According to a CNMV survey, competition on the Spanish investment fund market is weaker than the abundance of products may lead one to believe, Funds People reports. This large number of funds actually allows major asset management firms to increase their dominance, as investors prefer to limit themselves to a single provider. And banks perfectly control their entire distribution chain ! The CNMV states that the four largest asset management firms in the country have increased their market share from 36.2% in 1995 to 49.2% in 2010.

From 1 January 2013, Commerz Real will apply the terms of the new law (Anlegerschutz- und Funktionsverbesserungsgesetz) for real estate funds to shares in its open-ended real estate fund hausInvest ( DE0009807016), which had more than EUR9.43bn in assets as of the end of August: there will be a one-year advance notice period for redemptions, a minimal two-year investment duration for new subscribers, and a limit for withdrawals by retail investors to EUR30,000 per half-calendar-year period (see Newsmanagers of 14 February 2011).

The Syz & Co group has announced the launch of the Oyster Emerging Opportunities fund. Although the emerging market equity fund aims to outperform the usual MSCI Emerging Markets NR Net USD index, it is not based on that index for the construction of the portfolio, but instead on a new index developed internally by Syz Fund Research. The index, the Syz Emerging Markets Index, is equally weighted between the 21 countries which compose the MSCI EM index, adjusted for market liquidity. The index is rebalanced once per year, or in the case of exceptional events. The management strategy, undertaken by Acadian Asset Management, limits changes in allocations to countries to +/-2.5% compared with the index, and 5% ex ante tracking error from the Syz Emerging Markets index.Acadian uses a multi-factoral optimisation model, which allows for the introduction of constraints, such as those imposed on the fund for country allocation or risk budget. The fund does not have sectoral constraints, and invests in companies with a market capitalisation of at least USD200m. The portfolio will contain about 200 holdings, with a turnover of 40% to 80%.CharacteristicsEUR share class: LU0497641547Management commission: 1.50%

Invesco has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 49 percent interest in Religare Asset Management Company (RAMC) Limited, the asset management arm of Religare Enterprises Limited (REL), which is among the top fifteen asset management companies in India, with combined assets under management of over USD2.6 billion (as of August 31, 2012). The joint venture, Religare Invesco Asset Management Company, will be headed by Mr. Saurabh Nanavati (CEO- RAMC) along with the existing management team. Invesco currently has a presence in India (Mumbai) through its affiliate WL Ross & Co. It also operates an enterprise center in Hyderabad, first opened in 2006, employing more than 600 staff across a range of global support functions including information technology, investment operations, finance, compliance and human resources. «This addition will enhance Invesco’s presence in an important and growing market, while providing Religare’s clients access to our broad range of investment solutions,» said Martin L. Flanagan, President and CEO of Invesco Ltd.

James Fleming, who became CEO of Arbuthnot Latham in March, and who was previously head of international private banking at Coutts, has announced three recruitments for the prive bank and wealth management. Liz Bottomley, who had been senior manager/client partner in the division directed by Fleming at Coutts, will take over as head of the private bank at Arbuthnot, Investment Europe reports. Kieran McDonnell is also leaving Coutts, where he had been senior financial planning specialist, to become senior chartered financial planner at Arbuthnot. Lastly, Linda Amili Clack becomes head of Middle East private banking. She had most recently been head of Mubarakia Family Office.

From November, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) will cease to provide investment advising services to clients with less than GBP100,000 in financial savings to invest, Money Marketing reports. The decision is motivated by the fact that according to a survey, investors are generally not willing to pay an advising fee. The clients concerned will be referred to Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.The discontinuation of the service will affect about 1,000 advisers, but LSB states that it does not plan any involuntary layoffs.

In its “trading update” for 26 September, Liontrust Asset Management reports that between 1 April and 24 September, net subscriptions totalled GBP181m, compared with GBP59m for the half-year to 30 September 2011. In the same period, asset sincreased to GBP2.364bn, from GBP1.529bn as of the end of March.Assets under management for retail clients as of 24 September totalled about GBP576m, while institutional assets totalled GBP1.749bn.

Fundweb reports that Ignis Asset Management has confirmed that James Senior, its head of marketing, has left the firm. His position will be removed in the wake of a reorganisation.

David Mitchinson, Japan manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, is leaving the firm, Investment Week reports. His fund will be managed by Robert Lloyd, manager of the JF Japan Sicav from the group.

