Expansión, relayé par Fund People, rapporte que la commission de contrôle du plan d'épargne retraite de Telefónica a exigé du gestionnaire, Fonditel, qu’il adopte une politique d’investissement plus défensive, plus transparente et plus liquide, avec un contrôle de risque offrant davantage de garanties et de protection. Au 31 décembre, l’encours se situait à 3,09 milliards d’euros, dont 38 % en actions, 14 % en alternatif et le reste en obligataire. Après avoir perdu 26,86 % en 2008, le plan a encore accusé une perte de 6,97 % depuis le début de l’année.

Allianz Global Investors Allemagne (AGI) a terminé 2008 avec un encours de 259 milliards d’euros contre 290 milliards fin 2007, les remboursements nets représentant seulement 1,9 milliard d’euros.Les sorties nettes dans le retail ont atteint 9,9 milliards d’euros, à cause de rachats de 5 milliards pour les fonds monétaires, de 6 milliards pour les fonds obligataires et de 0,5 milliard pour les fonds d’actions, tandis que les fonds de fonds faisaient rentrer 3,1 milliards. Les investisseurs institutionnels ont apporté au total 8 milliards d’euros, dont 5,1 milliards dans des Spezialfonds et 2,9 milliards dans des mandats.

Selon La Tribune, les investisseurs se raccrochent aux marchés chinois et brésiliens car leur marché domestique sont solides et leurs banques moins exposées à la crise financière. Globalement, les émergents se portent mieux : «L’indice qui fédère l’ensemble des performances boursières de ces places résiste mieux sur cette période que l’indice mondial, et ne recule plus que de 14 %, contre 25 % pour le second», précise notamment La Tribune.

Alors que le secteur des hedge funds pourrait licencier 20.000 personnes en 2009, Asterias estime que l’encours des hedge funds recule de plus de 30 % depuis septembre mais que cette décollecte s’effectue notamment au profit d’autres gérants, indique sa responsable, Sophie van Straelen. Newsmanagers: L"encours de la gestion alternative recule très fortement depuis le début de l"année. Que se passe-t-il ?Sophie van Straelen : Les chiffres des encours à fin février 2009 ne seront disponibles en large majorité qu'à partir du 15 mars prochain. Les chiffres d’Asterias collectés auprés des gérants étaient de 21,1 milliards d’euros à fin septembre 2008 pour la multigestion et 7,6 milliards pour la gestion directe. Nos estimations montrent une baisse en moyenne de 30 % des encours depuis fin septembre. Les sorties d’encours ont été particulièrement fortes sur la multigestion depuis novembre dernier et vont continuer, avec notamment des fonds phares comme le fonds Phenix de Allianz Alternative. Quelques acteurs dont HDF Finance où Natixis MultiManagemer n’ont pas subi cette vague de sorties.- Peut-on imaginer une disparition pure et simple de ce type de gestion ?En gestion directe, les encours baissent encore fortement sur les fonds ARIA EL. Ces fonds sont amenés à disparaitre car peu commercialisables au détriment d’une vague de lancements de UCITs III.- Ce mouvement de décollecte va-t-il s"amplifier dans les mois qui viennent, notamment avec la fin des #gates#?Le mouvement de décollecte va se poursuivre chez certains acteurs mais au profit je pense d’autres gérants qui offrent une diversité de fonds de fonds et au profit d’investissements en direct.- Qu"observe-t-on sur le marché américain ?Sur les fonds enregistrés offshore où il y a très peu de statistiques fiables, la grande vague de baisses d’encours de prés de 50 % chez certains fonds de fonds s’est déjà effectuée à fin décembre 2008. Les encours de la base HFR estimés en gestion directe à 2.000 milliards de dollars à fin juin 2008 sont passés à 1.400 milliards à fin décembre 2008. Entre les baisses de performances, les sorties et les baisses de levier, une grande partie du mouvement de consolidation du secteur des hedge funds s’est passée.- Selon certains, les hedge funds qui continuent à déboucler des positions trimestrielles, sont responsables de la chute des marchés intervenue début 2009. Leur poids est-il suffisant pour provoquer un tel effet ?Il est possible que les débouclements de positions aient encore eu un impact sur les marchés mais cela reste marginal aujourd’hui. Par contre, les hedge funds réduisant leurs positions (les Long/Short sont notamment très sous-investis), cela a automatiquement un effet négatif sur la liquidité actuelle des marchés.- Quel avenir peut-on prêter à Asterias dans un contexte aussi mauvais ?Le marché de l’alternatif change dramatiquement et nous accompagnons ce changement. Son intégration progressive dans le monde de la gestion d’actifs implique que la frontière en Europe entre fonds alternatif et fonds de gestion active est aujourd’hui faible. Par contre, la recherche de talents reste une priorité pour les investisseurs et notre expertise d’analyse de 10 ans dans ce domaine est un atout.

