Eric Bourguignon, directeur général délégué de Swiss Life Asset Management

Les autorités du pays envisagent de développer le marché de gré à gré des obligations pour les investisseurs institutionnels et qualifiés, indique le journal qui cite des propos du vice-gouverneur de la banque populaire de Chine, Yi Gang. La Chine compte également poursuivre l’ouverture de son marché obligataire.

China Investment Corp devrait percevoir 100 à 200 milliards de dollars supplémentaires de la part du gouvernement chinois, qui cherche à atténuer son exposition à la dette publique des Etats-Unis. C’est ce qu’avance le quotidien de sources proches, dont l’une évoque des «réticences bureaucratiques». CIC a d’ores et déjà alloué les 110 milliards disponibles pour mener à bien sa mission d’investissements à l’étranger. Le fonds souverain a notamment accompagné les secteurs comme l’énergie où les matières premières, fers de lance de l’expansion internationale chinoise. Les réserves de change du pays ont doublé depuis la création de CIC en 2007, à plus de 3.000 milliards de dollars.

Le président de la BCE a réitéré son avis qu’un dollar fort était dans l’intérêt américain, alors que l'euro a atteint jeudi un niveau de 1,4649

Le président vénézuélien Hugo Chavez a relevé l’imposition des compagnies pétrolières, engrangeant ainsi des recettes fiscales supplémentaires à l’approche de l'élection présidentielle de l’an prochain. Le dirigeant populiste a prédit qu’avec la guerre en Libye le cours du pétrole continuerait de monter et il a expliqué que les recettes fiscales supplémentaires seraient versées dans un fonds de développement social.

Lloyds Banking Group est près de mettre en vente Scottish Widows, a rapporté le Times hier. Le nouveau patron Antonio Horta-Osorio doit donner fin juin les conclusions d’une étude stratégique et cette cession en serait l’une des composantes. Selon le journal, Scottish Widows pourrait être vendue entre cinq et sept milliards de livres.

La nouvelle règle imposera le 1er juin aux agences d’obtenir un permis auprès de l’autorité locale et de suivre un code de déontologie, qui inclut en particulier des règles sur les conflits d’intérêts. Les analystes employés depuis moins de deux ans devront obtenir des permis individuels après passage d’un examen.

Soucieuse de lutter contre l’inflation, la banque centrale chinoise a continué vendredi à laisser le yuan s’apprécier, et la devise a terminé la journée à un nouveau plus haut historique. Malgré des rumeurs en ce sens, la plupart des traders estiment que la Banque populaire de Chine ne procèdera pas pour autant à une réévaluation ponctuelle de la monnaie.

Selon l’accord dévoilé ce matin même, la Macif, Olivier Millet (Président du directoire d’OFI Private Equity), et les autres principaux actionnaires d’OFI Private Equity Capital, qui investit de façon majoritaire dans des PME dont la valeur d’entreprise est inférieure à 150/200 millions d’euros, se sont engagés à apporter la totalité de leurs participations dans OFI Private Equity Capital (soit 75% des actions et 79% des bons de souscription d’actions (BSA)), sa société de gestion et son associé commandité en échange de titres nouveaux Eurazeo. Cette dernière veut voir dans cette opération, d’un montant total de 132 millions d’euros, l’expression de sa volonté d’être un acteur incontournable de l’investissement dans des entreprises au potentiel de transformations significatif.

Selon le quotidien Nikkei de dimanche, le fonds de gestion des retraites publiques japonaises a l’intention d’amputer ses actifs d’environ 6.400 milliards de yens (78 milliards de dollars) au cours de l’exercice pour combler un trou dans le paiement des pensions. Le fonds d’investissement des retraites de l’Etat (GPIF), dont le montant des actifs s'élève à 1.400 milliards de dollars, est un important acteur du marché des obligations d’Etat japonaises.

