The former Threadneedle manager Quentin Fitzsimmon has been appointed as head of portfolio and investment management on the RBS Short Term Markets team, Citywire reports. Fitzsimmon had been head of government bonds and currencies at Threadneedle, which he left in 2012. He joined RBS in March this year.

The ultra-high net worth (UHNW) segment, and their advisers in the United Kingdom, claim that equities, and particularly emerging market equities, agriculture and private equity, will be the best-performing asset classes in the next few years, according to a survey carried out by the multi-family office Fleming Family & Partners, Funds Europe reports. In terms of larger trends, in the context of an abandonment of bonds in favour of equities, high net worth investors are increasingly turning to alternative assets. Another lesson of the survey is that diversification is cited by a high percentage of investors, while real estate is considered the most attactive alternative asset class by more than one in two investors.

Blackrock has invested at least EUR10bn in companies listed on the Milan stock exchange, according to Il Sole – 24 Ore, quoting Capital IQ. It makes the asset management giant the first foreign investor in Italy. Telecom, Atlantia, Prysmian, Azimut, Banco Popolare, MPS… it is almost impossible to find an Italian company which does not count BlackRock among its 10 main shareholders, according to the Italian newspaper.

GLG has soft-closed its Market Neutral fund, managed by Steve Roth, as the strategy has topped USD1bn in assets after a wave of inflows, Investment Week reports. The objective with the soft close is to keep the fund nimble.

As part of an off-market transaction, the German firm Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has acquires the office building One Snowball (24,500 square metres), located in Birmingham, from Commerz Real. The sale price has not been disclosed. The property will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Europa.With properties in Manchester, Glasgow and now Birmingham, the investment volume of the Europa fund in the United Kingdom now stands at EUR520m, says Martin Brühl, director of international investments at UIRE.

In 2013, the consultant Scorpio Partnership has counted 60 takeovers, involving wealth managers worldwide, 28 of which took place in the United Kingom, where the Retail Distribution Review has led to a wave of consolidation, the Financial Times reports. Since 2008, 236 deals have been recorded; those represent assets transferred of USD1.770trn. A large proportion of assets have been acquired in the past 12 months, which shows that mergers and acquisitions are accelerating in the sector, the FT notes.

Union bancaire privée (UBP) is reportedly about to acquire the Geneva-based private bank Syz & Co, according to the Swiss magazine Bilan. The agreement in principle has already been signed. UBP already acquired the Swiss activities of ABN Amro in 2011, and of Lloyds in March this year. Assets under management at Syz totalled about CHF25bn as of the end of December 2012. At UBP, Jérôme Koechlin, a spokesperson contacted by Bilan, had no comment. The bank simply says that it is in talks with Syz to share common services. At Syz bank, the reports are refuted: “We have to date signed no agreement with this bank, nor with any other establishment elsewhere,” says Ricardo Payro, a spokesman for Syz.

Marcel B. Salzmanna was in early December appointed as head of Allianz Global Investors for Switzerland, Finews reports. Salzmanna previously served in a similar role at GMO. Before that, he was director of Invesco Switzerland. In his new role, he will aim to develop AGI’s activities on the Swiss market. He will report to Tobias Pross, managing director and head of the institutional activity of AGI in Europe.

Assets in non-traditional bond funds leapt by 76% in the United States in 2013, the Financial Times reports, citing Morningstar. Since January this year, USD51.5bn have been invested in the funds, which are sold under the name “absolute return” or discretionary,” bringing assets in the category to USD119.4bn.

On 17 December, NYSE Euronext announced the admission to trading on the Paris stock exchange of a new ETF from Lyxor Asset Management, the Lyxor ETF SX7T, which replicates the Euro Stoxx Bank index, and which charges 0.30%. The ticker code for the product is BNKE.As a result, the European markets of NYSE Euronext currently list a total of 561 ETFs 651 times.

