Bridgewater Associates, premier hedge fund au monde avec 100 milliards de dollars d’actifs, est sur le point de boucler le lancement d’un nouveau véhicule de 10 milliards, selon le Wall Street Journal. Le nouveau fonds, Pure Alpha Major Markets, a commencé ses activités en novembre avec 2,4 milliards, et les clients de Bridgewater lui ont confié depuis 7,5 milliards, dont la moitié vient des profits réalisés sur le précédent fonds Pure Alpha.

La France devrait tenir son objectif de réduction du déficit cette année mais doit engager des mesures supplémentaires pour y parvenir par la suite, selon un rapport de la Cour des comptes présenté mercredi. «Le déficit public peut être ramené à 5,7% en 2011 comme le prévoit le gouvernement», a dit le premier président de la Cour, Didier Migaud, en présentant le rapport aux commissions des Finances et des Affaires sociales de l’Assemblée nationale. En revanche, «pour les années 2012 à 2014, la trajectoire d'évolution du déficit (...) repose sur un cumul d’hypothèses de croissance du PIB et d'élasticité des recettes qui peut être considéré comme trop favorables».

La Facilité européenne de stabilité financière (EFSF) a lancé mercredi le placement d’une obligation d'échéance décembre 2016, destinée à financer l’aide au Portugal. L’EFSF a mandaté BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs et RBS pour mener l’opération, et compte lever 3 milliards d’euros. Les dernières indiscrétions de marché faisaient état d’un livre d’ordres de 6 milliards d’euros et d’un rendement de 6 pb au-dessus des swaps.

Les gouvernements de la zone euro ont commencé mercredi à négocier avec les investisseurs privés au sujet de leur participation volontaire à un nouveau plan d’aide à la Grèce. Selon une lettre d’invitation que Reuters a pu consulter, Berlin a convié banquiers et assureurs allemands à une réunion qui débutera à 14h30 mais qui ne devrait pas déboucher aujourd’hui sur un résultat concret. «Une des possibilités est de prolonger l’investissement dans les obligations grecques à l’expiration des obligations actuelles», est-il précisé sur le document. L’invitation de Berlin a été transmise entre autres à Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Allianz, Munich Re, WestLB, DZ Bank et HVB. En France, le président de la FFSA, Bernard Spitz, se trouvait mercredi matin au ministère de l’Economie pour discuter de la participation volontaire du secteur privé au plan d’aide à la Grèce.

Michiel van Voorst will be the lead manager for the new Luxembourg-managed fund Robeco Asian Stars Equities. The product, with 30-40 positions, will invest with no benchmark in shares in Asian businesses which are undervalued and show a good growth potential. Positions will be weighted between 2% and 5%.The lead manager will be assisted by Victoria Mio (manager of the Robeco Chinese Equities), Nimesh Chandan (manager of the Robeco Indian Equities), and Arnout van Rijn (CIO Asia-Pacific and manager of the Robeco Asia-Pacific Equities).The UCITS-compliant fund received a sale license for Germany on 18 March.CharacteristicsName: Robeco Asian Stars EquitiesISIN code: LU0591059224Front-end fee: 5% maximumManagement commission: 1.50%Service commission: 0.12%

db X-funds (Deutsche Bank group) has launched a UCITS-compliant, Luxembourg-registered fund which replicates an index covering the daily price of gold (32%), silver, platinum, and palladium (18% each), and rhodium (14%). The DB Platinum Edelmatallfonds is a sub-fund of the DB Platinum fund. db x-funds claims it is the “first provider of a UCITS-compliant, transparent and pure precious metals fund.” ISIN codes: Capitalisation shares in euros (I) : LU0609177950Capitalisation shares in euros (R) : LU0609177281Capitalisation shares in dollars (I) : LU0609178172Capitalisation shares in dollars (R) : LU0609177448

In April 2011, assets in shares in non-money market mutual funds issued in the euro zone totalled EUR34bn more than they had in the previous month, according to statistics from the European Central Bank. Assets in shares in non-money market mutual fund shares issued in the euro zone were up to EUR5.970trn as of April 2011, compared with EUR5.756trn as of March 2011. In the same period, asstes in shares in money market mutual funds issued in the euro zone fell, from EUR1.077trn to EUR1.071trn. Net subscriptions to non-money market mutual funds issued in the euro zone totalled EUR26bn in April 2011, while net subscriptions to money market mutual funds totalled EUR6bn. In terms of ventilation by investment strategy, the annual pace of growth for shares in bond funds totalled 5.5% in April 2011, and net subscriptions totalled EUR6bn. For equities funds, the annual growth rate came to 2.9%, and net subscriptions came ot EUR12bn. For mixed funds, the growth rate was 5.8%, and net subscriptions were EUR5bn.

