p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Henderson Global Investors announced on 17 January that its team dedicated to socially responsible investment has recruited Bridghet Boulle as an SRI analyst. Boulle previously worked at PIRC. Henderson has also appointed Harriet Lamb as a member of its SRI consulting committee. Lamb is currently executive director of the British Fairtrade Foundation.

Grosvenor has appointed Jeffrey Weingarten, who was the chief investment officer and managing director of Goldman Sachs Asset Management International, to the role of chief executive of Grosvenor Fund Management, which offers a range of sector and regional specialist property investment funds. He succeeds Stuart Beevor.At the same time James Raynor, currently GFM’s director, Continental Europe, has been appointed to the new role of GFM’s chief investment officer. Robert Davis, currently GFM’s finance director, will become GFM’s chief operations officer. These appointments are effective 17 March 2011. James’ and Robert’s existing responsibilities are unaffected by the changes: James will continue to lead GFM’s Continental European team and Robert will continue to run GFM’s finance team.Jeffrey Weingarten joined GFM as non-executive chairman in September 2010, following two years as a consultant to the business. The role of chairman will now be resumed by Mark Preston, group chief executive of Grosvenor.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Positive economic sentiment has helped drive investor appetite for global equities to its highest level in 3 1/2 years, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers for January. A total of 199 fund managers, managing a total of USD562 billion, participated in the global survey from 7 January to 13 January. A net 55 percent of asset allocators say that they are overweight global equities, the highest reading since July 2007. It represents a significant increase from December when a net 40 percent was overweight the asset class. At the same time, bond allocations fell. A net 54 percent is underweight bonds, up from a net 47 percent a month ago. Behind this rise is growing confidence in the global economy and corporate profits. A net 55 percent of investors expect the world’s economy to strengthen in 2011 with 39 percent predicting «above trend» growth in the coming 12 months, the highest reading since the question was introduced in February 2008. A net 57 percent believes that corporate profits will rise 10 percent or more this year, up from 45 percent in December. A growing majority expects global inflation to increase this year - a net 72 percent in January, up from a net 48 percent two months ago. But higher inflation is not seen necessarily as a threat. A net 42 percent of investors believe monetary policy is «too stimulative,» fewer than in November. «The combination of growth optimism and a benign view towards higher inflation provide a potent case for equity investment,» said Gary Baker, head of European Equities strategy at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. «Investors believe monetary easing is working; in the absence of either tighter policy or weaker data, equity enthusiasm looks contagious,» said Michael Hartnett, chief Global Equity strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. Growing belief in U.S. equities, already evident in December’s survey, has firmed significantly this month. A net 27 percent of the global panel is now overweight U.S. equities, the highest reading since November 2008 and surpassing December’s level of a net 16 percent. And a net 15 percent of the panel would like to overweight U.S. equities more than any other region, up from a net 7 percent in December. A net 43 percent expects the U.S. dollar to appreciate versus the euro or the yen on a trade-weighted basis, up from a net 14 percent two months ago. Japan has also benefited from improved sentiment. A net 57 percent of respondents to the regional Japanese survey expect the country’s economy to improve this year, up from a net 42 percent in December. Sentiment has improved steadily since September last year when there was an even split between those predicting a stronger economy and those expecting weakness. Since September, investors have consistently become more optimistic about Japan. Global emerging market support remains high but has continued to decline. A net 43 percent of asset allocators are overweight GEM equities, but this is lower than the net 56 percent two months ago. A net 20 percent of investors want to overweight GEM equities more than any other region. This reading has slipped from a net 31 percent in December. These lower readings come as belief in China’s economic prospects has eroded. A net 19 percent of respondents to the regional survey say that China’s economy will weaken this year. Two months ago, a net 16 percent forecast a stronger Chinese economy. Finally, European fund managers have started 2011 in stronger spirits. The proportion of the panel predicting a stronger European economy has leapt to a net 44 percent from a net 26 percent last month. An increasing number believe European companies will deliver improved earnings in 2011. This optimism comes as global concerns about EU sovereign debt fund risk have fallen away from the highs of December.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Absolute return funds returned to good health in the second half of 2010, after a difficult period for many of them, according to Standard & Poor’s Fund Services, Investment Week reports. After a weak second quarter, “the second half of the year was marked by a more vigorous equities market, which favoured the cleverer stock-pickers,” says Kate Hollis, director of fund research. The best-performing products were the Cazenove Absolute UK Dynamic, SVM UK Absolute Alpha, and Odey UK Absolute Return funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } For the year 2010, the distressed securities strategy was the best performer in the hedge fund arena, with gains of 13.8%, just ahead of convertibles arbitrage (+12.2%), according to the Edhec-Risk Institute. The worst results were for the short selling strategy which lost 16.9% for the year. Fund of funds strategy gained 5.2%.