Concernant les nouveaux projets de la direction du patrimoine de la Carac, soulignons la mise en place d’un partenariat avec une société de gestion, actuellement en phase d'être sélectionnée, pour gérer les actifs d’Entraid’Epargne Carac, un contrat d’assurance vie de partage. La Carac demande à ce que cette société de gestion redistribue une partie des frais de gestion aux organismes d’intérêt général, partenaires de la Carac. La société de gestion sera retenue en fonction de sa capacité à délivrer de la surperformance, la gestion proprement ISR de l’univers d’investissement n'étant pas visée.

L’assureur américain AIG chercherait à vendre aux investisseurs des obligations adossées à des polices d’assurance vie, rapporte le Wall Street Journal de vendredi. L’opération consiste à spéculer sur la mort d’autrui à partir de contrats que des particuliers ont souscrits auprès d’un assureur tiers mais dont ils ont cédé le bénéfice à AIG. A fin 2010, l’assureur américain était ainsi bénéficiaire de 5.673 polices qui pourraient lui rapporter 17,7 milliards de dollars, selon ses comptes annuels. Il cherche à en titriser une partie. Seul hic: l’agence S&P a refusé de noter la transaction, jugeant très risquées ces «death bonds».

Le gouvernement japonais a présenté vendredi un premier budget d’urgence après le séisme et le tsunami du 11 mars, prévoyant 4.000 milliards de yens (33,3 milliards d’euros) de dépenses exceptionnelles. D’autres enveloppes suivront probablement pour financer la reconstruction du nord-est du Japon, dévasté par le pire séisme de son histoire. Tokyo estime en effet que le montant total des dégâts occasionnés par le séisme et le tsunami pourrait atteindre 300 milliards de dollars, ce qui en ferait la catastrophe naturelle la plus coûteuse de l’histoire. «Avec ce budget, nous faisons un pas vers la reconstruction (...) et le redémarrage de l'économie», a dit le ministre des Finances Yoshihiko Noda après un conseil des ministres. Les marchés surveillent de près la façon dont le gouvernement financera la reconstruction. Tokyo a tenu sa promesse de ne pas émettre de nouveaux bons pour financer cette première tranche, mais le Premier ministre Naoto Kan a néanmoins déclaré vendredi qu’il serait nécessaire de recourir à l’emprunt pour les tranches suivantes.

La Grèce envisage d'étendre la maturité de sa dette afin d'être en mesure de la rembourser. Le gouvernement de George Papandréou réfléchit à une « restructuration de velours » qui comporterait un allongement de la dette et un accord avec les créanciers pour modifier les termes du remboursement, indique le quotidien Ta Nea. Selon le journal Isotimia, Athènes pourrait chercher à étendre la maturité du total de ses encours de cinq ans en moyenne.

Le climat des affaires en France s’est stabilisé en avril dans l’industrie et s’est sensiblement amélioré dans les services, selon l’enquête mensuelle de conjoncture publiée vendredi par l’Insee. Dans l’industrie, l’indicateur est resté stable à 110, le chiffre de mars ayant été révisé de 109 à 110. L’indicateur est ainsi pour le deuxième mois consécutif à son plus haut niveau depuis décembre 2007.

In order to supply their increasing efforts in the area of alternative products, US managers are recruiting. 69% of them employ at least one product manager for alternative investments, while 46% have at least one marketing professional dedicated to these products, and 42% have at least one person in sales for these products, Mutual Fund Wire reports.The Retail Alternative Products and Strategies 2011 report from Cerulli Associates, which is also quoted by Investment News and alphametrix, finds that 67% of the time, managers produce more white books for their alternative products than for traditional products, while 58% hold teleconferences for alternative products more often than for traditional products.Cerulli estimates that last year 65 alternative products were launched, compared with 45 in 2009, and that these funds posted an increase of 60% in their assets, compared with 16% for all other categories of mutual funds. Total assets in these mutual hedge funds totalled USD201bn, or 2.6% of total assets in long-term mutual funds, compared with 1.9% as of the end of 2009.

