Sanlam FOUR, la filiale de gestion d’actifs du groupe Sanlam UK, a annoncé, hier, sa décision de changer de nom pour devenir Sanlam Investments. Ce changement est officiel à compter du 12 novembre 2018. La société FOUR Capital Partners avait été acquise par Sanlam en 2013 et rebaptisée Sanlam FOUR. La société gère aujourd’hui plus de 5,3 milliards de livres d’actifs au Royaume-Uni. « Cette nouvelle marque va permettre à Sanlam de s’aligner et de s’intégrer davantage au sein du groupe Sanlam UK », assure le gestionnaire d’actifs dans un communiqué.

Marshall Wace, l’un des principaux hedge funds au Royaume-Uni présidé par Paul Marshall, un fervent défenseur du Brexit, a renforcé ses activités à Dublin afin de se protéger contre le départ du Royaume-Uni de l’Union européenne, rapporte le Financial Times fund management. La Banque centrale d’Irlande a accordé à Marshall Wace une licence pour gérer des fonds Ucits et AIFM. Cela permettra au hedge fund de vendre des produits retail et alternatifs à travers l’Union européenne une fois que le Royaume-Uni l’aura quittée. La société avait déjà une petite activité en Irlande.

La société britannique Calastone, spécialisée dans les transactions sur les fonds, a lancé ce 12 novembre un nouvel indice mesurant les flux dans les fonds ouverts domiciliés au Royaume-Uni. Le nouvel indice, dénommé Fund Flow Index (FFI) répertorie les entrées et sorties nettes de capitaux, relativement à la valeur totale des parts achetées et vendues dans les fonds, avec un score entre 0 et 100. Un score de 100 indique une activité acheteuse à 100% alors qu’un score de zéro indique une activité vendeuse à 100%. Le nouvel indice sera publié sur une base mensuelle.La première livraison de l’indice se penche sur les quatre dernières années d’activité dans les fonds ouverts et analyse les différents événements de marché qui ont affecté les mouvements dans les fonds. C’est ainsi que le référendum sur le Brexit et les turbulences pétrolières qui ont suivi ont déprimé l’indice FFI à 47,8. En revanche, le FFI a culminé près de 60 en juillet 2015, après un début d’année chahuté.En octobre 2018, le FFI ressort à 51,6, son plus bas niveau depuis le deuxième trimestre 2016, après 54,2 au troisième trimestre 2018.Calastone constate également un ralentissement des flux dans les fonds britanniques. Depuis le début de l’année, les fonds ont ainsi collecté 29,9 milliards de livres, un montant en baisse d’un cinquième par rapport à l’année précédente. Le ralentissement a tendance à s’intensifier. Au cours des cinq derniers mois, le montant de la collecte représente la moitié seulement de ce qu’il était sur la période correspondante de 2017.

@page { size: 8.27in 11.69in; margin: 0.79in }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }TheSwedish pension fund AP3 has recruited Elena Westerdahl as seniorquantitative analyst for portfolio strategies. Westerdahl joins fromNordea, where she had been analyst in chief in Group Treasury ALM,Risk Analytics. She was also responsible for institutional clients atNordea Markets.

The Paris asset management industry is calling for a postponement of the extension of PRIIPs regulations to OPCVM vehicles, because the regulations have not been fully revised in all critical areas. “This regulation has the legitimate aim of better informing savings investors about their savings products, but since its partial implementation in 2018, it has found significant shortfalls, which work against informing clients well,” a statement says. The current OPCVM DICI document, which presents the key aspects of the product, will from 1 January 2020 be replaced by a new document, the PRIIPs KID, also used for certain insurance and banking products. “Professionals regret the inaction of the European Commission in this area, at a time when consumer and industry associations have reported fundamental problems presented by the PRIIPs document, repeatedly and in detail,” a joint statement by the AFG, AF2i, Anacofi, CNCIF, CNCGP and France Invest says. German asset management professionals (BVI) yesterday issued a similar statement (see separate article).“The PRIIPs information document, as used today, contains information which is extremely complicated for our clients to understand, requiring a high level of financial knowledge. The sophistication of the new methodologies prevents information being provided to clients which is clear, accurate, and not misleading,” a statement says. These points have been brought to the attention of the European Commission on several occasions. “After our repeated comments, and now aware of certain fault, the European financial authorities have announced a limited, urgent revision of the PRIIPs, which does not take into account the time necessary for full consideration to improve the text. Within this tight time frame, taking legislative procedures into account, actors would have only one or two months at the end of 2019 to come into compliance with the new PRIIPs standards, and to license thousands of affected products,” the statement explains.As a result, clients may not receive a key information document by January 2020, or worse, they may receive inaccurate documents. Paradoxically, the European authorities plan to simultaneously discontinue the most relevant document, the OPCVM DICI. This situation creates a risk of considerable disruption to the asset management industry, which would impact managers, distributors, investors, and savers. “We emphasize that we support the principle of the PRIIPs information document, which is intended to provide clients with consistent and comparable information about all savings products, and we do not want it to disappear. But we are today alerting the European authorities about two severe problems, namely, poor management of the timetable and the provision of inaccurate, unclear and misleading information which may discredit this European initiative,” the statement says.The attitude of the European Commission in this instance is “incomprehensible and regrettable,” although several concrete solutions which would be easy to implement have been proposed to avoid a worsening situation for consumers, the industry, and national regulators, the statement continues. “Ultimately, the wise decision we solemnly call on European regulators to take would be to postpone the extension of the PRIIPs KID until its faults can be corrected. Meanwhile, the OPCVM DICI document, which is satisfactory, would remain applicable.”