Selon le sondage BofA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers de janvier, 55 % des allocataires d’actifs interrogés ont indiqué être surpondérés en actions internationales, ce qui est la proportion la plus élevée depuis juillet 2007. En décembre, ils n'étaient que 40 % dans ce cas. Parallèlement, 54 % des investisseurs institutionnels sous-pondèrent les obligations, contre 47 % le mois dernier.Cet engouement pour les actions s’appuie sur une confiance accrue dans la conjoncture mondiale et les bénéfices des entreprises : 39 % tablent sur une croissance supérieure à la moyenne pour les 12 mois qui viennent, ce qui est le résultat le plus élevé depuis que la question est posée (février 2008) tandis que 57 %, contre 45 % en décembre, estiment que les bénéfices des entreprises vont augmenter d’au moins 10 % cette année.D’autre part, 72 % des gestionnaires interrogés (contre 48 % il y a deux mois) pensent que l’inflation va augmenter cette année, mais cette inflation n’est pas considérée nécessairement comme une menace. Et la proportion d’investisseurs estimant que la politique monétaire est excessivement stimulante a diminué à 42 %.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The London-based management firm Polar Capital Holdings (USD3.1bn in assets as of the end of September) has decided to release its funds to German institutional investors, Das Investment has announced. Polar has asked Statum Capital to take charge of all of its marketing and sales activities in Germany.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of the end of December, assets under management or administration at Universal-Investment totalled EUR130bn, EUR18bn more than one year previously. Net subscriptions totalled EUR11.2bn, compared with EUR8.1bn for institutional funds and masterfunds, and EUR3.1bn for open-ended funds. Universal manages about EUR9.3bn for institutional investors in “Spezialfonds,” protected or overlay products.The Frankfurt-based asset management firm has also announced that Stefan Rockel was promoted on 1 January as a member of the board of directors. He will be in charge of development for the Luxembourg affiliate and investment product structuring, with the assistance of the local securitisation affiliate created in 2010.André Jäger and Oliver Schmucker, who have previously been heads of departments, are promoted as central directors. The former is now head of risk control and investment compliance. He becomes the central risk manager for the Universal-Investment group as a whole, with the additional mission of developing all reporting functions.Schmücker is now responsible for development of internalisation activities (administration and fund accounting, surveillance of respect for limit thresholds) and process management. Universal-Investment currently has about EUR20bn under administration for German, Austrian and Luxembourg clients.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of 1 January, Christopher Hönig, head of key accounts at SAM Sustainable Asset Management, has joined the asset management firm GAM in Germany as client director, Fondsprofessionell reports. With Karolyn Krekic, he will serve intermediaries and institutional investors.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Christoph Schumacher, director of indirect investments and structured products at Generali Deutschland Immobilien, CEO of Generali Deutschland Immobilien Verwaltungs and CEO of Generali Immobiliare Asset Management, will on 1 March 2011 become a member of the board of directors at Union Investment Institutional Property. He will be in charge of fund structuring and client relationship management.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In 2010, merger and operation activities in France increased 40.1% year on year, according to statistics from mergermarket. With 542 transactions, activity volume of EUR36.4bn means a spectacular increase of 90.6% in the value of operations. They have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels, as French mergers and acquisitions remain 75.7% below their 2007 levels, which measured EUR149.9bn in total. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions, which are three times higher than in 2009 with a total volume of EUR15.6bn, prove that France is attracting foreign investment once again, mergermarket says. French businesses are also more interested in foreign markets than last year. They made 18% more deals than in 2009.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 24 January, the roughly 90,000 shareholders in the open-ended real estate fund DEGI Europa (Aberdeen) will receive EUR9.70 per share, as part of a planned liquidation of the fund (see Newsmanagers of 25 October 2010). The distribution will total EUR254.1m, or more than 20% of the EUR1.2677bn in assets in the fund as of 31 December. The next redemption will come in July 2011. The total amount will depend on the outcome of sales of assets (see Newsmanagers of 18 January 2011).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } For German municipal authorities and charities, HypoVereinsbank (HVB) has launched the Luxembourg-registered Kommunal- & Stiftungsfonds Defensiv fund (LU0555949709, LU0555949964), managed by UniCredit Luxembourg, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The flexible fund is notable for its transparency, with specific, regular reporting. Allocation to equities may not exceed 25%, though allocation to bonds may go up to 100%. The management team may use futures and options to hedge for currency risks and manage durations. The fund may invest directly in securities, as well as in ETFs, ETCs, and other funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Conrad Mattern, a well-known fund adviser in Munich, who heads the analysis agency Conquest, will unveil the Prosperia Mephisto I fund this 19 January in Frankfurt, a fund which invests in firms symbolising the seven deadly sins, Handelsblatt reports. For pride, Mattern has chosen luxuries; for greed, he has chosen financials and discounters; for envy and jealousy, the advisor has chosen the lifestyle sector, while wrath is represented by prison operators. For lust, the manager has chosen “distractions for adults,” and for gluttony, he has chosen firms in the alcohol and tobacco sectors. Lastly, for sloth, the manager has selected shares in the leisure sector.

