S&P Dow Jones Indices a annoncé le 29 janvier avoir accordé la licence du nouvel indice S&P SMIT 40 à la Commerzbank pour le lancement d’un ETF actions de ComStage ETF Sicav. Le fonds ComStage ETF S&P SMIT 40 Index TRN a d’ailleurs été admis à la négociation le même jour sur le segment XTF de la plate-forme électronique Xetra de Francfort (Deutsche Börse), où il est le 1.020ème produit coté. A titre de rappel, le 28 janvier, la cote du XTF comptait déjà officiellement 1.021 produits, ce qui signifie a priori que deux ETF ont disparu en un jour.L’indice S&P SMIT 40 couvre les quarante plus grandes sociétés de la Corée du Sud, du Mexique, de l’Indonésie et de la Turquie, c’est-à-dire les quatre plus grands marchés émergents dans la catégorie «Next Eleven» mise à la mode par Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM).Caractéristiques Dénomination : ComStage ETF S&P SMIT 40 Index TRNCode Isin : LU0860821874Indice de référence : S&P SMIT 40 Net Total Return EUR IndexTFE : 0,60 %

Selon finews.ch, Peter Jeggli devient le gérant principal du Fisch Bond Value Fund (CH0023966747) dont les actifs sous gestion au 28 janvier ressortent à 128,15 millions de francs. Peter Jeggli a été co-fondateur en 2003 d’Independent Credit View et a rejoint Fisch il y a un an. Fisch compte porter d’ici à mars à cinq personnes l'équipe de gestion de ce fonds haut rendement.En attendant, le gérant principal du fonds, Philipp Good, va se concentrer sur la direction de l'équipe crédit et sur la gestion du produit vedette de la maison, le Fisch Bond Value Investment Grade Fund, dont l’encours est passé en un an de 640 millions à 1.125 millions de francs suisses (+ 75 %) actuellement.

Selon les statistiques publiées le 29 janvier par l’Association luxembourgeoise des fonds d’investissement (Alfi), les encours des fonds domiciliés dans le Grand-Duché ont atteint le record de 2.383 milliards d’euros, ce qui représente une hausse de 13,7 % en un an, rapporte Investment Europe.Les souscriptions nettes ont porté durant 2012 sur 123,1 milliards d’euros et l’on recensait fin décembre 3.841 fonds avec 43.386 classes de parts.Marc Saluzzi, le président de l’Alfi, a souligné que cette évolution est la bienvenue pour le Luxembourg dans la mesure où le secteur des fonds d’investissement représente 8 % du PIB et génère 10 % des recettes fiscales.

En Chine, Goldman Sachs vient de céder 1,35 milliard d’actions ICBC à Hong Kong et profite ainsi du redressement boursier d’Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, rapporte L’Agefi. Goldman Sachs n’en est pas à son coup d’essai. En avril 2012, la banque avait cédé à Temasek un bloc de 2,5 milliards de dollars. Au total, la firme de Wall Street a déjà engrangé près de 8,8 milliards de dollars sur un investissement réalisé en 2006 pour un montant qui atteignait à l'époque 2,58 milliards, en direct ou à travers les fonds de sa gestion actions.

Le hedge fund activiste Elliott Management qui détient 4% du capital de Hess estime que le groupe new yorkais spécialisé dans l'énergie devrait conduire une revue stratégique approfondie de ses activités, incluant la scission éventuelle de ses actifs de gaz de schiste du gisement de Bakken, rapporte L’Agefi. Dans une lettre aux investisseurs, le patron d’Elliott Management, Paul Singer, recommande en outre de voter en faveur de cinq nouveaux administrateurs qu’il propose.

Les Etats-Unis veulent aller plus loin qu’un simple accord financier. La britannique Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) est certes proche d’un accord à 500 millions de livres sterling (environ 583 millions d’euros) avec les autorités américaines et britanniques dans l’affaire des manipulations du taux interbancaire Libor. Mais, selon le Wall Street Journal, les autorités américaines souhaitent pour leur part que la banque plaide coupable au pénal pour les manipulations. RBS y serait défavorable, selon des sources proches du dossier, craignant de s’exposer à une fuite de la clientèle et des procès coûteux.