The sanctions commission of the French financial watchdog, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), on Thursday announced a fine of EUR250,000 against Keren Finance, and a separate fine of EUR650,000 fot its client Laurent Haegel, and a fine of EUR25,000 for manager Xavier Lagae. The commission accuses them of manipulating share price of the Compagnie du Cambodge, an affiliate of Bolloré, in 2015, a decision published on the AMF website says.Shares in Compagnie du Cambodge are listed on the A segment of Euronext Paris, where they are subject to a double daily fixing, with one fixing at 11:30 am (first fixing), and one at 4:30 pm (second fixing). According to the complaint, the Commission claims that “by introducing massive buy orders followed by massive sell orders (or the reverse) in the three sequences in question (between 10 April and 10 November 2015), in a market with limited liquidity, with these orders made ‘face to face’ in a concerted manner by Mr. Haegel and Keren Finance, had the sole objective of transferring shares in the Compagnie du Cambodge from one portfolio to another, without changing the beneficial owner, the suspects would have given false or misleading indications about the offering and demand for shares in Compagnie du Cambodge, which would constitute share price manipulation under the terms of clause 1° a) of article 631-1 of the AMF general regulations.”The market authority had levelled a fine of EUR450,000 against the asset management firm and its client, and EUR90,000 for the manager who had been responsible for the client’s portfolio of life insurance policies. The sanctions commission has adopted a more severe stance against Haegel, a retired individual, and softened its stance to Keren Finance. This is the second sanction against the asset management firm, which this year has already been sentenced by the AMF to pay EUR300,000 in fines for shortfalls in its obligations for projected posting of orders.

Paris-based alternative manager Boussard & Gavaudan has launched a US equity fund taking into ESG criteria and relying on machine learning technics developed by Bramham Gardens Investments, a Parisian company focused on artificial intelligence. The BG AI US Equities SRI was launched on 13 September 2018 and seeks to be aligned with the UN Global Compact principles. It invests primarily in US large cap companies while excluding firms that violate the rules set by the UN Global Compact through an ESG analysis and review conducted by an independent ESG rating agency. Also companies involved in the production of weapons and anti-personnel mines do not form part of the fund’s investment universe. In addition to this fund launch, Boussard & Gavaudan has started marketing its BG AI Long Short Equity fund towards German investors since German financial market authority gave its green light for the distribution of the product at the end of October. It is the fourth fund to be marketed in Germany by Boussard & Gavaudan.

Boston-headquartered investment firm Wellington Management has launched the Wellington Climate Strategy, that invests in companies adressing climate risks and environmental sustainability issues through their products or services. The fund will be run by Alan Hsu, global industry analyst at Wellington Management, and other analysts. A number of sub-themes will be played by the fund such as low carbon energy and transports, energy efficience as well as resources and water management. Wellington Management’s ESG team inputs will be integrated into the fund process.