Funds of the Austrian-German management asset firm C-Quadrat as of the end of 2010 had total assets under management of EUR3.34bn, which represents an increase of 26% compared with EUR2.66bn as of 31 December 2009. Net subscriptions have also increased 23% compared with 2009, to a total of EUR804m.C-Quadrat also said that at the end of the year, it obtained the status of investment advisor from the SEC, which will allow it to manage or advise US funds for investors based in the United States.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Jean-Philippe Abougit, former director of sales for Natixis Multimanager, has joined the sales team at Neuflize Private Assets. He will serve distribution clients in France. Neuflize Private Assets, an affiliate of the ABN Amro group, manages EUR4.6bn in assets.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Credit Suisse has announced the listing of 45 ETF funds on NYSE Euronext in Paris. The range includes both funds based on swaps and physical replication products. It also includes one ETF of Chinese A-class equities, which complies with French OPCVM regulations. In total, 13 ETFs cover emerging markets. Credit Suisse, which has been present in the ETF market since 2001, manages assets of EUR9.2bn in this area. Currently, Credit Suisse ETFs are traded in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy; they are now also available in France.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Net subscriptions at Mandarine Gestion totalled EUR500m in 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 18 June and 20 December 2010). Assets as of the end of December total over EUR1.5bn, says Andreas Krebs, managing director and partner.The Mandarine Valeur fund, managed by Marc Renaud, has EUR1.1bn in assets, and has outperformed the Stoxx 600 by 30.4% in two years. The other Mandarine fund on sale in Germany, Mandarine Unique (EUR42m in assets) has outperformed the Stoxx Small 200 by 14.64% since its launch in March 2010.Mandarine will now release a third fund in Germany, the Reflex, which is managed by Marc Renaud and Joëlle Morlet-Selmer for stock-picking, in collaboration with François Rochette of Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EDRAM) for portfolio structuring. The product has assets of EUR114m, and has earned 28.35% since its launch in France in June 2009.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US asset management firm Pimco will take over the product sales activities previously provided by Allianz Global Investors, the asset management unit of the German insurer, Agefi reports. Now that the group has received permission from the regulatory authorities to open a German arm of its broker/dealer operation, Pimco Investments, the new entity will manage sales from New York from 11 April.