The manager of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund – Global (GPFG), Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), has announced that in early December, it signed a joint venture agreement with MetLife Inc. The agreement will result in an initial investment of USD238m, for a GPFG stake of 47.5% in the One Financial Center office tower in Boston (120,800 square metres). The asset management of the platform will be provided by MetLife, which has increased its stake in One Financial Center Equity LLC, an affiliate of Beacon Capital Strategic Partners V LP, from 2.5 points to 52.5%.The joint venture between NBIM and MetLife will aim to invest “over a long period” in “class A” office properties in the major United States markets.

Mutual Fund Wire reports that Bill Miller, star manager and former Legg Mason CIO, has submitted an application to the SEC for the Miller Income Opportunity Trust (LMOPX), a mutual fund which he will manage, with the assistance of his son Bill Miller IV.The fund will be launched by LMM LLC, a boutique with USD.16bn in assets in which Legg Mason controls a stake.

Vanguard has announced that John J. Granahan will at the end of this year cease to participate in the management of the Vanguard Explorer Fund, Vanguard Variable Insurance Fund - Small Company Growth Portfolio and Vanguard U.S. Discoveries Fund, which are advised by Granahan Investment Management. Granahan, aged 77, is the co-founder of the firm, which he will continue to lead. The management of the funds will from the beginning of January be provided by Gary C. Hatton and Jane M. White, respectively chief investment officer and CEO of Granahan Investment Management.

The Swedish asset management firm Optimized Portfolio Management (OPM) has closed its fund CTA Efficient Global Equity Allocation (EGEA), Realtid.se reports. The fund, launched two years ago, posted gains of 10% in 2013, but has not met with the commercial success that had been hoped for it. OPM is 50% controlled by Carnegie Investment Bank, and 50% by its founders.

Investors enter 2014 optimistic about the global economy and outlook for Japanese and European equities, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey, undertaken between 6 and 12 December on a sample of 237 participants with a total of USD655bn in assets under management. The proportion of investors believing the global economy will strengthen in the year ahead has risen to a net 71 percent from a net 67 percent in November. Conviction in the global economy is far stronger than 12 months ago when a net 40 percent of the panel predicted it would strengthen. Similarly, the outlook for profits has ticked upwards month-on-month and is far stronger than the end of 2012. A net 41 percent believes global profits will improve over the coming year, compared with a net 11 percent taking that view a year ago. Preference for equities over bonds remains at historically high levels. The spread between equity overweights and bond underweights stood at 118 percentage points in December, compared with 76 points one year ago and just 19 points in July 2012. Investors demonstrated a strong preference for Europe and Japan. Global investors have increased overweight positions in Japanese and eurozone equities in the past month and indicated appetite for more, while domestic investors in each region have become more optimistic. “Weakness in the U.S. dollar next year is the biggest threat to positioning given a consensus to go long Japanese and European cyclicals,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. Investors and asset allocators have increased allocations towards banks over the past month. The net percentage of the global panel overweight banks rose to a net 17 percent from a net 12 percent in November. A net 22 percent of European respondents said they are overweight banks this month. Commodities and related stocks remain deeply unpopular. A net 31 percent of asset allocators are underweight commodities, up seven percentage points month-on-month.

As of the end of November, Vanguard had a total of nearly USD65.31bn in net inflows over 11 months, according to estimates by Morningstar. The second-largest actor in terms of net inflows was Dimensional Fund Advisors, with more than USD20.98bn, followed by JPMorgan with USD18.2bn, MFS (USD17.36bn) and OppenheimerFunds (USD15.41bn).Meanwhile, the largest net redemptions were from Pimco (USD20bn) and American Funds (USD15.7bn).In total, long-term funds posted net inflows of USD258.84bn in January-November, of which USD132.16bn were for allocation funds, while money market funds saw net outflows of USD14.33bn. Total assets in long-term funds as of 30 November totalled USD10.824trn, and money market funds totalled USD2.460trn.In terms of assets, only three firms as of the end of November had over USD1trn: Vanguard, with USD1.896trn, excluding money market funds and funds of funds; Fidelity Investments, with USD1.144trn, and American Funds, with USD1.086trn.

