A compter du 1er février, Swisscanto commercialisera en Suisse, en Allemagne et en Autriche un fonds obligataire haut rendement disponible en francs suisses ainsi qu’en parts couvertes du risque de change en euros et en dollars. Ce fonds, Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High Yield, s’adresse tant aux particuliers qu’aux investisseurs institutionnels et se focalise sur des titres de courte échéance résiduelle, avec des versements d’intérêts réguliers et élevés qui permettent d’atteindre les objectifs d’investissement même en période de hausse des taux.D’autre part, le gestionnaire central des banques cantonales distribue désormais en Allemagne et en Autriche un fonds flexible en francs suisses, le Swisscanto (LU) Portfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50, pour lequel les limites d’investissement pour les différentes classes d’actifs sont déterminées par le budget de risque, seule la poche actions ayant des bornes préétablies (0-50 %).Caractéristiques :Dénomination : Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High YieldCodes Isin (parts B : retail, parts J : institutionnelles) :H CHF-B: ISIN LU0556184884H EUR-B: ISIN LU0556185345 H USD-B: ISIN LU0582725312 H CHF-J: ISIN LU0582724935 H EUR-J: ISIN LU0582725072 H USD-J: ISIN LU0582725403Droit d’entrée : 5 % maximumCommission forfaitaire de gestion Part B : 1,3 % Part J : 0,8 %Dénomination : Swisscanto (LU) Portfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50Codes Isin (parts B : retail, parts J : institutionnelles) : CHF-B: ISIN LU0562145853 CHF-J: ISIN LU0562149921Droit d’entrée : 5 % maximum Commission forfaitaire de gestion :Part B : 1,1 %Part J : 0,65 %

La collecte nette des fonds européens retail portant l'étiquette ISR (investissement socialement responsable) a totalisé 1,3 milliard d’euros au mois de novembre 2010, selon les dernières statistiques communiquées par Lipper FMI pour le compte de Responsible Investor.Le plus gros contributeur a été Amundi avec son fonds monétaire Tréso ISR pour un montant de 1,17 milliard d’euros, devant Natixis avec Fonsicav (335 millions d’euros) et Aviva avec Aviva ISR Court Terme (322 millions d’euros).

Gerard Aquilina démissionne de son poste de vice chairman chez Barclays Wealth, selon Wealthbriefing. Un départ volontaire, selon un porte-parole de Barclays cité par Wealthbriefing, motivé par le projet de Gerard Aquilina de travailler dans le secteur des marchés émergents.Gerard Aquilina avait rejoint Barclays Wealth en septembre 2006. Il était précédemment chez HSBC Private Bank à New York, où il avait été chief executive pour le continent américain.

BNY Mellon Asset Management a annoncé le lancement sur le marché britannique, le 8 février prochain, de deux fonds domiciliés à Dublin, le fonds obligataire en devises locales sur les marchés émergents (2,4 milliards de livres), et le fonds d’actions brésiliennes (245 millions de livres).

Selon l’Agefi, le PDG de la banque américaine Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, s’est vu attribuer un triplement de son salaire de base - qui passe de 600.000 à 2 millions de dollars - ainsi que 12,6 millions de dollars en actions, d’après un document réglementaire. Soit, pour l’enveloppe en titres, une augmentation de 42% par rapport à celle reçue en 2009.

JP Morgan Chase a annoncé le 27 janvier la nomination d’Irene Tse en qualité de chief investment officer pour l’Amérique du Nord en remplacement d’Althea Duersten, qui a fait valoir ses droits à la retraite.Irene Tse travaillait précédemment chez Duquesne Capital Management en qualité de managing director et gérante de portefeuille. Elle est rattachée à Ina Drew, CIO, et rejoindra le comité exécutif de JP Morgan Chase.

Selon The Wall Street Journal, KKR & Co propose des conditions avantageuses aux investisseurs qui acceptent de souscrire à son nouveau fonds KKR North American XI dont le volume devrait se situer entre 8 milliards et 10 milliards de dollars.Ces investisseurs auront le choix entre une commission de gestion réduite et une proportion plus élevée des commissions payées par les sociétés du portefeuille.Autre innovation : KKR intégrera un taux butoir préférentiel de 7 % à partir duquel les souscripteurs pourront percevoir leur part des bénéfices tirés des placements du fonds.Comme pour les fonds précédents, KKR consentira une ristourne aux investisseurs qui accepteront de signer de gros chèques, le plancher pour bénéficier de ce régime préférentiel étant abaissé à 500 millions de dollars contre 1 milliard de dollars pour le fonds lancé en 2006.

