Le spécialiste du courtage Newedge a annoncé le 13 décembre un projet visant à renforcer sa compétitivité face à l’évolution des marchés et de l’environnement réglementaire. Ce projet, qui prévoit notamment la séparation des métiers de d’exécution et de compensation, a pour ambition de conforter la position de leader de Newedge sur le marché, en s’appuyant sur sa plateforme reconnue de compensation de produits dérivés, et sur sa franchise d’exécution, offrant à ses clients un accès privilégié à la liquidité des marchés. Plus précisément, ce projet a pour objectifs de :· simplifier le périmètre des activités et le dispositif géographique de l’entreprise, en mettant l’accent sur les forces du groupe ;· optimiser l’efficacité des processus opérationnels, renforcer la gestion des risques et la maîtrise des coûts ;· séparer les activités d’exécution des futures et options financiers et celles de la compensation, en deux entités distinctes permettant une allocation plus efficace du capital et apportant une lisibilité plus grande pour les clients.« Que ce soit sous l’effet de la réglementation, des difficultés économiques, des turbulences sur les marchés ou encore de l’évolution des besoins de nos clients, le secteur des dérivés listés est à un tournant décisif. Le rythme et l’ampleur de ces changements ne peuvent que s’accentuer », commente Nicolas Breteau, Directeur Général de Newedge, cité dans un communiqué .« Le projet que nous présentons aujourd’hui, après une analyse stratégique de nos activités, constitue une solution mesurée et réfléchie face aux difficultés que rencontre notre industrie. Ce plan permettrait à l’entreprise d’alléger sa structure, de la rendre plus agile et plus tournée vers ses clients, renforçant ses perspectives de croissance sur le long terme. Nous entamons aujourd’hui un nouveau chapitre du développement de Newedge qui lui permettra de saisir les relais de croissance créés par les nouvelles conditions de marché, notamment dans le domaine de la compensation des opérations de gré à gré, » poursuit Nicolas Breteau.La stratégie proposée par la direction de Newedge bénéficie de l’appui marqué de ses deux actionnaires, Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank et Société Générale. Ceux-ci confirment leur soutien à Newedge et sont confiants dans la capacité de l’entreprise à mener à bien ce projet, qui renforcera ainsi sa position de leader sur son marché. Cette annonce fait suite à la tenue du conseil d’administration de Newedge ainsi qu’à l’information des instances représentatives du personnel en France sur ce projet. Le plan est soumis à la réalisation de plusieurs conditions, dont en particulier l’obtention de l’avis des partenaires sociaux et à l’approbation des autorités réglementaires.

Les encours des hedge funds en Europe du Nord ont dépassé les 200 milliards de couronnes suédoises à fin juin 2012, soit près de 23 milliards d’euros, selon une étude d’OE Capital citée par Fondbranschen. Cela représente une hausse de 22 milliards de couronnes par rapport à juin 2011, soit 2,5 milliards d’euros.L’étude a recensé 209 hedge funds. La Suède domine le marché de la région, avec 69 % du nombre de fonds, devant la Finlande (11 %), la Norvège (10 %) et le Danemark (8 %). Les managed futures/CTA constituent la principale stratégie (25 %).Fondbranschen note que de nombreux hedge funds ont une taille encore trop modeste, ce qui les empêche de drainer les capitaux d’investisseurs institutionnels, et conduit à des fermetures. Sur les 12 mois, 37 hedge funds ont fermé et 6 fonds ont été lancés.