Legal & General Investment Management has announced the appointment of Colin Reedie as head of European credit portfolio management. He will begin on 1 October. Reedie joined LGIM in 2005 from Henderson Global Investors. Following the appointment, Robert Barnard-Smith will singlehandedly direct the UK Investment Grade credit team.

Tim Geithner, secretary to the US Treasury, has called for reforms to the money market sector, the Financial Times reports. In a letter to the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which includes the largest Federal financial regulators, he cites several optoins, including increased capital and liquidity requirements, limits on activities, supervision by the Federal Reserve and forced shift to floating prices. The board will meet on Friday to discuss the proposals, which follow a failed effort at reform by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

With the creation of Berenberg Office, the oldest private bank in Germany has united the teams responsible for wealth management for entrepreneurs (Unternehmer Office), charities (Stiftungs Office) and family office, Consilisto Berenberg Privat-Treuhand GmbH, in a single unit. Berenberg Office will operate independently of the four Berenberg divisions (private banking, investment banking, asset management and corporate banking).The reshuffle will result in the departure of Eberhard Hofmann, co-head of Berenberg Office and co-CEO of Consilisto, who says that he “did not find a satisfactory place after the reogranisation.”Meanwhile, Berenberg has announced the recruitment of Magnus, count von Schlieffen, from 1 November, as co-head of Berenberg Office. He had most recently been a member of the executive committee at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Frankfurt, and will be the alter ego of Marc Breidenbach.

Alex van der Velden, head of equity strategies at PGGM, has left the Netherlands-based pension fund with EUR125bn in assets, with three colleauges (Antoinette van Lier, François Schockaert and Otto van Buul), to create his own socially responsible equity fund, IPE.com reports. Felix Landers has been appointed to provisionally replace him at PGGM.

Amundi, a French leader in socially responsible investment, with assets of over EUR25bn, is absent from the list of funds which have newly been awarded an SRI label form Novethic, released on Wednesday morning. The asset management firm did not wish to apply this year, as it did with 31 funds in 2011. The reason given by a spokesperson from Amundi contacted by Newsmanagers is a “change in methodology in the attribution of labels.”This absence contributed to reduce the number of candidate funds, from 184 in 2011 to 140 in 2012, and the number of labels awarded, which fell from 156 to 109. But the reduction in the number of funds granted the label is also due to a higher percentage of funds declined this year, compared with the previous year: 22%, up from 15%.This increase is a direct result of tougher methodology in the attribution of labels. This year, Novethic is requiring that SRI fund providers seeking the label to prove that their analysis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria has an impact on the selection of businesses in the portfolio. This is a delicate exercise, which largely involves comparing portfolios to the universe analysed on the basis of environmental, social and governance criteria. Overall, “28 out of 31 funds were rejected for ESG analysis having too slight an impact on management,” says Dominic Blanc, head of research at Novethic.

RBC Investor Services has announced the launch of its Global Derivatives Platform, a new, fully integrated global operating model for listed and OTC derivatives. This single platform and operating model was developed to deliver middle and back-office services to listed and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives for a wide range of global clients.

Amundi is acquiring 7.5% of NextStage, an asset management firm specialised in investment in French publicly-traded and private small and mid companies, with EUR300m in assets under management. The stake was acquired from Artémis, the financial holding company of the Pinault group, which also retains a 7.5% stake. The remainder of capital, 85%, remains in the hands of the firm’s chairman, Grégoire Sentilhes, and partners. The acquisition of the stake is a new stage in a partnership as a part of which Amundi has already outsourced some of its FCPI funds to NextStake, a spokesperson for the asset management unit of Crédit Agricole and Société Générale explains. “That allows us to make the relationship ongoing,” he adds. Amundi has more than EUR700bn in assets (as of the end of June 2012), of which EUR4bn are in private equity. The operation comes after an acquisition in May this year of 17.5% of capital in Tobam by Amundi. When asked about the reasoning behind these acqusitions, the spokesperson for the asset management firm responds that the objective is to offer a range which includes the best expertise to clients, based on internal as well as external expertise.