Man Group a annoncé avoir recruté Miriam Tai en tant que responsable des relations avec les consultants aux Etats-Unis. Elle était précédemment chez BlackRock où elle occupait le même genre de poste. Dans ses nouvelles fonctions, Miriam Tai est chargée de conseiller la communauté des consultants en investissement aux Etats-Unis sur la gamme des produits et services de la société de gestion alternative. Basée à New York, elle travaille sous la responsabilité de Raffaele Costa, managing director et responsable des ventes pour l’Amérique du Nord et l’Europe. Cette nomination souligne l’importance du marché institutionnel américain pour Man, indique un communiqué.

Janus Capital Group has reported a full year net income of USD159.9 million for 2010, compared with a net loss of USD757.1 million for 2009.For the fourth quarter, net income totalled USD65.9 million, compared with net income of USD32.5 million in the third quarter 2010 and net income of USD37.0 million in the fourth quarter 2009.At December 31, 2010, the US fund manager’s total assets under management were USD169.5 billion compared with USD160.8 billion at September 30, 2010 and USD159.7 billion at December 31, 2009.The increase in yearover-year assets was the result of USD20.8 billion of net market appreciation and long-term net outflows of USD10.8 billion.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } JP Morgan Chase on 27 January announced the appointment of Irene Tse as chief investment officer for North America, replacing Althes Duersten, who has retired. Tse previously worked at Duquesne Capital Management, as managing director and portfolio manager. She will report to Ina Drew, CIO, and will join the executive board at JP Morgan.

Man Group has hired Miriam Tai as head of US consultant relations. She joins from BlackRock where she was the director of global consultant relations and responsible for developing and managing the firm’s relationships with strategic investment consultants. At Man, Miriam Tai is responsible for advising on the full range of Man’s products and services to the US investment consultant community. She is based in the alternative asset manager’s New York office and reports to Raffaele Costa, managing director and head of sales for North America and Europe.“Her appointment underscores Man’s strategic commitment to the US institutional market as a top priority for the firm”, a press release says.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Ossiam today, January 31st, officially reports the arrival of Isabelle Bourcier, former global head of ETF activities at Lyxor. She will become head of development at the 51% owned affiliate of Natixis AM, which will soon be launching its own range of ETFs.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } State Street Corporation on 28 January announced that it has formed a partnership with F&C Investments to provide a reporting service covering environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria so as to allow invetors to reach their engagement objectives in this area. The ESG solution from F&C provides investors complete reporting worldwide, allowing them to meet reporting conditions required under the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Investors who are eligible to use the service include managers and administrators of pension funds, institutional clients such as charities and sovereign funds, and financial institutions seeking to deploy best practices in the area of responsible invetment in order to increase the long-term value of their investments. With this new service, State Street clients will now be able to obtain complete ESG engagement reports on mystatestreet.com.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Tove Bångstad, who has been appointed as director of commercial development in Sweden for Aviva Investors, will initially recruit five people in Stockholm, Dagens Industri (di.se) reports.

Catella has agreed to acquire 55% of the share capital and voting rights in Enskild Kapitalförvaltning AB. It has also made an offer to acquire the remaining shares for the same price. Total acquisitions price for 55% of the shares is therefore expected to amount SEK 28 million. Enskild Kapitalförvaltning is one of the larger independent asset managers in the Swedish market, with assets under management of approximately SEK 4 billion under management. The acquisition of Enskild Kapitalförvaltning will be a complement to the existing private banking business in Luxembourg and should be viewed as a step to establish a full scale private banking operation in Sweden and the Nordic region.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to statistics from the Spanish Inverco association of asset management firms, foreign providers were the big winners on the Spanish market in 2010. Their assets increased by more than half last year, Expansión reports, from EUR30bn to EUR48bn. At the same time, assets at Spanish firms were down 15% to EUR138bn. The three largest foreign asset management firms in Spain by asset volume as of the end of December were JPMorgan AM, with nearly EUR5.74bn, Amundi, with over EUR3.85bn, and BNP Paribas, with EUR3.06bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In 2010, assets at M&G Spain doubled to EUR1.25bn, and the British management firm laid out a plan to accelerate growth in Spain and Latin America, which is served from the Madrid office, Expansión reports. This commercial success has led M&G to recruit Cristina García de Sola (ex BlackRock Spain) as head of development. In addition, the firm will be moving to larger offices. The four M&G funds which are selling best in Spain are the M&G American Fund, Global Basics, Global Dividend and Recovery funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Gerard Aquilina is resigning from his position as vice chairman of Barclays Wealth, Wealthbriefing reports. It is a voluntary departure, according to a Barclays spokesperson cited by Wealthbriefing, motivated by plans on Aquilina’s part to work in the emerging markets sector.Aquilina joined Barclays Wealth in September 2006. He was previously at HSBC Private Bank in New York, where he was chief executive for the North American continent.