Utz Schüller, qui a rejoint LRI Invest en mai 2011 (en provenance de PwC Luxembourg) comme responsable du fund controlling & finance, deviendra au 1er janvier membre du directoire chargé des secteurs Fund Accounting Alternative & Traditional Investments, Fund Controlling & Valuation, et Finance. Il sera également responsable de la nouvelle plate-forme de titrisation en tant que membre du directoire de LRI Invest Securitisation S.A. et LRI Invest Issuance S.A.Markus Gierke, le CEO, aura à l’avenir la responsabilité de tous les domaines de front office (Business Development Alternative Investments, Relationship Management, la succursale de Francfort et les participations) ainsi que l’informatique et l’organisation.Quant au troisième membre du directoire, Bernd Schlichter, il sera chargé des secteurs Risk & Reporting, Legal & Fund Consulting, Compliance, Internal Audit et Human Resources. LRI Invest emploie 90 personnes est gère plus de 8 milliards d’euros sur 230 fonds.

Le fonds de pension danois ATP (plus de 100 milliards d’euros d’encours) a nommé Carsten Stendevad comme nouveau directeur. Il vient de Citigroup à New York où il était managing director et chef global du Financial Strategy Group.Carsten Stendevad succèdera à Lars Rohde qui va devenir gouverneur de la banque nationale du Danemark le 1er février 2013.

Utz Schüller, who joined LRI Invest in May 2011 (from PwC Luxembourg) as head of fund controlling & finance, will on 1 January become a managing board member responsible for the Fund Accounting Alternative & Traditional Investments, Fund Controlling & Valuation, and Finance sectors. He will also be responsible for the new securitisation platform as a board member at LRI Invest Securitisation S.A. and LRI Invest Issuance S.A.Markus Gierke, CEO, will in future be responsible for all front office areas (Business Development Alternative Investments, Relationship Management, the Frankfurt office and shareholdings) as well as IT and organisation.The third board member, Bernd Schlichter, will be responsible for the Risk & Reporting, Legal & Fund Consulting, Compliance, Internal Audit and Human Resources sectors.LRI Invest has 90 employees and manages over EUR8bn in 230 funds.

Stoxx Limited on Thursday introduced the Stoxx Global 1800 EM Exposed Index. The new index represents those companies within the Stoxx Global 1800 Index that derive a substantial part of their revenues from emerging markets countries, thus providing exposure to these growing markets through liquid securities.

BNP Paribas Investment Partners is selling its fund of hedge fund affiliate Fauchier Partners to Legg Mason, the latter announced on Thursday. The firm sold, which as of 30 November had about USD6bn in assets under management, will be combined with Permal, the alternative management affiliate of Legg mason, to create a platform with approximately USD24bn in assets under management. The investment team for the entity will include 60 investment professionals based in New York, London, Paris and Singapore. It will be led by Robert Kaplan of Permal, and Clark Fenton of Fauchier Partners. The press statement released by Legg Mason states that Fauchier is particularly noted for equity hedged and event driven, and Permal for fixed income, credit and macro investing The sale of Fauchier by BNP Paribas IP is not a total surprise, in light of rumours on the subject which circulated in June this year. The asset management affiliate of the French bank will remain a partner of its ex affiliate «with a global distribution agreement for Fauchier and Permal products». The deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013, comes as part of a vast consolidation movement in the alternative multi-management sector. The number of funds of hedge funds has fallen below 1,900, a level not seen since first quarter 2005, according to the most recent statistics from Hedge Fund Research.

Comgest has announced the arrival of the Danish Emil Wolter as an analyst and manager for Asian and emerging markets. Wolter will be based in Paris, and will report to Vincent Strauss, chairman of the asset management firm. He will initially, for a few months, practice from Singapore. Wolter began his career in 1995 as a financial analyst, before becoming a manager-analyst for Asian and emerging market equities from 1997. After working at Pictet Asset Management in London, he took charge of emerging markets at Polar Capital Partners in London and Singapore. More recently, he has served as head of Asian equities in Singapore at the Royal Bank of Scotland and Macquarie, a statement says.