Selon le cabinet américain de chasseurs de tête Options Group, on peut redouter pour cette année la perte de jusqu'à 20.000 emplois dans la gestion alternative, ce qui représenterait 14 % de l’effectif, après une baisse de 10.000 emplois en 2008, indique Bloomberg cité par Fondsprofessionell.De son côté, Hedge Fund Research rapporte que 920 hedge funds, soit 12 % du total, ont été fermés l’an dernier. Sur les 6.800 fonds restants, 70 % ont accusé des pertes en 2008, de sorte qu’ils ne pourront encaisser à nouveau des commissions de performance que lorsqu’ils auront regagné ce qu’ils ont perdu.

Selon L"Echo, le chef économiste d"ING,Peter Vanden Houte, estime que les conditions ne sont pas encore réunies pour revenir sur les actions même si les valorisations des actions, sous leur moyenne historique, plaident en leur faveur. Les marchés d’actions toucheront le fond lorsque l’immobilier atteindra son plancher, probablement d’ici à l'été 2009, mais il ne faut pas s’attendre à une vraie reprise avant 2010, estime l"économiste qui conseille de se tourner vers les obligations d’entreprises et liées à l’inflation.

Les prix des titres subordonnés reflètent leur caractère perpétuel et les incertitudes sur les paiements des coupons. Soit les pires scénarios

M&G Investments Germany has launched the M&G Global Emerging Markets Fund, managed with a bottom-up stock-picking approach by Matthew Vaight and Michael Godfrey. The portfolio of the open-ended British-registered fund (OEIC) consists of 50-70 positions, including shares in various regions, sectors, and cap sizes in the emerging markets category. The objective is to earn performance which will place the product in the top quartile of its peer group, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as its benchmark. The management process is the same one applied by the M&G global equities team, which managed more than EUR5bn as of the end of January.Front-end fees and management commission are 4%. and 1.75%, respectively, for class A shares, denominated in Euros or US dollars. Minimal subscription is set initially at EUR1,000 or USD1,000, and the minimum for subscriptions from a retirement savings plan is EUR75 or USD75 per month.

Axa Investment Managers Deutschland finished 2008 with assets of EUR49.6bn, compared with EUR56bn twelve months earlier. Despite net redemptions of EUR68m from open-ended funds, the manager has posted net subscriptions of EUR203m for last year, thanks to a 24.9% increase in institutional inflows to a net total of EUR271m. Axa IM says that this result compares with a 30% contraction in institutional subscriptions for the sector as a whole.

At the end of February, there were 1,603 ETFs in the world, with assets of USD593.49bn, issued by 85 providers, and listed 2,720 times on 42 stock markets, says Deborah Fuhr, managing director, global head of ETF research and implementation strategy at Barclays Global Investors (BGI). Since the beginning of the year, assets under management contracted by 26.9%, while the MSCI World index fell by only 18.4%, and at the same time the number of ETFs on sale increased by 0.8%, or 25 funds. Currently, 679 new ETFs are in preparation. Based on statistics from Strategic Insight, BGI states that for 2008 as a whole, funds other than ETFs suffered net redemptions of USD111.9bn, while ETFs posted net subscriptions of USD268bn.

The annual turnover in the portfolios of UK funds increased to 90% in the one-year period up to February 2009, compared with 50% in the 12 previous months, according to statistics from Financial Express, cited by Financial Times Fund Management. Last year, the proportion was only 30%. The impact on returns will be high, the newspaper remarks.