A growing number of hedge funds, which have always had a readiness to take risks, are taking out insurance policies to protect themselves against insider trading, the Economist reports in its most recent weekly issue. A few years ago, only one hedge fund out of four was insured. Now, about 50% of funds have insurance of this kind, the British magazine reports, explaining that the development is the result of legal actions that have taken place recently, such as the Galleon affair.

The information provider Morningstar on 21 June announced that it has begun to calculate estimated returns for hedge funds, based on publicly-available documents (financial statements, assets in the portfolio). Hedge funds are not required to publish information of this kind. However, many entities which hold shares in hedge funds, such as funds of hedge funds, are required to do so. This information will form the basis for the quarterly estimates of returns which Morningstar is planning to undertake for about 1,700 hedge funds.

Juan del Rivero, who a few weeks ago left his job as CEO of Goldman Sachs for Spain, after 23 years there, has been recruited by the family office Omega Capital, which manages the wealth of Alicia Koplowitz, Cotizalia reports. He will be in charge of the development of Gestiona de Inversión in Spain and Omega Asset Management in the United Kingdom, the group’s two fund management firms.

Lyxor announced on Tuesday, 21 June that it has adopted a new policy for distribution of revenues from ETFs, following changes to the majority of the equities indices which serve as benchmarks for its ETFs. The funds will now no longer be “Price Return,” meaning that the value of the index does not include reinvestment of dividends distributed to shareholders in businesses belonging to the index, but rather “Total Return,” meaning that the value of the index will now include reinvestment of dividends.As a result, for distribution of revenues from ETFs themselves, the manager or the delegated financial manager for the ETFs may undertake a distribution once or twice per year for asset classes which earn dividends, of a total amount equivalent to the dividends earned as points for the index, a statement says.

US money market funds may hold only a very small slice of Greek public debt, but they have about USD1trn in shares issued by major European banks such as BNP Paribas, Barclays and Deutsche Bank, for example, in their portfolios. And these banks themselves are sitting on mountains of government bonds issued by Greece and other European countries, which exposes them to significant losses if the European sovereign debt crisis turns bad, the Wall Street Journal observes.The issue is also of concern to the SEC and the Fed. The financial services committee of the US house of representatives will also hold a hearing on the subject with financial sector chiefs on Friday, on the subject of the financial stability of mutual funds.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the hedge fund manager Bridgewater Associates has nearly completed a USD10bn round of fundraising for a new hedge fund. Assets now total over USD100bn. The new Pure Alpha Major Markets Fund is largely an extension of the Pure Alpha macro strategy from Bridgewater, to cover major markets such as the British and German bond markets.

The Spanish affiliate of Barclays has signed a cooperation agreement with Allfunds Bank, an affiliate of Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo, Cinco Días reports. The platform will provide intermediation and analysis services for premier clients of Barclays (those who have more than EUR300,000 with the firm). The move aims to increase the firms’ presence in investment funds serving this priority “premier” client base.

Cedrus Investments has appointed Denise Gower as vice president in charge of development for activities at the boutique specialised in wealth management and advising, Hedgeweek reports. Gower will be based in the Cayman Islands, where the firm’s headquarters are located, and will be in charge of development for international activities and client relations. Gower previously worked as head of marketing for Cayman Finance, an organisation in charge of promoting the financial services sector in the Cayman Islands.

At a press conference dedicated to the management firm’s development strategy in the area of equities, Yves Perrier, CEO of Amundi and director of the asset management and institutional services unit at Crédit Agricole S.A., announced on Tuesday, 21 June, that total net inflows last year totalled EUR3bn, resulting from EUR15bn in net outflows from money market products, and EUR18bn in net inflows in other areas. Perrier also said that the cost-income ratio totalled 54.4% in 2010 (while the main competitors had a rate of about 70%), and has further improved to 53.6% in first quarter 2011. As of the end of March, Amundi had EUR712bn in assets.Also present at the conference, the firm’s CIO, Pascal Blanqué, announced that the next addition to Amundi’s product range will be the release in Europe of a money market fund with constant net asset value.In the area of equities (EUR108bn), the topic of the press conference, Romain Boscher, director of equities management at Amundi Asset Management, noted that in 2010, EUR7bn in net subscriptions went to equities products. “Our ambition is to achieve EUR20bn by 2014,” he announced, adding that sales efforts will now largely focus on external distributors and businesses, but will not overlook institutional investors (among them sovereign wealth funds, which represent EUR50bn in assets in all asset classes combined).For its product range, Amundi will “further enrich” its already extensive range in the area of global large caps. The group will also be increasing its range of products that comply with Islamic law (Kuala Lumpur is the centre for expertise in that area) and in SRI. Amundi is also hoping to become a global leader in long/short management.Boscher says that the firm will now need to put personnel in place corresponding to these objectives. There will not be more geographical silos, but instead an organisation by expertise, which is now multilocal and will eventually become global. The system will be based on a network of concentrated teams by areas of expertise, both dedicated and autonomous, which will share resources and funding.