With the Fidelity Patrimoine fund, a sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Fidelity Funds, launched on 1 April, Fidelity has created a reactive asset allocation fund based on the formula of the FF Fidelity Gestion Equilibre, but with a wider diversification of eligible asset classes (with the addition of commodities), and more reactive management, in that risky assets may represent 0-60% of the portfolio. Prudent assets may vary from 40% to 100%. Expected relative outperformance due to tactical asset allocation of 1% to 2% is complemented by 0.5% to 1.5% from selection of underlying assets.The product is managed in Paris by David Ganozzi. CharacteristicsName: FF Fidelity PatrimoineISIN code: LU0080749848 – distribution (A) share classBenchmark index: 50% BofA ML Euro Large Cap / 15% MSCI Europe / 15% MSCI World ex Europe / 10% DJ UBS Commodity Index / 10% Euro 1w LibidFront-end fee: maximum 5.25% Management commission: 1.53%

Munich-based KanAm has announced that the liquidation of its open-ended real estate fund US-grundinvest ( DE0006791817), the only German product in its class denominated in US dollars, as of the end of trading as of 31 March had sold nearly all of its assets, and that the last two properties had already received sale commitments (see Newsmanagers of 1 October 2010). The liquidation process must be completed by 31 March 2012.In less than one year, the management firm has managed to sell 15 of the fund’s 17 properties, at a limited markdown of 3.8% off the most recent expert valuation. The second payment to subscribers, following USD250m four months ago (see Newsmanagers of 15 December 2010), will take place in June as scheduled.Since its launch on 20 May 2003, the fund’s total performance came to 20.1%. However, for the year to 31 March, losses come to 15.3%.

Michael Schütt has been recruited as head of wholesale business at WestLB Mellon Asset Management KAG GmbH (WMAM KAG), in Düsseldorf. He will be in charge of distribution for all of WMAM’s strategies, and all products from BNY Mellon Asset Management, to wholesale clients. With a team of five people, Schütt will report directly to Volker Kurr, CEO of WMAM, which is a 50/50 joint venture of WestLB and BNY Mellon. Schütt was most recently head of sales German banks at Invesco in Frankfurt.

James Giddens, the court-appointed recevier for Lehman Brothers, has received agreement from JP Morgan Chase to transfer USD861m in cash and securities belonging to Lehman, which will now be redistributed to victims of the bankruptcy in September 2008, Handelsblatt reports. In order for the transaction to be valid, however, a court must still give its approval.

In January-March, net profits at Morgan Stanley fell ot USD968m, from USD1.78bn in first quarter 2010. This is an increase over the USD836m figure recorded for October-December, however.The global wealth management group in first quarter shows net revenues of USD3.44bn, compared with USD3.35bn in the previous quarter, while pre-tax profits comred to USD348m, compared with USD390m and USD278m. Morgan Stanley states that as of 21 March, total client assets came to USD1.7trn, of which USD501bn were in fee-based accounts. Net inflows in first quarter totalled USD11.4bn, and inflows to fee-based accounts totalled USD1.78bn. For asset management, net inflows fell to USD626m in January-March, compared with USD858m in October-December, and USD653m in first quarter 2010; meanwhile, pre-tax profits for the operation totalled USD127m, compared with USD356m in fourth quarter 2010, and USD174m in January-March last year. As of 31 March, assets under management or supervision represented USD284bn, compared with USD262bn one year previously, due both to positive market effects and to net subscriptions, largely to money market funds. Net subscriptions totalled USD1.4trn, compared with net outflows of USD6.8bn in January-March 2010.