The “holy trinity” of equities, bonds, and real estate still reigns at Aberdeen, but equities are no longer the unquestioned head of the trinity, as they had been in the past. Before the stock market crash that ushered in the century, equities represented more than three quarters of the total portfolio. Their percentage has now fallen below 50% of the total. According to statistics as of 31 December 2010, assets in equities totalled GBP80.5bn, out of total overall assets of over GBP183.3bn.“The stock market crisis of 2001-2002 made us understand that we needed to move in the direction of diversification,” said Anne Richards, chief investment officer at Aberdeen Asset Management, and also head of alternative management, on a visit to Paris on 27 January.Assets in equities will be maintained, but the Scottish group is not planning any great drives in this asset class. Aberdeen did not hesistate to soft-close the Aberdeen Global – Emerging Markets Equity Fund and Aberdeen Global – Emerging Markets Smaller Companies fund last year, in order to continue to effectively manage existing assets. However, says Richards, “2011 may be an excellent year for equities, even if a good deal of volatility can still be expected.”But Richards, in her capacity as head of alternative management, is planning to consolidate the new capacities acquired last year from the Royal Bank of Scotland, including funds of hedge funds and multi-management. “The integration process is going well, particularly because the managers at Coutts AM were already familiar with the working culture of our teams, and their management process was very close to our own, with our bottom-up approach and our long-term vision,” Richards explains, adding that the evaluation of capacities will take a little more time. “It is a lengthy job, but aside from the additional assets, these activities complement our range of alternative strategies.” With the addition of the GBP13.5bn in assets brought in by the RBS deal, total assets under alternative management are nearly GBP30bn, about one third of it in long-only multi-management.In terms of bonds, Aberdeen is in the process of recovering from its low point in 2008. The past two years have been good, particularly 2009, and to a lesser extent 2010, but the task of reconstruction is not finished yet, Richards admits, though she points out that outflows have slowed encouragingly. In an environment in which investors are looking for returns, Aberdeen, which recently launched a best ideas fund, is working on new products, including a global high yield bond fund. In real estate, Aberdeen has dedicated a particular effort to the French market, with the recent arrival of a specialist, and is also at work on a project, already reported by Newsmanagers, to launch an OPCI (real estate) fund, if possible this year. The firm is also considering a global real estate product, at the request of clients.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } MoneyMarketing reports that Invesco has decided to redistribute responsibilities on the team responsible for its Indian equities fund (GBP133m). The fund lost 18.86% in the past three years, compared with a loss of 11% for the MSCI India 10/40 equities index. Prashant Poddar, who joined Invesco in January 2010 as an analyst, has been appointed as co-manager of the fund, with Shekhar Sambhishivan. Poddar replaces co-manager Maggie Lee. The Asian equities fund will be co-managed by Lee, and the Asian infrastructure fund will also be co-managed by Paul Chan.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } MoneyMarketing reports that Invesco has decided to redistribute responsibilities on the team responsible for its Indian equities fund (GBP133m). The fund lost 18.86% in the past three years, compared with a loss of 11% for the MSCI India 10/40 equities index. Prashant Poddar, who joined Invesco in January 2010 as an analyst, has been appointed as co-manager of the fund, with Shekhar Sambhishivan. Poddar replaces co-manager Maggie Lee. The Asian equities fund will be co-managed by Lee, and the Asian infrastructure fund will also be co-managed by Paul Chan.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 1 February, Jürgen Scharfenorth will take up his new position as head of relationship management for Germany at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, where he will report to Michelle Grundmann, managing director.Scharenforth was previously managing director, sales & global relationship management for Germany and Austria at Société Générale Securities Services Deutschland, CEO of Société Générale Securities Services, Deutsche KAG, and CEO of Société Générale Securities services Euro-VL Deutschland.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } London-based MackayWilliams LLP and Berlin’s Metrinomics GmbH, which previously published Fund Market Focus, have created a fund market analysis joint venture, Fund Buyer Focus Ltd. The goal of the collaboration is to combine research into European external fund buyers which has been undertaken since 2001 by Metrinomics with the analysis and perspective capacities of MackayWilliams.The project will allow Metrinomics to concentrate its primary activites on research, particularly in telecommunications. MackayWilliams, for its part, will develop the coverage and depth of its monthly publication Fund Radar, independently of Fund Buyer Focus.Fund Buyer Focus will continue the Fund Market Focus surveys of samples of over 900 respondents from a universe of over 4,000 professional fund actors in Europe. Combining these results with analysis of various markets, the new firm will be able to provide interesting advice about the dynamics of fund markets in terms of both supply and demand, nationally as well as internationally. Clients will then have access to a unique source of indicators to measure the success of distribution and sales strategies.The team at Fund Buyer Focus includes five specialists. It will be led jointly by Hans Schmolke, CEO of Metrinomics, and Rodney Williams, CEO of MackayWilliams, who will personally be involved in the development of products, sales and marketing.MackayWilliams was founded in 2010 by Diana McKay and Rodney Williams, who founded Feri Fund Markets Information (Feri FMI) with Feri Trust, a firm which was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2007.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Werner Hedrich, who for the past six years has been head of fund research for the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), has been promoted to CEO for Germany and Austria at Morningstar. He will report to Bevin Desmond, international business president, who directs the group’s international operations from Chicago.