Hedge funds posted declines in October as global equity markets experienced steep losses led by technology exposures. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index (FWC) fell -2.98 percent in October, the worst monthly decline since September 2011, as reported by HFR.The October decline brings down the YTD return of the HFRI FWC Index to -1.66 percent. Indicative of larger fund outperformance for 2018, the HFRI Asset Weighted Composite Index fell -2.71 percent in October, lowering the YTD return to -0.98 percent. Approximately one-quarter of hedge funds posted positive performance for the month, with the top decile gaining +6.6 percent while the bottom decile fell -13.7 percent. Global equity markets declined between -5.0 to -11.0 percent for the month.October declines were spread across all main hedge fund strategies, with the largest decline in equity market-sensitive strategies, as the HFRI Equity Hedge (Total) Index fell -4.25 percent, the worst monthly decline since January 2016. EH sub-strategies declines were driven by the HFRI EH: Energy/Basic Materials Index, which fell -8.0 percent, and the HFRI EH: Technology Index, which lost -4.7 percent. The HFRI EH: Equity Market Neutral Index returned the smallest decline for month at -0.6 percent, while the HFRI EH: Healthcare Index remained the leading area of EH sub-strategy performance thus far in 2018, with a YTD return of +10.55 percent.Macro strategies also declined in October, as the HFRI Macro (Total) Index fell -1.8 percent, though losses were partially offset by gains in fundamental, discretionary strategies.

@page { size: 8.27in 11.69in; margin: 0.79in }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }Spanishmutual funds have posted net outflows of EUR493m in October,according to statistics released by Inverco, the professionalassociation for asset management. The sector has reported a secondconsecutive month of net outflows, following EUR297m in net outflowsin September. Since the start of the year, net inflows now totalEUR11.36bn.Inthis setting, assets in common investment funds total EUR266.5bn asof the end of October, down by EUR6.18bn, or 2.3%, compared withSeptember. Since the start of 2018, assets have nonetheless increasedby EUR3.4bn, or +1.3%, compared with the end of December 2017.

@page { size: 8.27in 11.69in; margin: 0.79in }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }Aconsultation document concerning the key information document (KID)to be required under PRIIPs regulations, published on 8 November bythe European supervisory authorities (ESAs), including the banking(EBA), insurance (Eiopa) and market (Esma) supervisers, does notanswer the questions of German managers. “With the proposals of theESAs, information shortfalls in the information documents forsubscribers to products covered by PRIIPs regulations are notresolved, and the two controversial issues are not addressed,” theGerman association of asset management professionals (BVI) says in astatement released on 12 November.Theconsutation document says nothing at all about the methods ofcalculating transaction costs, the BVI states. Scenarios (stressed,unfavourable, moderate, and favourable) used as a basis to calculateprojections of future performance also remain intact, while thetreatment of past data produces inaccurate results, the professionalassociation says. Consideration of a longer period will onlyaccentuate the observed tendencies, the BVI says.TheESAs have themselves admitted that the time periods are too short todevelop new calculation methods, the association says. Theassociation has renewed its calls to postpone the introduction of thePRIIPs-KID document, scheduled for January 2020, until January 2022.

@page { size: 8.27in 11.69in; margin: 0.79in }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }TheUS investment fund KKR has sold offices and call centres located inFrance, mostly occupied by the telecommunications operator Orange,for over EUR100m, Eternam, the real estate affiliate of the Cyrusgroup, announced on 12 November. “These assets, located throughoutall of France, have a total area of over 86,000 square metres,”Eternam says in a statement, adding that the number of sites is about30. The offices and call centres have been sold to “privateclients,” the statement adds, but does not disclose their identity.Eternam has grouped the properties as part of a club deal. The sitesare “nearly all leased by Orange,” Eternam states, adding thatthe realty firm responsible for managing the assets, Etche, wouldretain responsibility, and a minority stake in capital.

Morningstar Investment Management Australia announced that Matt Wacher has been appointed chief investment officer for Morningstar Investment Management, Asia-Pacific, effective late January 2019. Wacher will be responsible for leading the investment management teams in Australia and overseeing the multi-asset and equity-managed funds and managed accounts capabilities. Wacher will be based out of Sydney and report to Daniel Needham, Morningstar Investment Management group’s president and global chief investment officer. Andrew Lill, who currently serves as chief investment officer, Morningstar Investment Management, Asia-Pacific, will continue to lead this area until Wacher has completely transitioned into the role. Following the transition of responsibilities in Australia, Lill will shift focus to his new role as chief investment officer, Morningstar Investment Management, Americas. Lill will be based out of Chicago and report to Needham.Wacher joins Morningstar from Cambooya Pty Limited, a large family office fund in Australia managing private assets, where he was appointed chief investment officer in 2015. Prior to Cambooya, Wacher served as portfolio manager at Qantas Super Ltd, a leading corporate superannuation fund. Wacher has an MBA qualification from Australian Graduate School of Management, Australian School of Business, and is a charterholder of the Chartered Alternatives Investment Association. As of Sept. 30, 2018, Morningstar’s Investment Management group was responsible for more than $207 billion* in assets under advisement and management across North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific.