Carmignac Gestion yesterday announced the arrival of Vincent Steenman at the beginning of 2013 at a part of its management team, as manager of the long/short international equity fund Carmignac Market Neutral. The future recruit, who currently works at Zadig Asset Asset Management in London for over 5 years as a partner, will join the team dedicated to alternative strategies, alongside François-Joseph Furry, manager of the Carmignac Euro-Patrimoine fund. In practice, Steenman will replace Maxime Carmignac, who is taking a maternity leave. “When she returns,” a statement from the asset management firm says, “the daughter of Edouard Carmignac will assume managerial responsibilities at Carmignac Gestion.” Maxime Carmignac joined the management team in January 2010, to take charge of the Carmignac Market Neutral fund, after previously working in the United States and the UK.

BHF-Bank (Switzerland), a specialist in portfolio advising and management services, has announced that it has outsources its back office operations to Oddo Services. The Swiss private bank and the Oddo group have signed an agreement, the bank says in a statement released on 13 December. To this end, Oddo Services has created an affiliate based in Zurich. The perimeter of services includes back office, accounting and IT systems. Björn H. Robens, director and partner at BHF-Bank Switzerland, says “this partnership with Oddo will allow us to concentrate fully on our banking activities and to meet the needs of our existing customers. The partnership will considerably improve the effectiveness and solidity of our bank.”

The Japanese banking group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) on 13 December announced that it has acquired the 49% stake in a private banking joint venture to serve Japanese high net worth clients held by the US firm Bank of America Merrill Lynch.The joint venture, Mitsubishi UFJ Merrill Lynch PB Securities, founded in May 2006, is currently 50.98% controlled by the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Gruop, via two affiliates, and 49.02% controlled by Merrill Lynch Japan Securities.After the change, the two affiliates of MUFG (The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings) will control 49% and 51%, respectively, of shares in the entity, which offers services to Japanese high net worth investors.The transaction, valued at about JPY40bn, or nearly EUR400m, will be completed on 26 December.

UBS has closed the Swiss-domiciled version of its Japanese equity fund due to a decline in investment in the strategy, Citywire reports. The UBS(CH) Equity Fund – Japan P, launched in 1972, had CHF44m (EUR36m) in assets when the firm decided to close it at the end of September.

Net inflows to German investment funds in October totalled EUR13.2bn, according to the German fund management association (BVI). Open-ended funds attracted EUR3bn in the month under review, while dedicated funds posted subscriptions totalling a net EUR6.6bn. Bond funds have posted net inflows of EUR4.1bn, while since the beginning of the year, subscriptions already total EUR24.1bn. In October, bond funds denominated in US dollars attracted EUR1.7bn. Open-ended real estate funds, for their part, have posted inflows of EUR0.2bn. All other asset classes finished the month with outflows. Redemptions totalled EUR0.1bn for equity funds, EUR0.3bn for diversified funds, and EUR0.6bn for money market funds. Assets under management in the German fund sector totalled EUR1.988trn as of the end of October, of which EUR952bn were for institutional investors, and EUR715bn for open-ended funds.

In the first ten months of this year, net subscriptions to open-ended security funds in Germany totalled EUR11.9759bn, the BVI reports. These overall results, however, conceal significant disparities, as Allianz Asset Management Group alone has net inflows of EUR21.3128bn, of which EUR17.2945bn were for Pimco.The other major firm to post net subscriptions is Union Investment (German co-operative banks), with EUR1.7123bn.However, the Deutsche Bank group has posted net outflows of EUR2.8035bn, while Deka (savings banks) has seen net redemptions of EUR4.6909bn.In the ETF segment, only ETFlab (Deka) has posted net subscriptions, with EUR470m, but other providers show outflows. iShares from BlackRock has seen net outflows of EUR1.1701bn, higher than the EUR1.0289bn at ComStage (Commerzbank) and EUR776.5m at db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank).In terms of assets, the Deutsche Bank group continues to lead, with EUR139.408bn, slightly ahead of Allianz Asset Management (EUR131.7397bn). Deka, with EUR89.6182bn, no longer has a large lead over Union (EUR87.7192bn).