UniCredit is discussing a tie up of its Pioneer Global Asset Management unit with Intesa Sanpaolo’s Eurizon Capital SGR, said two people with knowledge of the talks, according to Bloomberg. The talks have the backing of government officials who would prefer to keep the asset management firm in Italian hands,

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced that on 8 February, it will release two Dublin-domiciled funds on the British market, including an emerging markets local currency bond fund (GBP2.4bn) and a Brazilian equities fund (GBP245m).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } TMW Pramerica Property Investment has announced that as of 26 January, the net asset value per share for its open-ended real estate fund TMW Immobilien Weltfonds has been increased by 21 cents. This is the result of a sale above book value of a property in Canada (see Newsmanagers of 27 January 2011), resulting in an increase of slightly over 45 cents, and a depreciation in value for the Colonos Plaza in Argentina, which has cost the fund 25 cents per share.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Net inflow to European retail funds bearing the SRI (socially responsible investment) label totalled EUR1.3bn in the month of November 2010, according to the most recent statistics compiled by Lipper FMI on behalf of Responsible Investor. The largest contributor was Amundi, with its Tréso ISR money market fund, totalling EUR1.17bn, followed by Natixis with Fonsicav (EUR335m), and Aviva with Aviva ISR Court Terme (EUR322m).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 1 February, Swisscanto will release a high yield fund in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, which will be available in Swiss francs as well as shares hedged for currency risks in euros and US dollars. The fund, the Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High Yield, is aimed at retail as well as institutional investors, and focuses on bonds with short residual durations, and regular and high interest payments, which make it possible to achieve the investment objectives even in phases of rising interest rates.The central asset management firm for the Swiss cantonal banks is also offering a flexible fund denominated in Swiss francs in Germany and Austria, the Swisscanto (LU) Porfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50, for this investment limits for various asset classes are determined by the risk budget, and only the equities portion has predefined limits (0-50%).CharacteristicsName: Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High YieldISIN codes: (B shares: retail; J shares: institutional):H CHF-B: ISIN LU0556184884H EUR-B: ISIN LU0556185345H USD-B: ISIN LU0582725312H CHF-J: ISIN LU0582724935H EUR-J: ISIN LU0582725072H USD-J: ISIN LU0582725403Front-end fee: 5% maximumManagement commission:B shares: 1.3%J shares: 0.8%Name: Swisscanto (LU) Portfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50ISIN codes (B shares: retail, J shares: institutional):CHF-B: ISIN LU0562145853CHF-J: ISIN LU0562149921Front-end fee: 5% maximumManagement commission:B shares: 1,1%J shares: 0.65%

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The index provider Standard & Poor’s on 28 January announced that 95 new ETFs based on its market indices were launched last year, an increase of 46% compared with the previous year. S&P comments that of the record total of new funds released last year, 57 ETFs were offered outside the United States.