David Steyn, former COO of AllianceBernstein and CEO of Gulf International Bank since January 2013, will join Aberdeen Asset Management in January 2014 as head of Americas. He will replace Gary Marshall, who has spent four years in this position, and will return to the United Kingdom, “where he will continue to play a key role in the development of the group,” a statement says.

Assets under management at the alternative asset management firm SkyBridge, based in New York, totalled USD9bn as of the end of October 2013, compared with USD7.1bn as of the end of December 2012, Opalesque reports. The fund of hedge funds Skybridge Multi-Adviser Hedge Fund Portfolios has returned 9.73% in the first 10 months of the year. Since its launch in January 2003, its performance is 7.675 per year, compared with 3.94% for the HFR Fund of Funds Composite index in the same period. Assets in the fund have increased from USD2.7bn in August 2012, to USD4.5bn in October this year, an increase of USD1.8bn in the space of 14 months.

OppenheimerFunds has announced the appointment of Arthur Steinmetz, currently chief investment officer, as chief executive officer from 1 July 2014. Steinmetz will on that date replace William Glavin, who will remain as chairman of OppenheimerFunds. From 1 January 2014, Krishna Memani, currently head of bond investment, will replace Steinmetz and will assume the roleof chief investment officer. Also from 1 January 2014, John McDonough, head of sales nationwide, is promoted to head of distribution, replacing Philipp Hensler, who has left the firm.

The German asset management firm Buss Capital GmbH & Co. KG has selected Caceis to provide it with depository services for its closed funds investing in shipping containers, managed under the new “Kapitalanlagegesetzbuch” (KAGB) regime, according to a statement released on 17 December. Buss Capital, based in Hamburg, is a leader in the market for closed funds investing in containers in Germany, with 29 FCP funds, four private placements and eight direct investments. Dirk Baldeweg, executive director of Buss Capital, says: “Our objective was to select an experienced depository to allow us to fulfil the obligations of the KAGB regime, while concentrating our resources on the management of investments. The services of Caceis corresponded to our needs.”

Fitch Ratings said on December 17 that the newly launched negotiable certificates of deposits (NCDs) are eligible for inclusion in the agency’s rating analysis of Chinese money market funds (CMMFs) if they meet the agency’s national scale money market fund criteria and rating considerations for CMMFs. These new instruments are currently reserved for issuance by banks approved by PBOC (as of 12 December 2013 the PBOC had approved 10 issuers) and are currently restricted to deposit-taking financial institutions, policy banks and commercial banks which are assigned an annual quota. The first issue of NCDs, totalling CNY19bn (USD3.1bn), was offered Thursday last week.

The US financial sector regulatory authority Finra on 17 December announced the creation of a committee of investors, which will be responsible for advising Finra on all regulatory or other issues which may affect individual and institutional investors. The new committee will be operational from January 2014. Finra has also announced the appointment of two new members to its board of governors: Brigitte Madrian, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and a specialist in behavioural finance, and Luis Viciera, a professor at Harvard Business School, who is focused rather on asset allocation strategies for long-term investors.

Hedge funds are not as risky as one may think, according to a head at the US Treasury department, Richard Berner, who is responsible for the new office of financial research at the Treasury. Berner says that this provisional conclusion is based on an initial analysis of a broad battery of factors, including leverage levels at hedge funds, their risk modelling, and the difficult-to-estimate asset levels, the news agency Reuters reports. The collection of this data has been rendered possible by the Dodd-Franck law, which requires some large funds to submit confidential information to regulators, in order to help them better identify systemic risks. “These results may be provisional, but they appear to contradict the idea that hedge funds are major users of high-risk strategies,” Berner said at a press conference held by the Brookings Institution. Without prejudicing the results of work which has not yet been published, the international alternative management association (MFA), which represents primarily hedge funds, welcomed any analysis, however partial, which appears to suggest that hedge funds do not represent a systemic risk, and therefore do not need to be further regulated.