Funds People reports that the asset management affiliate of Banco Sabadell, Bansabadell Inversión, has now absorbed the investment funds into those from Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM), SGIIC Gestora de Fondos del Mediterráneo, one year after the Bank of Spain awarded CAM to Sabadell.Bansabadell Inversión has 72 securities funds under management, with assets of EUR4.117bn, while the CAM affiliate manages 22 funds with a total of EUR345m. The entity emerging from the merger will become the seventh-largest Spanish asset management firm by size, ahead of Ibercaja Gestión.

The asset management firm ProShares, based in Bethesda, Maryland, on 13 December announced the launch of the ProShares Merger ETF (acronym: MRGR), which it claims is the first ETF based on a “genuine” merger arbitrage strategy, on the BATS alternative platform. It will replicate the S&P Merger Arbitrage Index.The TER is 0.75%, one basis point less than the IQ ARB Merger Arbitrage ETF (NYSEArca ticker: MNA) from Index IQ.

In the next five years, Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft is planning to focus on high net worth retail clients with at leat EUR5m in disposable financial savings, with the objective of earning total net profits in 2017 of CHF10m to CHF20m, compared with CHF7m transferred last year to its parent company, the Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba), the Börsen-Zeitung reports.

On Thursday, 13 December, the conciliation commission for the two houses of the German Parliament (Bundestag and Bundesrat) voted 19 to 10 to repeal ratification of the German-Swiss tax agreement. The agreement is now completely repealed, Fondsprofessionell reports.The agreement had included a grandfathering clause for final and anonymous regularisation of illegal sums of money at total tax rates of 21% to 41%, which would have brought in EUR10bn for Germany. Subsequent capital gains would habe been taxed at 26%.Instead, the existing regime will be maintained, under which the German tax authorities will be required to seek administrative assistance from Switzerland on a case-by-case basis, providing concrete indices.Switzerland has not ruled out negotiating a new agreement, says Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, head of the Federal council (Swiss government).

Assets in hedge funds in Northern Europe topped SEK200bn as of the end of June 2012, or nearly EUR23bn, according to a study by OE Capital cited by Fondbranschen. This represents an increase of SEK22bn compared with June 2011, or EUR2.5bn. The research covered 209 hedge funds. Sweden dominates the market in the region, with 69% of total funds, followed by Finland (11%), Norway (10%) and Denmark (8%). Managed futures/CTA represent the most popular strategy (25%). Fondbranschen notes that many hedge funds are too small, which prevents them from attracting assets form institutional assets, and results in closures. In the past 12 months, 37 hedge funds have closed while 6 have been launched.

Pioneer Investments has announced the appointment of two senior investment professionals in Dublin. Vianney Hocquet joined the firm as a corporate portfolio manager and Elisabeth Van Sante joined as a credit analyst. Vianney Hocquet, who joins from BNP Paribas where he was a credit trader on the fixed-income proprietary desk, reports to Tanguy Le Saout, head of European fixed income. Elisabeth Van Sante, who joins from Credit Agricole CIB in London, where she was a credit research analyst covering European financials, reports to Garrett Walsh, head of credit research Europe. Pioneer Investments manages over EUR90 billion globally in fixed income assets.

Deutsche Bank on 13 December announced that its new Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) unit now includes ETFs and alternative management activities which had previously been a part of Corporate Banking & Securities (CB&S). As of 30 September this year, assets under management in these ETFs and alternative products totalled EUR100bn, the bank says in a statement. Deutsche Bank has also warned of poor results for fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, due to several one-time effects, including an ongoing restructuring of its activities, the integration of Postbank, and reductions of high-risk assets. These one-time items will have a significant negative effect on the bank’s profits in fourth quarter 2012, the bank says in a statement. In addition, fourth quarter has so far been marked by a difficult macroeconomic environment, with lower volatility and the usual end-of-year seasonal slowdown, the group adds. Despite this unfavourable context, the bank posted solid operating results in October and November for all of its core activities, the statement says. Deutsche Bank has also stated that it has completed an examination of its non-strategic activities, which totalled EUR122bn as of 30 September 2012, and which in November were moved into a separate entity.