Since the beginning of the year, assets in ETF funds in Europe fell 9.6%, to a total of USD129.17bn as of the end of February, according to statistics from Barclays Global Investors (BGI). The decline is less strong than for the MSCI Europe index, which fell 20.7% over the same period of time.Deborah Fuhr, managing director et global head of ETF research and implementation strategy at BGI (the issuer of ETF funds under the iShares brand), says that as of 28 February, there were a total of 643 ETF funds in Europe, which is 7 funds, or 1.7%, more than at the end of December. These products, from 29 different providers, were listed a total of 1,597 times on 20 stock markets.At the end of February, the three top actors in terms of assets on the European ETF markets were iShares (BGI) with USD48.12bn in 145 products, Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale), with EUR28.71bn and 115 funds, and db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), with EUR22.71bn. These sums correspond to respective market shares of 37.3%, 22.2%, and 17.6%, which means that the three management firms between them accounted for 77.1% of the market. With the addition of the next four largest issuers, Credit Suisse, the cantonal bank of Zurich, EasyETF (Axa IM and BNPP AM) and ETFlab (DekaBank), the total market share for the top seven actors adds up to 90.2%.According to Lipper FMI, says BGI, ETFs in Europe have posted net subscriptions for all of 2008 of USD76.5bn, while all other categories of funds posted net outflows of USD495.1bn.

According to the latest monthly statistics from Lipper, the top Spanish management firms are planning to reduce exposure to equities in their portfolios and to increase the proportion of lower-risk assets in March. 61% of managers surveyed say that they are underweight in equities, and only 7.69% say they are overweight, Cinco Días says. Meanwhile, average allocations to cash increased to 34.65%, from 32.89%, in February. Cash now accounts for a higher percentage of portfolios than equities, which have fallen to 31.98% from 33.94%.

According to a study by International Financial Services, London (IFSL), assets in sovereign funds (SWF) increased 18% last year to a total of USD3.9trn as of the end of December. Losses on some investments, particularly of USD60bn invested in American, Swiss and British banks, were more than compensated for by an increase in currency reserves in Asia and oil revenues in arab countries. Sovereign funds supplied by revenues from the exploitation of commodities had assets as of the end of 2008 of USD2.5trn, while the others, generally supplied by transfers of state currency reserves or from budget surpluses, had USD1.4trn.IFSL also reports that assets in sovereign funds may double to USD8trn by 2015, of which 55% (up from 35% in 2008) would be in funds of the second category.In addition to sovereign funds, the IFSL says there are USD5.5trn in other sovereign investment vehicles, such as retirement savings funds, development funds, and government business funds.

According to statistics from Lipper Feri, funds of hedge funds in Europe underwent net redemptions in the last four months of 2008 of EUR15bn, Funds People reports. In the same period, dynamic money market funds saw net outflows of EUR19bn.

Santander Real Estate on Monday made the first payments to subscribers who requested redemptions of their shares in the Banif Inmobiliario real estate fund before 27 February. Cinco Días reports that, according to sources close to the management firm, the redemption payments totalled EUR160m.

Matthias, Count of Krakow, chairman of the board of directors at Sal. Oppenheim, on Monday told Handelsblatt that ?if and when a decision is taken about the sale of BHF-Bank, it will depend on the potential partner and the price.? Sal. Oppenheim bought BHF from ING in early 2005 for EUR600m, but since then it has made back most of the money it laid out. Selling the Frankfurt-based bank would not present any difficulties, since the firm has always operated independently. However, the price of EUR1.3bn being mentioned in financial circles would certainly not be attainable today.

Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and co-CIO at Pimco, predicts that the balance of power will be redrawn between the private and public sectors, Financial Times Fund Management reports. ?This will affect price formation, risks, and the structure of capital,? he says. Secondly, he foresees a ?massive concentration in the financial sector, which will have an impact on all segments of the industry.? Lastly, the global environment in which the United States was the solitary driver of global growth will be replaced by one in which several developing economies contribute to driving growth.

Nyse Euronext on Monday announced the launch of its new pan-European multilateral trading platform Nyse Arca Europe, ?which offers actors a way to trade 377 shares from 9 European countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland),? Les Echos reports. Nyse Euronext is planning to extend its offerings in April to include shares from Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The FBI is seeking to identify potential victims of Sir Allen Stanford, the Financial Times reports. The agency is looking for information about any persons who invested either in Stanford Financial Group or in its affiliates, Stanford Capital Management, Stanford Group Company, Stanford International Bank, Stanford Trust Company, and Bank of Antigua.