The third annual survey by Morningstar and Barron’s of the perceptions and use of alternative investments by 151 institutional investors and 669 independent financial advisers in the United States has found that use of this type of investment is becoming more popular, but that thevehicles used to invest in them are changing.Nadia Papagiannis, a strategist for alternative investments at Morningstar, says there have been USD2.7bn in net outflows in the first three quarters of 2010 from hedge funds monitored by Morningstar, while at the same time, net subscriptions to mutual hedge funds totalled USD17.3bn.Investors are seeking to reconcile the diversification offered by alternative strategies with the liquidity and transparency of publicly-traded vehicles. Managers are moving to meet this need, as hedge and commodity mutual fund products represented 14% of all funds launched in 2010, and 20% of all ETFs. Institutional investors prefer traditional mutual funds and ETFs toimplement their most liquid alternative strategies, but they continue to use hedge funds for less liquid strategies, such as arbitrage, distressed equities, and corporate actions.More than 70% of institutional investors surveyed predict that alternative products will represent more than 10% of their portfolios over the next 10 years, and 37% (compared with 25% in 2009) predict an allocation to alternative products of over 25%. More than half of IFAs predict that allocations by their clients to alternative products will increase by more than 10% per year in the next five years.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Larry Pitkowsky and Keith Trauner, two former portfolio managers of the Fairholme fund, are launching their own asset management firm, the Wall Street Journal reports. They say they are planning to use the same value approach that they used at GoodHaven Capital Management, which made the Fairholme fund the third best fund in the large cap category in the ten years to the end of December, with annualised returns of 11.5%.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The British Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Barclays GBP7.7m for abusive sales of funds. The FSA Accuses the British group of selling two funds from Aviva, the global balanced income fund and the global cautious income fund, to more than 12,000 clients, without verifying whether the products offered corresponded correctly to the buyers’ risk profiles. The FSA has also pointed to a lack of training for personnel at the bank, a lack of clarity in documents distributed to clients, poorly-adapted sales monitoring procedures, and very poor reaction at Barclays when the problems were discovered. Between July 2006 and November 2008, sales of shares in funds totalled GBP692m. The FSA states that Barclays, which has already paid out GBP17m in compensation to clients, may have to pay out another GBP42m.

Assya Compagnie Financière a annoncé, mardi 18 janvier, l’acquisition de la société de gestion de fortune MZ Finance et la création de Assya Asset Management Luxembourg - résultant de ce rapprochement. L’opération, qui a été réalisée par apport par les actionnaires de MZ Finance de la totalité des titres de celle-ci à Assya, a été préalablement autorisée par la Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) au Luxembourg.La création d’Assya Asset Management Luxembourg doit conduire au développement du pôle dédié à la gestion de fortune et la gestion d’actifs du groupe, précise un communiqué.

La banque centrale du Canada a maintenu hier le statu quo monétaire, sans surprise, et a légèrement revu à la hausse ses prévisions de croissance. Considérant que la reprise mondiale était plus rapide que prévu, elle a revu à 2,4% sa prévision de croissance pour 2011 et à 2,8% le chiffre pour 2012, contre 2,3% et 2,6% attendus en octobre.

China Investment Corp pourrait annoncer vendredi selon Reuters l’ouverture d’un bureau à Toronto. Le fonds souverain chinois, soucieux d’apparaître comme un investisseur présent mondialement, chercherait à se rapprocher ainsi des opportunités offertes par les matières premières canadiennes. Tout en bénéficiant d’un régime fiscal plus avantageux qu’aux Etats-Unis.

La banque néerlandaise notée AAA va émettre des titres tier 1 assortis d’une clause d’absorption des pertes

Les achats de titres américains à long terme par des étrangers ont nettement progressé en novembre dernier

Le député UMP propose un plafonnement de la déductibilité des intérêts et des droits de mutation pour les SCI domiciliées à l'étranger

Le journal officiel indique que les autorités ont fixé aux banques un quota de crédits de 7.200 milliards de yuans pour 2011, soit 10 % de moins que l'an passé

Dans un entretien accordé au quotidien, le président de la Bourse de Hong Kong, Ronald Arculli, qui se targue d’appliquer les «meilleures pratiques et normes internationales», assure qu’il entend maintenir la position de force de la place financière dans le monde en termes de cotation. La position de centre mondial du yuan offshore confère à ses yeux à Hong Kong un avantage inégalé.