athenahealth, a leading provider of network-enabled services for hospital and ambulatory customers nationwide, Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which an affiliate of Veritas and Evergreen will acquire athenahealth for approximately USD5.7 billion in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, athenahealth shareholders will receive $135 in cash per share.Following the closing, Veritas and Evergreen expect to combine athenahealth with Virence Health («Virence»), the GE Healthcare Value-based Care assets that Veritas acquired earlier this year. The combined business is expected to be a leading, privately-held healthcare information technology company with an extensive national provider network of customers and world-class products and solutions to help them thrive in an increasingly complex environment.Following the close of that transaction, the combined company is expected to operate under the athenahealth brand and be headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts. The company will be led by Virence Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bob Segert and an executive leadership team comprised of executives from both companies. Following the completion of the transaction, Virence’s Workforce Management business will become a separate Veritas portfolio company under the API Healthcare brand.

Insight Investment has developed a country rating model to explore how environment, social and governance - ‘ESG’ factors - affect sovereign debt portfolios. Insight’s rating model links sustainability and individual country risk, and responds to increased client interest in ESG portfolios. “Sovereign debt investors need more information to make informed decisions about the extent to which ESG factors are reflected in market prices,” said Joshua Kendall, senior ESG analyst at Insight. The model’s initial findings show most countries’ ESG performance has deteriorated and that governance in particular has been on a downward trend across more than half of developed market countries.

Andy Li has joined MFS Investment Management as portfolio manager based in London in November, NewsManagers has learned. He was hitherto overseeing two long-only credit strategies at Man GLG he joined in May 2014, the Man GLG Corporate Bond Professional and Man GLG Flexible Bond funds. Prior to that, Li worked as portfolio manager at ECM Asset Management where he focused on financials. There he managed the Diversified Financials Europe fund. Li started his career as an investment consultant at Accenture.

@page { size: 8.27in 11.69in; margin: 0.79in }p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }Thebanking group EFG International has appointed Ranjit Singh as its newdirector of risk. He will begin in the role and will join theexecutive board from 1 January 2019, the group says in a statement.Chief financial officer Dimitris Politis will serve in the positionin the interim until the end of the year. Singh will succeed ThomasMueller, who on Saturday was elected to tbe board of directors atRaiffeisen, and who subsequently left his position as chief riskofficer at EFG.Singhhas worked as director of risk at several different groups, includingStandard Life Aberdeen in London and Edinburgh, Swiss Re in Zurich,and Allianz SE in Munich.

East Capital has promoted Tim Umberger to partner, alongside Albin Rosengren (Dubai), Jacob Grapengiesser (Moscow), Karine Hirn (Hong Kong) and Peter Elam Håkansson (Stockholm).Tim Umberger is based in Moscow and is deputy head of Eastern Europe, advising on the Balkan strategy and Eastern European mandates as well as member of the teams for the Global Frontier Markets and Sustainable Emerging Markets strategies. A Slovenian national, he has been with East Capital for more than a decade, beginning his career as analyst for the Balkans, before being promoted to senior analyst in 2010, to portfolio advisor in 2012 and to deputy head of Eastern Europe in 2015. In addition to taking in a new partner, East Capital has also created a program that will allow for some individuals, working with investment, investor relations and management, to be promoted to the title of principals and become shareholders in the group.

Natixis Investment Managers a annoncé ce matin le recrutement d’une équipe de gérants thématiques seniors : Arnaud Bisschop, Frédéric Dupraz et Nolan Hoffmeyer, tous les trois précédemment chez Pictet Asset Management. «Deux gérants supplémentaires les rejoindront début 2019», précise le gestionnaire d’actifs dans un communiqué. L’an prochain, les nouveaux arrivants «lanceront une nouvelle gamme de fonds thématiques en commençant par les stratégies liées aux thèmes de l’eau, de la sécurité, de l’intelligence artificielle et de la robotique», ajoute NIM.

L’industrie des fonds spéculatifs a connu un mois d’octobre dramatique avec une performance moyenne négative de 3%.

Le groupe financier a réuni sa gestion d’actifs et ses expertises sur l’immobilier et le private equity afin d’améliorer l’efficacité commerciale.

Les principaux éléments du texte du traité sur le Brexit sont prêts pour être soumis ce mardi au gouvernement britannique, a déclaré hier Michel Barnier, selon le Financial Times, qui cite des diplomates au fait des négociations. Michel Barnier, négociateur en chef de l’Union européenne, a déclaré à des ministres des 27 pays membres de l’UE (hors Royaume-Uni) que «les paramètres d’un possible accord sont définis dans une très large mesure». Mais le porte-parole de la Première ministre britannique Theresa May n’a pas caché son scepticisme. «J’ai pris ce genre de choses avec des pincettes jusque-là . Cela s’applique aujourd’hui. Je rajouterais même des pincettes supplémentaires. Les négociations sont en cours», a-t-il dit.