For first quarter 2011, BlackRock on 21 April announced net profits by US-GAAP accounting standards of USD568m, compared with USD657m in October-December (-14%), and USD423m in the corresponding period of last year (+34%).Assets as of the end of March totalled USD3.6484trn, 2% more than at the end of December (USD3.561trn), and 8% more than one year earlier (USD3.3639trn). Of this total, iShares and ETP products represented USD475bn for equities and Usd126.8bn for bonds, compared with USD448.16bn and USD123.1bn three months earlier, and USD388.39bn/USD109.42bn one year previously.BlackRock explains that the increase in assets under management of USD87.5bn during first quarter is due to a net market appreciation of USD100bn, and USD34.7bn for long-term products, which were partially offset by net redemptions of USD24.4bn from money market products, and outflows of USD4.5bn in dividends. Outflows related to IPO or merger-related totalled USD18.4bn.The US asset management firm says that as of 14 April, net subscriptions in the pipeline totalled USD82.4bn, of which USD60.7bn were for long-term products (55% index-based and 45% actively-managed products), USD6.2bn for money markets, and USD15.5bn for portfolios advised.The multi-asset class category also saw an increase in assets to UDS207.98bn as of 31 March, 12% more than as of the end of December, and 34% more than one year previously, while USD6.8bn of the increase of USD22.4bn in first quarter come from net inflows to fiduciary mandates; for defined contributions, net inflows totalled USD16.8bn.The CEO, Larry Fink, also says that in the period under review, BlackRock Solutions won a net 12 mandates.

For the second quarter of the fiscal year ending 30 September, Raymond James Financial has announced net profits of USD80.92m, which represents a decline of 1% compared with the USD81.72m in October-December, and an increase of 45% over the USD55.63m of the corresponding quarter in 2009-2010. For first half (to 31 March), net profits have risen 65%, to USD162.64m. As of the end of March, assets under administration and assets under management both set new records. For assets under administration, the total came to USD275bn, compared with USD262bn three months earlier, and USD242bn one year previously. Assets under management, for their part, totalled USD35.6bn, compared with USD33.4bn as of the end of December, and USD29.3bn as of the end of March 2010. The increase is due both to market effects and to net subscriptions. Asset management contributed USD30.82m to pre-tax profits in the first six months of the fiscal year (which totalled USD256.75m), compared with USD23.3m in the corresponding period of 2009-2010.

After USD148.7m in first quarter 2010, distributable profits at Blackstone in January-March 2011 toalled USD196.55m, which represents an increase of 32%. By US-GAAP accounting standards, net profits in the first three months of this year totalled USD42.7bn, compared with a loss of USD121.4m in the corresponding period of last year, both after costs related to the initial public offering and acquisitions.Fee-generating assets as of the end of March totalled USD124.03bn, compared with USD98.07bn one year previously (+26%), while total assets were up year on year by 43%, to USD150bn.The two largest categories within fee-generating assets as of the end of March were private equity (USD35.89bn, +43% in one year) and hedge funds (USD35.85bn, +24%). Real estate and credit respectively stood at USD26.45bn (+11%) and USD25.84bn (+28%).

Dick Weil, CEO of Janus Capital Group, announced on 21 April that its chief financial officer (CFO), Greg Frost, has resigned, and will be leaving the business around 1 August. The next CFO will be Bruce Koepfgen, who will join Janus at the beginning of June. Koepfgen worked at Allianz Global Investors (AGI) from 2003 to 2009, partly as CEO of Oppenheimer Capital, an affiliate of Allianz, and as chairman of Allianz Global Investors Fund Management. With Weil, he was also a member of the executive board at Allianz Global Investors.

Janus Capital on 21 April announced net profits of USD37.9bn in January-March, compared with USD65.9m in the previously quarter, and USD31.3m in the corresponding period of last year. The operating margin totalled 32.1%, compared with 34.7% in October-December, and 27.3% in first quarter 2010.As of 31 March, assets increased to USD173.5bn from USD167.3bn as of the end of December, and USD165.5bn one year previously. The increase in assets under management in first quarter is the result of a positive net market effect of USD6.7bn, partially offset by net redemptions of USD2.7bn for long-term funds, with net outflows of USD3.1bn for equities funds, and net subscriptions of USD0.4bn for bond products.