One week after UBS announced the closure of four branches in Germany, Credit Suisse has become the next to cut back its presence in the country. According to reports in Finews, the Swiss firm is planning to close branches in Bielefeld, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart. The Braunschweig branch may also be in danger.

The Danish pension fund ATP (over EUR100m in assets) has appointed Carsten Stendevad as its new director. He joins from Citigroup in New York, where he was managing director and global head of the Financial Strategy Group.Stendevad will succeed Lars Rohde, who will become governor of the National Bank of Denmark on 1 February 2013.

The chairman of Henderson Group, Rupert Pennant-Rea, will stand down from the board at the annual general meeting in May 2013, when he will have been a director for almost nine years. He has been appointed to the Royal London Group board as a non-executive director and chairman designate. A comprehensive search for his successor is underway. In addition, the asset manager has announced a change in its tax residency from the Republic of Ireland to the UK by means of a corporate restructuring. Furthermore, as all strategic decision making will now reside in the UK, the board has decided to reduce the number of executive directors on the board and therefore David Jacob and James Darkins have stepped down with effect from 12 December 2012.

Man Group is weighing up major accounting write-offs next year relating to its 2010 acquisition of GLG Partners, after the recent announcement that Emmanuel Roman is to be the new chief executive of the company, according to the Financial Times. The hedge fund manager could discount goodwill by “between USD500m and USD1bn”, said Peter Lenardos, analyst at RBC.

Schroders has announced the launch of Schroder ISF EURO High Yield, a new fund which will invest a minimum of 70% in a portfolio of bonds rated below investment grade, mainly from European issuers.The fund will be managed by fixed income fund manager, Konstantin Leidman. Konstantin, who currently manages the euro high yield component of Schroder ISF Global High Yield, joined Schroders in August 2012 from UBS Global Asset Management.

The London-based management firm Boost ETP has obtained a license from Deutsche Börse for the ShortDax x 3 and LevDax x 3 indices; it has also received licenses from Stoxx Ltd for the Euro Stoxx 50 Daily Leverage 3 and Euro Stoxx 50 Daily Short 3 indices. The corresponding leveraged and inverse ETPs were admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange on 13 December.

L’Agence France Trésor a annoncé l’adjudication, le lundi 17 décembre, de bons du Trésor (BTF). Cette opération portera sur des montants compris entre 3,0 et 3,4 milliards d’euros de bons à 12 semaines qui arriveront à échéance le 14 mars, entre 800 millions et 1,2 milliard d’euros de bons à 21 semaines à échéance du 16 mai, et entre 1,5 et 1,7 milliard d’euros de bons à 51 semaines à échéance du 12 décembre.

Fitch Ratings a maintenu la note «AAA» attachée à la dette souveraine de la France, tout en prévenant que le niveau attendu d’endettement du pays en 2014 se situe à la limite compatible avec cette évaluation, la plus élevée dans l'échelle. La perspective liée à cette note reste négative avec un risque de dégradation légèrement supérieur à 50%, sur lequel Fitch statuera dans le courant de l’année prochaine, précise l’agence. Pour le ministre de l’Economie et des Finances Pierre Moscovici a voulu voir dans cette annonce « un encouragement pour le présent parce que cette agence dit bien que la France va dans la bonne direction, que nous sommes en train de faire des réformes structurelles dont ce pays a besoin, notamment sur la compétitivité, en train aussi de réduire nos déficits, de nous désendetter, ce qui est indispensable», a-t-il dit sur Europe1.

Le Wall Street Journal croit savoir que la banque chinoise est en négociations pour acquérir une part de contrôle (60% avec option jusqu’à 80% à moyen terme), pour 600 à 700 millions de dollars aujourd’hui, de l’activité de trading de matières premières et de changes de Standard Bank à Londres. ICBC est le principal actionnaire du vendeur pressenti, basé en Afrique du Sud.