AALPS Capital, un fonds d’investissements spécialisé dans le déploiement de solutions zéro-carbone, a annoncé ce 12 novembre la nomination de Sophie Desormière à sa direction générale. Sophie Desormière y apportera son expertise du monde de l’industrie automobile et de la chimie, deux secteurs essentiels à la transition énergétique. En effet, Sophie Desormière a passé 25 ans au sein des directions des groupes Valeo (17 ans), puis du groupe Solvay (8 ans), leader mondial de l’industrie chimique. Diplômée de l’université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (Paris VI), de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris (ENSCP) en génie industriel et de Harvard (PMD), Sophie Desormière occupait jusqu’en 2010 le poste de Directrice Marketing produit du Groupe et Directrice Amélioration de la vie à bord des véhicules pour Valeo, puis jusqu’en 2018 le poste de Directrice Générale Marketing stratégique et Ventes du groupe Solvay. Membre du conseil d’administration de Gentherm (société quotée au Nasdaq), et Membre du conseil de surveillance de Somfy (société quotée Euronext), Sophie Desormière apporte ainsi à AALPS Capital une expertise interdisciplinaire et internationale, ainsi qu’une vision des enjeux liés à la transition énergétique, vers des énergies propres. En tant que Chief Executive Officer, elle rejoint une équipe d’experts, aux compétences complémentaires, dans les domaines de l'énergie, de la mobilité et de la finance. La société de gestion annonce également qu’elle va bientôt lever son premier fonds dans le domaine de la mobilité verte basée sur l’hydrogène.

Andy Li a rejoint MFS Investment Management en tant que gérant de portefeuille en novembre, a appris NewsManagers. Le gérant, basé à Londres, était jusqu’alors à la tête de deux stratégies crédit long-only chez Man GLG qu’il avait rejoint en mai 2014, les fonds Man GLG Corporate Bond Professional et Man GLG Flexible Bond. Avant cela, Andy Li a été gérant de portefeuille diversifié à ECM Asset Management où il se focalisait sur les financières. Il y gérait notamment le fonds Diversified Financials Europe. Andy Li a également été consultant à Accenture où il a commencé sa carrière.

L'économiste Marie Albert, qui officiait depuis octobre 2017 en tant qu'économiste senior au sein de la Caisse des Dépôts, a été nommée conseillère de la directrice du Fonds monétaire international Christine Lagarde en novembre, renseigne son profil Linkedin. Marie Albert a été par le passé responsable de l’unité de risque pays au sein de la Coface et a occupé plusieurs fonctions à Bercy au sein du ministère de l’Economie et des Finances de 2009 à 2015, dont celles de responsable adjointe des prévisions internationales au moment où Christine Lagarde était ministre de l’Economie et des Finances mais aussi celles de responsable adjointe de la politique économique et des risques internationaux avec un focus sur la Chine et l’Amérique Latine.

Le hedge fund parisien Boussard & Gavaudan a lancé un fonds actions américaines répondant à des critères de sélection ESG et se basant sur des techniques de machine learning.

Deux anciens d’un family office viennent de créer une société de gestion de fortune dénommée Kidron Vermögensverwaltung, rapporte Private Banking Magazin. La nouvelle société sera dirigée par Carmen Bandt, qui a travaillé précédemment pendant six années pour Vertiva Family Office, une filiale de la Südwestbank. Franz Kaim a rejoint la nouvelle société, en provenance également de Vertiva Family Office, où il était gérant de portefeuille.

Le gestionnaire d’actifs allemand DWS vient de lancer un nouveau fonds axé sur l’innovation dans les technologies industrielles, a appris Citywire Selector. Baptisé DWS Invest Smart Industrial Technologies, ce nouveau véhicule a été lancé officiellement le 2 novembre 2018. Il est géré par Marcus Poppe, déjà en charge du fonds DWS Global Value. Cette stratégie investit dans les futures technologies au sein de différents secteurs d’activités. Le fonds cible plus particulièrement l’automatisation, la robotique, la numérisation et les infrastructures. Son indice de référence est le MSCI World Industrial Net TR.

Christophe Caspar rejoint le groupe en charge des gestions et Gad Amar sera responsable des activités commerciales