A selection of 6 businesses made available by Financière Fonds Privés will include privately owned SMBs and other small entities eligible for the Tepa and Dutreuil tax breaks.Financière Fonds Privés has selected 6 businesses which ?are likely to show goot prospects of returns? and which ?are in the sectors of specialised distribution, ultra high-end services, information management, and green energy,? the firm says.Access to this range of services will be open only to those who have been pre-approved for membership, and who, as qualified investors under article L.411-2 of the French CMF law code, would like to invest more than EUR35,000 per investment.The investment will also be available via IFAs. Financière Fonds Privés will charge investors front-end fees equivalent to 5% of the amount invested, and at exit, 20% of gross capital gains earned (excluding the tax break). ?Capital increases at the selected businesses ? will take place between 15 April and 15 May 2009, with a higher priority given to investors who declare their intentions before 15 April,? the management firm says.

Irving Picard, the administrator appointed to recuperate the money of victims of the Bernard Madoff fraud, will pay out money to 12 claimants, the Financial Times reports. Each will receive USD500,000 from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the non-government agency to assist clients of bankrupt brokers, though the sums being claimed by the victims are higher than USD500,000.

After gains in December and January, the Hennesse hedge fund index has posted losses of 0.8% in January, while the three major American stock market indices have posted total losses of 6% to 12%, the Wall Street Journal reports. Based on 59% of the usual sample, the CreditSuisse/Tremont index, for its part, is down 0.5%.

In fourth quarter, net redemptions from the hedge fund sector rose 689% to USD146.95bn, Lipper Tass reports. According to Hedge Week, in 2008 overall, net outflows totalled USD158.91bn, which represents 11.43% of total assets as of the beginning of the year, compared with 0.86% in the first three quarters. Net redemptions in fourth quarter, adjusted for market effects, caused a decline in total assets of USD1.29trn as of the end of December, compared with USD1.59trn as of the end of September.The four strategies hit hardest by net outflows were long/short equity (USD42.52bn), futures (USD23.95bn), event-driven (USD22.27bn), and multi-strategies (USD16.64bn).

The management firm ETFlab Investment GmbH, an affiliate of DekaBank (German savings banks) specialised in ETFs (EUR2bn in assets in 16 funds), on Monday announced the launch of six new German-registered bond products, the ETFlab iBoxx ? Liquid Sovereign Diversified 1-10, 1-3, 3-5, 5-7, 7-10 et 10+. The ETFs are backed by Euro zone government bonds, says the CEO of ETFlab, Andreas Fehrenbach. The underlying indices, with varying maturities, contain 25 bonds each, with a maximum of 4 issues per country. Management commission is set at 0.15%.

Hedge Week reports that Alpstar, a specialist in credit funds, has announced the creation of a strategic team specialised in restructuring and the recuperation of assets in distressed debt cases. The group has been created to respond to demand from pension funds who were seeking assistance with issues of this kind.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) on Thursday announced that its prohibition of short-selling financial sector stocks has been extended again, until 31 May. On 21 January, the Australian regulator had already extended the prohibition, which came into force on 13 November, until 6 March.

Stefan Hepp, CEO and founder of SCM Strategic Capital Management, says a study of 400 funds shows that 92% of private equity firms have five partners or fewer. Handelsblatt reports that 95% of firms employ no more than 30 investment professionals. For funds whose assets totalled EUR5bn to EUR10bn, the average number of partners is 10, and the number of investment professionals is 32.

The French credit and insurance firm Coface will set up operations in the credit default ratings business, Handelsblatt reports. Benoît Claire, chairman of the board at Coface Deutschland, says that the firm is not aiming to compete with the major ratings agencies, but instead will aim to cover small and mid-sized businesses. The major difference will be that Coface will rate businesses and not financial instruments. In addition, the validity of the rating will be limited to 12 months.

BlackRock has obtained a sales license for the European Absolute Return Strategies Fund, a Luxembourg-registered long/short product invested in 100 shares from 15 European countries, managed with an absolute performance strategy similar to the one used by David Littleton for the BlackRock UK Absolute Alpha fund, Das Investment reports. The fund, which carries a management commission of 1.5% and a performance commission of 20%, is managed by Vincent Devlin. The only difference with the British product is that pair trades are meant to bring in only 20% of performance, rather than 50%.BlackRock says retropolation shows that in second half 2008, the new fund would have earned performance of 5%, while the Euro Stoxx 50 lost 27% in the same period.