, largely due to progress in Brazil, and from 71% to 81% in Asia.

The B2B distributor max.xs, an affiliate of the publicly-traded financial group cash.life AG, has recruited four people for its client assistance deparment, serving investors and its product partners, the asset managers First Private Investment Management, Gamax Management, Kleinwort Benson Investors, Rothschild & Cie Gestion and Veritas Investment Trust, and the broker Wölbern Invest KG.Thomas Dinges (ex FPM) and Thomas Gils (ex Franklin Templeton) have been recruited as senior sales managers, while Sybille Schrempp (ex Meta Communication, formerly of Threadneedle) joins client service. In October, Alexandre Flechsig (ex Silk Invest) will join the marketing team.The new recruits will report to Rainer Ottemann, Managing Director and Head of Distribution, and Oliver Roll, Managing Director and Head of Fund Selection & Institutional Business.

Now that the German savings banks are the sole proprietors of DekaBank (EUR96.75bn in assets in open-ended retail funds, over EUR20bn in real estate funds, and EUR50.8bn in institutional funds as of the end of July), the command structure for the central asset management firm for the savings bank network is set to evolve. Since Walter Groll’s term as head of capital market operations was not renewed in June (see Newsmanagers of 8 April), the board will now be composed of only five members. Development of derivative transactions was clearly not a priority for the savings banks, who also were loath to forgive Groll for tax-optimistation deals to the profit of certain clients, as procedure had not been respected in these cases, and they cost the firm more than EUR60m in profits in 2010.Oliver Behrens, in charge of securities asset management, will now be responsible for trading activities, and thus all capital market products from the group. Matthias Danne, CFO and head of the asset management/real estate division, takes charge of all credit activities. Hans-Jürgen Gutenberger, who had been in charge of retail distribution, is now also head of treasury.The responsibilities of Franz S. Waas, chairman of the board, and Friedrich Oelrich, chief risk officer, will remain unchanged.

The time when managers could impose commission increases on funds has come to an end. At a time when costs are rising, asset managers are now having to accept reductions in their income. According to a study by Cerulli Associates (“European Fund Fee Analysis,” August 2011), the rise of passive management, regulatory changes, and recurrent criticism of fee levels are requiring active managers to change their positions on commissions and management fees. In order to remain competitive, reduced commissions appear to be inevitable, Cerulli estimates. The power to dictate prices remains the privilege of the best managers, and as in the luxuries sector, those who can offer something more than their rivals also have the pricing power, Cerulli observes. Less well-performing actors, who do not have good distribution networks, or who don’t have the best track records, will realise that it is increasingly difficult to justify high commissions in comparison with beta rivals, explains Yoon Ng, a senior analyst at Cerulli in London. However, the active management model is far from outmoded. Passive funds have managed to outperform active funds in only two asset classes out of five: diversified funds and commodities. Active funds performed better over three years in equities, alternative assets and bonds, even with administrative and management fees taken into account.In order to prove their superiority, active managers have often offered emerging markets equities funds or absolute return funds whose average fees total 2% and 1.6%, respectively; these are currently the best-selling funds.Ultimately, a vast majority of managers have ultimately moved to diversify their model and to offer both active and passive strategies. Among the elite management firms in terms of assets under management, only one firm is not yet offering passive strategies.Active managers with no passive funds in their product range have recently been launching low-cost active funds. Cerulli finds that this trend is not new, and that a recent study undertaken in partnership with Ignites Europe found that half of managers surveyed offered funds with a total TER of less than 1%, and that 60% of managers said they were planning to launch low-cost funds. Cerulli says growth in the low-cost actively-managed fund sector will be driven not only be active managers, but also by tracker funds, providers of ETFs, and fund of fund assemblers.

Une taxe européenne sur les transactions financières est en cours de finalisation et sera présentée début octobre au plus tard, a expliqué le commissaire européen à la Fiscalité, Aldirgas Semeta. Ses équipes ont planché cet été sur une formule permettant d'éviter une délocalisation des transactions dans d’autres centres financiers. Le commissaire rejette l’argument voulant que les banques ne sont pas en situation de s’acquitter d’une telle taxe.

Le conseil d’administration a décidé de révoquer Jean-Michel Bonnichon de son mandat de directeur général en raison d’un conflit l’opposant à ABC participation et gestion, administrateur et actionnaire de référence d’ABC arbitrage. Il a nommé Dominique Ceolin, président directeur général de la société ABC arbitrage.

Le conseil des ministres des Finances renâcle à réguler de peur de subir la défiance des investisseurs

Le quotidien assure que le courtier actions britannique Evolution Group pourrait annoncer dès aujourd’hui son rachat par l’anglo-sud –africain Investec, pour plus de 230 millions de livres (264 millions d’euros), à raison d’une livre par titre. L’acquéreur pourrait vouloir scinder l’activité de gestion de fortune.

Nasdaq OMX a selon le quotidien intensifié son opposition à l’union entre Nyse Euronext et Deutsche Börse. Un tel mariage pourrait «détruire irrévocablement» la concurrence au sein du marché européen des dérivés. C’est ce qu’a indiqué le Nasdaq à la Commission européenne en réponse à une demande d’information sur l’impact de l’opération. La décision finale de Bruxelles sur la transaction, attendue mi-décembre, devrait apporter la touche finale à la fusion.

Le groupe immobilier, actif à Singapour et en Malaisie, entend concrétiser d’ici douze à dix-huit mois la cotation d’actifs immobiliers en Bourse de Singapour. C’est ce qu’a confié au quotidien le directeur général de RB Capital, Kishin RK, qui évoque une valorisation des actifs concernés comprise entre 1,5 et 2 milliards de dollars.

L'institution a changé hier de rhétorique, évoquant les risques pour la croissance en zone euro

La Maison blanche va mettre 447 milliards de dollars sur la table pour éviter la récession. La Fed étudie les options pour de nouvelles mesures de soutien à l’activité.

Les dix-sept communautés autonomes accusent déjà un déficit budgétaire cumulé de 1,2 % du PIB, alors que l'objectif a été fixé à 1,3 % pour 2011

L'institution a changé hier de rhétorique, évoquant les risques pour la croissance en zone euro