In its periodical column dedicated to the “perfect fund portfolio,” Expansión says that investment professionals on its panel are now recommending liquidating positions in government bonds and increasing exposure to equities from developed markets for the remainder of second quarter (to the detriment of emerging markets). They also recommend increasing allocation to corporate bonds, particularly high yield.Their preferred products are currently: Invesco Euro Corporate Bond fund, JB Absolute Return Bond Fund, M&G Optimal Income, Robeco US Premium, M&G Global Basics and Templeton Global Total Return.

«UniCredit informs that, following an in-depth analysis of the benefits of various options open to its Asset Management arm, it has concluded that the best solution is for Pioneer Investments to focus on its organic growth, also in light of the market evolution of the last twelve months».The Italian bank confirmed on Thursday that it was calling off the sale of Pioneer.Three groups wanted to buy the asset management arm of UniCredit : Amundi, Natixis and Resolution. The Italian government also tried to merge it with Eurizon, the asset management business of Sanpaolo Intesa."Pioneer Investments has been growing organically for sometime now - its strong financial performance in 2010 reconfirms this. The business is in much better shape than it was when the review process was launched. Profits and revenues were up 13% from 2009 while Assets under Management grew from EUR176 billion in 2009 to EUR187 billion in 2010. In addition, there was consistent improvement in investment performance across the main ranges with a number of standout strategies», says a press release.The Italian bank adds : «A focused strategy which will further enhance the quality of Pioneer Investments’ product offering while maintaining focus on delivering an outstanding level of client service is being finalised».

In March, the British asset management firm Charlemagne Capital launched the Magna New Frontiers Fund (IE00B65LCL41), a UCITS-compliant version of the offshore products Charlemagne Frontiers Fund. The new fund carries a management commission of 1.95% for retail shares (R class, from EUR5,000), and 1.25% for institutional shares (N class, from EUR1m), with a 20% commission on performance exceeding the MSCI Frontier Markets index.The manager, Stefan Böttcher, says that the volume of the fund will be limited to EUR100m, and that the new fund differs from other frontier products in that it aims to invest particularly in countries that are not part of the MSCI emerging markets index, which leaves a universe of over 100 countries of various sizes, such as Argentina and Uruguay in the Americas, most of the African countries, the Middle East, the Baltic and Balkan countries of Europe, and several Asian markets, such as Pakistan, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.Böttcher says in his management notes that frontier markets have underperformed emerging markets, and that most of these markets, with the notable exception of Sri Lanka, are still below 2008 levels. They are thus not highly correlated to developed countries or to emerging markets, but their lack of development means that a selective approach is necessary. Currently, the manager is avoiding Venezuela and Vietnam, due to political and economic risks, and steering clear of North Africa until the situation there clarifies. The cash allocation currently represents 290% of assets. The preferred countries are Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Romania.Böttcher’s favourite shares are currently Fondul Proprietates (Romania), Bank of Georgia, Mongolian Mining Corporation, Bulgartabac Holding, Mouwasat (Saudi Arabia), and Tau Capital (Kazakhstan).

At the 11th global clean technologies conference in New York, Jefferies has announced the results of a survey of investors in the sector. About two thirds of investors are expecting a complete recovery in IPOs of clean tech businesses by first half 2012, and more than three quarters expect that the major companies will begin to concentrate in clean tech in 2012 or later. For 2011, investors have identified as the most important investment themes, in order: intelligent/efficient energy networks; solar photovoltaics; energy storage; LED/lighting; and electric vehicles. The decisive element for growth in the sector is the stability of government support and regulations, as it was in the Jeffries Clean Technology Investor Survey for 2010. Respondents say North America, Europe and China will lead the movement to set up the necessary infrastructure for intelligent networks, while the Jefferies survey last November predicted that Europe, and later North America, would be the pioneer in this area.