Laurent Fléchet, whose resignation as chairman of the board at the Ciloger group was announced earlier this week, will be joining the board at Primonial, where he will serve as deputy CEO, in charge of real estate activities, and will report to the chairman, André Camo. He will oversee all of the group’s real estate activities, a statement dated Tuesday, 21 June announces.

In partnership with the index provider PriceStats, State Street Global Markets has launched daily inflation indices for institutional investors, Asian Investor reports. Following the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brazil, State Street, which says that each index will be subject to the limits of the inflation statistics offered by respective governments, is planning to offer inflation indices for 35 countries by the end of the year, with Australia and Japan slated for next month.

On the anniversary of Jupiter Fund Management’s initial public offering last year, the directors of the group, including Edward Bonham Carter, CEO, sold nearly 6% of the firm, and raised GBP62.4m. Among the vendors were John Chatfield-Roberts, CIO, and the managers Tony Nutt and Philip Gibba, who were permitted to sell up to one third of their shares at the expiration of a 12-month lock-in imposed at the time of the IPO. Jupiter also announced that its assets have risen 3%, to GBP24.8bn.

Anthony Bolton admitted on Tuesday that the performance of his Fidelity China Special Situations fund, launched last year to great fanfare, was “disappointing,” the Financial Times reports. At an announcement of its first annual results, the manager stated that the period between 19 April 2010, when the fund was listed, and 31 March 2011, has been a «year of two halves», and that performance since the beginning of this year has deteriorated. The net asset value of the fund per share has increased by 5.24%, while its share price has risen 10%. But between the beginning of the year and 20 June, the fund lost more than 20%, while the MSCI China index has lost only 4%. And the fund’s share price has fallen below its net asset value.

According to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), 52% of the CHF1.96trn in assets held by Swiss banks for foreign clients as of the end of December came from emerging countries, a record amount, Die Welt reports. The percentage was only 37% in 2007. These clients have replaced US and European clients, who have repatriated their assets to comply with their tax authorities.

On 21 June, Stoxx Ltd announced the launch of the STOXX Europe 600 Hedged EUR Index. The index is a version of the Stoxx Europe 600 hedged for currency risks, which aims to serve as a benchmark for actively-managed funds, as well as as an underlying for ETFs and other investible products.

The British management firm Man Group is hoping that 15% to 20% of its assets under management will originate from the US in three to five years, compared with 7% currently, Peter Clarke, head of the group, has told the Wall Street Journal. Assets under management at the alternative management firm had previously largely been of European and Asian origin.

Acropole Asset Management, founded in June 2006 with EUR150m, five years later manages assets of EUR800m. This total was the objective which the asset management firm created by former managers from Fortis Investments set itself for 2008. And it achieved it in May 2008 – but then the financial crisis intervened, taking Acropole AM’s assets down to less than EUR300m.Now that it has returned to its pre-crisis asset levels, the asset management firm is now aiming for assets of EUR1.5bn in three years. In order to achieve that, it is planning to develop its presence in France, and to attain 10% of the French-registered convertible bond mutual fund market, compared with 6% presently.But the firm’s main area for development is international markets, which now represent only 15% of assets. “International sales need to pick up,” says Jacques Joakimides, chairman of Acropole AM. The three-year objective is to increase the percentage of global assets originating internationally to 30%, by forming agreements with third party marketers in some peripheral countries, particularly in northern Europe, and to develop its presence in direct sales, particularly in Switzerland and Benelux, markets which are served from Paris. The firm is also planning two recruitments. Internationally, the firm already has sales agreements in Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy and Asia.In addition to client diversification, Acropole AM, which was originally wholly dedicated to convertible bonds, has extended its activities to credit, and most recently, to volatility. To do that, it has recently recruited a sixth manager for its 18-member team, Brice Perin, who previously worked at UFG-LFP, which is a 14.5% shareholder in the firm. Alongside traditional funds, credit funds and absolute return funds, the new volatility unit will be composed of two products. The first is simply the LFP Long Vol fund, which represents assets of about EUR30m, which Perin will continue to manage under an outsourcing contract from UFG-LFP. The second fund, which will be launched in autumn 2011, will be an absolute return product.