Generali Investments Europe a annoncé la nomination d’Antoinette Valraud au poste nouvellement créé de head of fixed income France. Basée à Paris, cette dernière est entrée en fonction le 16 décembre 2013. Elle est à la tête d’une équipe de 5 gérants et analystes qui gère 63 milliards d’euros d’actifs sur les 330 milliards d’encours de Generali Investments Europe. Antoinette Valraud était responsable fixed income capital markets EMEA chez Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management à Genève depuis 2011.

L’indice Ifo du climat des affaires en Allemagne, basé sur une enquête mensuelle auprès de 7.000 entreprises, a progressé à 109,5, en ligne avec le consensus, contre 109,3 en novembre. Il atteint ainsi son meilleur niveau depuis avril 2012, signe que la croissance de la première économie européenne pourrait s’accélérer l’année prochaine.

Le sterling s’apprécie mercredi de 0,6% face au dollar, à 1,63, après la publication de chiffres de l’emploi qui ont dépassé les attentes. Le taux de chômage au Royaume-Uni est tombé à 7,4% sur trois mois à fin octobre, contre 7,6% le mois précédent, non loin du seuil de 7% qui sert de balise à la politique monétaire accommodante de la BoE. Dans les minutes, publiées aujourd’hui, de sa dernière réunion mensuelle, la Banque d’Angleterre souligne d’ailleurs que la poursuite de l’appréciation de la livre pourrait menacer les exportations et la reprise de l'économie britannique.

Le prix du bitcoin s’effondrait de 38% ce matin après l’annonce de nouvelles mesures prises par les autorités chinoises pour endiguer la spéculation autour de la monnaie virtuelle. BTC China, la principale plate-forme d'échange de bitcoins du pays, s’est vu interdire d’accepter de nouveaux dépôts en cash et en renminbis de la part de ses clients, a-t-elle révélé mercredi. La banque centrale (PBoC) a par ailleurs demandé à une dizaine de prestataires de services de paiements dans le pays d’arrêter d’assurer la compensation des Bourses électroniques de bitcoins d’ici au nouvel an chinois, qui commence le 31 janvier. Mercredi midi, le bitcoin s'échangeait à 422 dollars, contre 990 dollars la semaine dernière. La Chine est le premier marché mondial de la monnaie virtuelle.

Vladimir Poutine a indiqué mardi que la Russie achèterait 15 milliards de dollars de dette ukrainienne. L’un des fonds souverains russes souscrira des eurobonds émis par l’Ukraine en 2013 et 2014. L’annonce a fait chuter de 370 pb les rendements des obligations ukrainiennes en dollar de maturité 2014, à 11,5%. Kiev a par ailleurs obtenu une baisse du prix des livraisons de gaz russe.

L’office national des statistiques (ONS) britannique a présenté mardi un projet de réforme de ses calculs de la dette publique, qui tient compte notamment de nouvelles règles d’Eurostat et du cas des banques nationalisées RBS et Lloyds. Cette réforme conduirait à augmenter de 112 milliards de livres la dette publique nette sur l’exercice fiscal 2012-13, qui atteint 1.182 milliards ou 74% du PIB.

Le président de l’Eurogroupe Jeroen Dijsselbloem a fait savoir mardi que la Grèce avait pris les mesures requises pour obtenir ce versement en modernisant son secteur public, en réorganisant son système judiciaire et en préparant le terrain à des privatisations. Un accord sur d’autres sujets, notamment le marché du travail, ne devrait pas être conclu avant janvier pour débloquer 4,9 milliards d’euros supplémentaires au titre de 2013.