La société de gestion créée en 1991 par Didier Le Ménestrel, Financière de l’Echiquier, doit annoncer ce matin l’acquisition de 100 % d’ Acropole AM, spécialiste des obligations convertibles, rapporte Les Echos. Créé en 2006 par trois anciens collaborateurs de Fortis, dont son président Jacques Joakimides, il gère aujourd’hui 780 millions d’euros d’actifs. Le prix de l’opération n’a pas été dévoilé, mais il serait « raisonnable » selon Didier Le Ménestrel, probablement proche des 3 % des encours sous gestion.Acropole AM avait été soutenu par l’UFG (devenu depuis La Française AM) qui détient 14,5 % du capital, Cheyne Capital et la Matmut en détenant par ailleurs respectivement 33,5 % et 1 %. Tous les trois vendent à Financière de l’Echiquier.

Si l’on en croit les statistiques publiées le 29 janvier par Morningstar, les sociétés de gestion français ont dans l’ensemble connu un 2012 «difficile», avec une collecte nette toutes stratégies confondues de 7 milliards d’euros pour les fonds ouverts domiciliés en France.Ce solde dissimule des disparités fort importantes, puisque les fonds monétaires ont pu enregistrer des souscriptions nettes de 19 milliards d’euros alors que les fonds de long terme subissaient des sorties nettes de 12 milliards.En dehors des fonds monétaires, seuls quelques gestionnaires sont parvenus à tirer leur épingle du jeu comme Axa IM et Oddo AM (sur les fonds obligataires principalement), Carmignac Gestion (sur les fonds diversifiés) ou encore TOBAM (sur les fonds actions).Parmi les gérants français les plus durement touchés, on retrouve les grandes banques, comme en 2011 : BNP Paribas, Amundi, Dexia, Lyxor ou Credit Mutuel. A noter d’ailleurs que BNP Paribas a subi la plus forte décollecte nette parmi toutes les sociétés de gestion européennes, avec des remboursements nets de 7, 53 milliards d’euros. Edmond de Rothschild se classe quatrième de ce «bide-parade» avec des sorties nettes de 2.146 millions d’euros. Pour compléter ce tableau, le Santander a subi une hémorragie de 3,593 milliards, Anima a supporté des sorties de 2,354 milliards et Fidelity a connu des remboursements de 1,845 milliard.

Pour le premier trimestre de cette année, Amplégest compte lancer un fonds d’actions internationales et un fonds «réactif» nourricier de l’Amplégest Multicap, annonce la société dont l’encours en gestion collective et privée a encore augmenté à 560 millions d’euros contre 550 millions il y a deux mois (lire Newsmanagers du 21 novembre) et 300 millions fin 2010.L’activité de gestion d’actifs, dont les encours s’élèvent à 220 millions d’euros, s’est rapidement développée au cours des dernières années et 50% de ses encours sont détenus par des investisseurs institutionnels. Le fonds flexible Patrimoine International, lancé fin décembre 2012 et dirigé par Xavier d’Ornellas, gérant au sein du pôle Flexible et Fonds dédiés, affiche déjà fin janvier des actifs de 15 millions d’euros. «Si les années 2011 et 2012 ont été pour Amplégest des années de structuration, les trois prochaines seront donc celles du développement et de la croissance de nos deux métiers», souligne dans un communiqué Arnaud de Langautier, président d’Amplégest.

A fin décembre 2012, La Française AM gère 37,2 milliards d’euros d’encours dont 27,6 milliards d’euros en valeurs mobilières et 7,8 milliards d’euros en immobilier. La société de gestion dirigée par Xavier Lépine a enregistré l’an dernier des souscriptions nettes de plus de 1,6 milliard d’euros. Dans le détail, la collecte provient de manière équilibrée des valeurs mobilières (800 millions d’euros) et de l’immobilier non coté (810 millions d’euros).En 2012, 27 % de la collecte du groupe a été réalisée hors de France, portant les encours gérés à l’international à plus de 4% des actifs totaux de La Française AM, précise le communiqué. La société de gestion indique avoir remporté «des appels d’offres significatifs"auprès d’institutionnels français et internationaux l’an dernier, pour un montant global de plus de 535 millions d’euros. Coté retail, les fonds à échéance, les fonds flexibles et les fonds actions PEA ont porté la collecte des valeurs mobilières en 2012. Du coté des fonds immobiliers non cotés SCPI, La Française AM affiche près de 380 millions de collecte brute pour un encours total s’élevant à 6,2 milliards d’euros.