Les Echos reports that Société Générale is seeking to strengthen its presence in Germany, particularly serving major French groups active in the country, but that there are no plans to launch a wealth management activity in its own right in Germany, as BNP Paribas has done. However, for market activities, “two services are offered to family offices to help them manage their exposure to various asset classes,” Francis Repka, manager of SG CIB’s activities in Germany, tells the newspaper.

UBS Global Asset Management has appointed Liz Ward, who was its global head of fixed income, as its new global head of institutional and wholesale activities, effective immediately, Financial News reports. Tim Blackwell, her predecessor, is seeking new opportunities within UBS.

The partners at Mirabaud & Cie, banquiers privés have decided to appoint Camille Vial, head of Portfolio Management for private clients and a descendant of the Mirabaud family, as a partner. She holds a degree in engineering mathematics and is the daughter of Thierry Fauchier-Magnan. The latter has expressed a wish to retire from the Managing Partners at the end of the year and Yves Mirabaud will take over from him as senior partner on that date. Vial will assume her position as partner on 1 January 2012. She is the first woman to succeed her father as partner in a firm of private bankers.

The CNMV has authorised Renta 4 Gestora to offer financial services in the European Economic Area. The Spanish asset management firm will now be able to register its range of hedge funds and absolute return funds in Dublin, Funds People reports, citing Expansión.Four hedge funds have been registered with the CNMV: Accurate Global Assets, Mosaic Iberia, which invests in a hedge fund from Pictet, SwingTradingKa’uValue, specialised in CFD, and Renta4 Minerva, a fund of hedge funds.The management firm also has two UCITS-compliant hedge funds, Renta 4 Pegasus and Renta 4 Nexus.

Asian Investor reports that Fidelity International has appointed Larry Qing Chen as head for China, replacing Zhan Long, who left the firm last year to join Bank of Communications Schroder Fund Management in Shanghai. Larry Chen, who previously worked at Bank of New York Mellon, will be in charge of development for Chinese activities, and will report to Mark Talbot, managing director for Asia ex Japan. Fidelity Investments Group has assets under management of about USD1.5bn, of which more than USD140bn are in the Asia-Pacific region.

“In 10 years, we have created another M&G in continental Europe,” says Jonathan Willcocks, managing director, global head of sales, summing up the UK asset management firm’s growth in continental Europe in the retail field. In 2000, the fund manager had EUR13.1bn in assets under management for this segment, only in the United Kingdom. In 2011, the firm has nearly the same amount (EUR11.4bn) under management internationally (as of March 2011), while at the same time, the UK business has also grown, and now represents EUR36.1bn (in total, M&G manages EUR226bn). And Willcocks is not planning to stop there. Now, international assets represent 24% of assets at M&G; Willcocks would like to increase that to about 50%.His goal is to make the firm one of the top five European players in terms of net sales in Europe, now that it is already number one in the UK. In order to achieve that, the firm is increasing the number of countries it targets. It is now present, in chronological order of the time when it first entered them, in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Chile, France, Greece, Portugal, and since last year, the Netherlands and Sweden. That brings the company some welcome diversity, as these markets are seeing contrasting evolutions.Diversification of the client base is also a primordial goal. Willcocks says one of the keys to the success of M&G has been not to limit itself to fund of fund clients, but to bet on all market segments, particularly financial advisers, who are sometimes ignored by other British and American asset management firms, because they can take a lot of time and require targeted marketing.This is the strategy which the firm has pursued in France, where M&G opened an office in 2007, and where Brice Anger, head of the French office, has been active in targeting IFAs. This segment now represents assets of EUR200m, out of a total of EUR1.7bn. For the rest, French clients are composed of private banks (EUR100m), pension funds (EUR500m), and funds of funds (EUR900m). The French market, along with the Italian one, has been one of the fastest-growing in recent years, and Anger, who will soon be recruiting another person in Paris, is hoping to top EUR2bn in assets.For the other countries in Europe, following Sweden and the Netherlands, the natural next step will be to head for Norway, Finland and Denmark. But that will be done gradually, depending on clients’ appetites.