AEW Europe, la société spécialiste du conseil en investissement et de la gestion d’actifs immobiliers a annoncé, mardi 29 janvier, qu’elle a installé dans une plateforme de 42.000m² à Dourges, au sud de Lille, la société Transfreight Automotive Logistics Europe pour le compte du fonds Logistis qu’elle gère. AEW Europe a signé un bail commercial d’une durée de 5 ans fermes. La transaction a été réalisée avec le concours de BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Legal & General Investment Management vient d’annoncer la nomination d’Aaron Meder au poste de Global Head of Solutions Group.Aaron Meder, jusqu’ici responsable de l’offre de solutions de retraite aux Etats-Unis, prend la succcession de Kerrigan Procter qui devient de son côté Managing Director Annuities.

According to statistics released on 29 January by the Luxembourg investment fund association (Alfi), assets in funds domiciled in the Grand Duchy have reached a record total of EUR2.383trn, an increase of 13.7% in one year, Investment Europe reports.Net subscriptions in 2012 totlled EUR123.1bn, and as of the end of December, there were 3,841 funds, with 43,386 share classes.Marc Saluzzi, chairman of Alfi, says this is a welcome development for Luxembourg, as the investment fund sector represents 8% of GDP and generates 10% of tax revenues.

As of the end of December 2012, La Française AM had EUR37.2bn in assets under management, of which EUR27.6bn were in securities, and EUR7.8bn in real estate. The asset management firm, led by Xavier Lépine, last year posted net subscriptions of over EUR1.6bn. Inflows have come in equal measure to securities (EUR800m) and non-public real estate (EUR810m). In 2012, 27% of inflows to the group were outside France, bringing assets under management internationally to over 4% of total assets at La Française AM, a statement says. The asset management firm says that it won “significant tenders” from French and international institutionals last year, for an overall total of over EUR535m. In retail markets, target-date funds, flexible funds and PEA equity funds drove inflows in 2012. For SCPI private real estate funds, La Française AM has posted more than EUR380m in gross inflows, for total assets of EUR6.2bn.

In the first quarter of this year, Amplégest is planning to launch an international equity fund and a reactive feeder fund associated with Amplégest Multicap, the firm, whose assets under collective and private management have risen to EUR560m, from EUR550m in November, and EUR300m at the end of 2010, has announced.Asset management activities, whose assets total EUR220m, have risen rapidly in the course of the past few years, and 50% of assets are held by instituitional investors. The flexible fund Patrimoine International, launched at the end of December 2012, and managed by Xavier d’Ornellas, manager in the flexible and dedicated fund unit, already has assets of EUR15m as of the end of January.“While 2011 and 2012 were structuring years for Amplégest, the next three years will be years of development and growth in our two professions,” Arnaud de Langautier, chairman of Amplégest since 9 July 2012, says in a statement.

Private equity investor Dyal Capital Partners (managed by Neuberger Berman), which aims to acquire minority stakes (15-20%) in hedge funds reserved for professionals, has recently entered the capital of two such companies, MKP Capital Management and Halcyon Asset Management, Pension & Investments reports.MKP has about USD6bn in assets under management in global macro, credit and fixed income strategies, while Halcyon has USD12bn under management in multi-strategy hedge funds based primarily on credit and distressed assets. Its majority shareholders have agreed to reinvest 80% of net profits from the sale of their shares to Dyal in the firm’s multi-strategy funds, for at least three years.Halcyon is the sixth investment for Dyal, which has already acquired stakes in CFM, MAST, Pinnacle, Scopia and MKP.

Financière de l’Echiquier, a French asset management boutique founded in 1991 by Didier Le Ménestrel, will this morning announce its acquisition of 100% of Acropole AM, a specialist in convertible bonds, Les Echos reports. The firm, founded in 2006 by three former Fortis employees, including its chairman, Jacques Joakimides, now has EUR780m in assets under management. The acquisition price has not been disclosed, but is said to be “reasonable” by Le Ménestrel, and is probably near 3% of total assets under management. Acropole AM had been supported by UFG (which has since become La Française AM), which controlled 14.5% of its capital, Cheyne Capital and Matmut, with 33.5% and 1% stakes. All three are selling their stakes to Financière.

The real estate specialist boutique from BNY Mellon, Urdang, has announced the appointment of P.J. Yeatman to the newly-created position of head of private real estate, with the mission of setting up and developing a strategy for the sector. Yeatman recently founded a consulting firm specialised in real estate, CoveredBridge Ventures. Urdang has about USD6.4bn in assets under management in publicly-traded real estate, via Urdang Securities Management, and USD2.3bn in private real estate, with Urdang Capital Management.

If statistics released on 29 January by Morningstar are to be believed, French asset management firms on the whole in 2012 had a “difficult” year, wih net inflows in all strategies combined of EUR7bn to open-ended funds domiciled in France.This bottom-line figure conceals more significant disparities, as money market funds were able to post net subscriptions of EUR19bn, and long-term fund suffered net outflows of EUR12bn.Aside from money market funds, only a few asset management firms managed to do well, such as Axa IM and Oddo AM (primarily for fixed income funds), Carmignac Gestion (for diversified funds) and TOBAM (for equity funds).Among the most severely affected French asset management firms are banks, as in 2011: BNP Paribas, Amundi, Dexia, Lyxor and Creidt Mutuel. BNP Paribas has seen the heaviest net outflows of any European asset management firm, with redemptions totalling EUR7.53bn. Edmond de Rothschild takes fourth-to-last place in the rankings, with net outflows of EUR2.146bn.To complete the picture, Sandander has seen outflows of EUR3.593bn, Anima has suffered outflows of EUR2.354bn, and Fidelity has seen redemptions of EUR1.845bn.

Aston Asset Management, based in Chicago, has renewed the custody, accounting, sub-administration, regulatory administraton and transfer agency mandate which has for the past 16 years been awarded to BNY Mellon Asset Servicing. The mandate covers the 25 funds from the firm, which represent assets of USD12bn.

On 30 January, Telefónica Germany finished its first quarter of listing on the stock market, and two US asset management firms announced that they had entered its capital. T. Rowe Price has acquired 0.47%, while Franklin Templeton Investments has acquired 0.1%, Cinco Días reports. The largest institutional shareholder remains BlackRock, with 3%.

Following the departure of the to co-heads of its emerging market debt team (EUR12bn n assets), Rob Drijkoningen and Gorky Urquieta, and the managers Bart van der Made, Raoul Luttik and Prashant Singh, ING Investment Management has announced that Sylvain de Ruijter has been appointed as director of the boutique. Fondsnieuws reports that the departing members will join Neuberger Berman (USD205bn, of which USD96bn are in bonds). According to other sources, they would set up a hedge fund with the held of an established company. De Rujiter, who has 23 years of experience in asset management, was responsible for the core fixed income strategy at ING IM, which he joined in 2001.Jaco Rouw has also joined the emerging market debt team. He has 19 years of experience in the area of bonds and currencies. He had previously been a senior portfolio manager for currency strategies in he strategy and tactical asset allocation group (STAAG).De Ruijter and Rouw will be responsible for positioning, transactions and day-to-day operational controlling of all emerging market debt funds and mandates, assisted in these various duties by the senior portfolio manager Joep Huntijena (Asia) and Victor Rodriguez (United States).The team includes 23 specialists in bond and emerging market investments. These professionals are based in the Hague, Atlanta, and Singapore.

The sovereign fund of the government of Singapore (Government of Singapore Investment Corp, GIC) has invested in a mortgage programm which will provide loans to the British commercial real estate sector totalling up to GBP1bn, according to a statement released by Laxfield Capital. Assets under management at GIC total over USD100bn.

finews.ch reports that Peter Jeggle is becoming the principal manager of the Fisch Bond Value Fund (CH0023966747), whose assets under management as of 28 January totalled GHF128.15m. Jeggli was co-founder in 2003 of Independent Credit View, and joined Fisch one year ago. Fisch is planning to increase the management team for the high yield fund to five people by March. Meanwhile, the principal manager for the fund, Philipp Good, will concentrate on directing the credit team, and on managing the firms’ flagship product, the Fisch Bond Value Investment Grade Fund, whose assets have risen in one year from CHF640m to CHF1.125bn (+75%).

The publication in the UK press on 28 January of reports that significant institutional mandates were lost abroad in 2012 by Swiss asset management firms (see Newsmanagers of 28 January) has provoked a wave of protest in the local financial community, finews reports. Swiss asset managers are pointing out that the development of the Swiss industry abroad is difficult to appreciate, insofar as the statistics published do not represent equivalent comparisons. A spokesperson for Vontobel has even raised doubts about the statistics published, and provided their own figures about the evolution of mandates (2010: 17 and not zero; 2011: 37 and not 6; 2012: 21 and not zero). More generally, Swiss asset management professionals claim that the publication of such figures is rather a sign of a deliberate smear campaign against the Swiss financial industry, in order to restore the reputation of the City, which may need it.

The euro zone crisis provoked a marked change in the landscape for funds in Europe. Bond vehicles saw unprecedented growth in 2012, Morningstar finds in an analysis of the major trends on the European market. Investors placed a record total of EUR176.5bn in these funds in 2012, for their best year since 2007. This change in the behaviour of investors may undoubtedly be interpreted as a sign of a quest for returns as well as an abandomment of European government bonds, which are no longer seen as a refuge asset. The size of these bond investments was exceptional in 2012, with a total equivalent to nearly ten times the total net inflows in the category in 2007 to 2011. With such flows of liquidity which took off in such a short time on sometimes cramped bond markets (such as convertibles), the excellent returns of bond funds in all categories in 2012 may easily be understood. Unlike in the United States, where investors’ interest in bonds dates back to 2007, the attraction of fixed income assets for Euorpean investors is a recent and more sudden trend. Before 2012, inflows in Europe were distributed fairly evenly between bond and equity funds. From 2007 to 2011, equity funds had higher inflows than bond funds, with a total of EUR28.4bn, compared with EUR18.6bn for bonds in the five-year period. This appetite for bond funds in 2012 was undoubtedly favoured by accommodating policies on the part of central banks, both at the short end of the interest rate curve (prime rates of nearly 0%), and unusually, also at the long end (quantitative easing in the USA, and OMT by the ECB). The study finds a wave of popularity of bond funds in the largest Morningstar categories, as 8 of the 10 largest categories in terms of net inflows in 2012 were bond funds. Inflows were driven by the “other bonds” category, a mixed group which includes flexible and target-date bond funds. This group of funds saw net inflows of EUR44.1bn, followed by emerging markets, with net inflows of EUR18.5bn to emerging market equities and EUR15bn for emerging market debt.

Investec Asset Management has apppointed an analyst, Antoon de Klerk, as co-manager of the Alternative UCITS fund for currencies, the Investec GSF EM Currency Alpha, Citywire Global reports. He will manage the fund alongside Werner Grey van Pittius.

The Munich-absed Xaia Investment (formerly Assénagon Crédit Management) on 16 January transferred its four funds, which represent assets of about EUR2bn, to the Universal-Investment platform.Among these products, three are open-ended, the XAIA Credit Basis (LU0418282348), XAIA Credit Basis II (LU0462885483) and XAIA Credit Debt Capital (LU0644385733), for retail shares.The last of these is the only one which remains open to subscriptions, with a front-end fee of up to 3%, and a management commission of up to 1.11%. The withdrawal penalty, currently 0.5%, will be reduced to 0.25% on 30 September. The fund also carries a 20% commission on performance exceeding the hurdle rate (Euribor 3-month + 200 basis points), with high watermark.

S&P Dow Jones Indices on 29 January announced that it has granted a license for the new S&P SMIT 40 index to Commerzbank, to create an equity ETF as part of the ComStage ETF Sicav. The ComStage ETF S&P SMIT 40 Index TRN fund was admitted to trading the same day on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic platform in Frankfurt (Deutsche Börse), where it becomes the 1,020th product listed. On 28 January, the listings on the XTF segment actually included 1,021 product, which means apparently that two ETFs disappeared in one day.The S&P SMIT 40 index covers the 40 largest firms of South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, the four largest emerging markets in the “Next Eleven” category made popular by Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM).CharacteristicsName: ComStage ETF S&P SMIT 40 Index TRNISIN code: LU0860821874Benchmark index: S&P SMIT 40 Net Total Return EUR IndexTER: 0.60%

David Scammell has left his job as head of fixed income strategies for the UK and Europe at Schroders, Investment Week reports. He had worked at the asset management firm since 2004. His funds will be redistributed among several managers.