Deka Immobilien GmbH has purchased a real estate property with 50,300 square metres of area, located in Mönchengladbach, from Erste Logistik Entwicklungsgesellschaft MG GmbH, an affiliate of DHL, for about EUR30m.The logistical centre is currently wholly leased to the Irish clothing retail chain Primark. It will be added to the portfolio of teh open-ended real estate fund WestInvest TargetSelect Logistics, a sectoral fund reserved for institutionals.Deka has also announced that it has sold the office property located at Via Disciplini 3 in Milan to the Italian asset management firm Arca SGR. The property had been in the portfolio of the open-ended retal fund Deka-ImmobilianGlobal since 2003. The sale is motivated by a change in strategy by Deka, which does not wish to retain assets with a value of under EUR10m. It was the last Italian property in the portfolio of ImmobilienGlobal.

From 1 October, the largest equity fund from Union Investment, UniGlobal (DE0008491051), which has EUR7.26bn in assets, will be managed by Gunther Kramert, the central asset management firm for the German co-operative banks has announced. The new manager is a senior portfolio manager for global equities, and had previously been co-manager of the fund.The current manager, André Köttner, who had been in the role since June 2007, and who joined Union in 1998, has resigned and is leaving the business on 30 September. According to sources in professional circles, Köttner is joining DWS (Deutsche Bank group).

The Swiss asset management firm Swisscanto has obtained a sales license for Germany from BaFin for its UCITS-compliant hedge fund Swisscanto (LU) Equity Fund Long/Short Selection International, a Luxembourg-registered long/short market neutral product (see Newsmanagers of 17 August). The fund has also been approved by the Austrian FMA.

Christian Wrede, CEO of Fidelity Investment Services GmbH, will be taking over the responsibilities of Kerstin Behnke, head of distribution for Germany, who joined the firm from Gartmore 15 months ago (see Newsmanagers of 17 May 2011), for an interim period, the asset management firm has confirmed to Fondsprofessionell. Behnke has resigned “to take on other professional challenges.”

In first half 2012, assets in Asian hedge funds increased by 2.5%, or USD3.5bn, to a total of USD144bn as of 30 June China Daily reports, relayed by HedgeWeek.Assets under management in Hong Kong have increased by USD6.5bn, to a total of USD47.1bn, while assets managed in Singapore have fallen by slightly over USD1bn, to USD19.8bn. Assets in Japanese hedge funds have fallen 41%, to USD5.72bn.

Alex van der Velden, le responsable des stratégies actions de PGGM, a quitté le fonds de pension néerlandais de 125 milliards d’euros avec trois collègues (Antoinette van Lier, François Schockaert et Otto van Buul) pour créer son propre fonds responsable en actions, rapporte IPE.com. Felix Lanters a été nommé par PGGM pour le remplacer provisoirement.

Cerberus Capital Management a indiqué à la banque japonaise Aozora dont il détient 55 % du capital qu’il souhaitait céder sa participation, rapporte L’Agefi. En tenant compte de la chute de 9% du cours que la nouvelle a provoquée en Bourse de Tokyo hier, l’investissement de Cerberus est valorisé 190 milliards de yens, l'équivalent de 1,9 milliard d’euros. Aozora a également fait part de la démission de son directeur général Brian Prince, qui souhaite «passer davantage de temps avec sa famille». Il siégera au conseil et cède son fauteuil de direction opérationnelle au président Shinsuke Baba.

Trente-et-un gérants de « hedge funds » figurent au classement des 400 Américains les plus riches, établi par le magazine « Forbes » pour l’année 2011, soit 8 % des individus les plus aisés, rapporte Les Echos. Un record. Les 10 premiers représentent une richesse évaluée à 91,1 milliards de dollars. A côté de George Soros (19 milliards de dollars), de James Simons (11 milliards de dollars) de Renaissance Technologies, ou Ray Dalio (10 milliards de dollars), encore aux commandes de Bridgewater, toute une nouvelle génération de « hedge funds » se presse au portillon. C’est notamment le cas de Chase Coleman (1,5 milliard de dollars), un des « bébés Tigre » choyés par Julian Robertson, de Tiger Management, précise le quotidien.

Pourtant leader français en matière d’investissement socialement responsable avec plus de 25 milliards d’euros, Amundi est absent de la nouvelle liste des fonds ISR labellisés par Novethic dévoilée mercredi matin. La société de gestion n’a en effet pas souhaité être candidate cette année, alors qu’elle avait présenté 31 fonds en 2011. La raison avancée par un porte-parole d’Amundi contacté par Newsmanagers est «le changement de méthodologie pour l’attribution des labels».Cette absence a pesé sur les candidatures, descendues de 184 à 140 entre 2011 et 2012, et de fait sur le nombre de labels attribués, qui a chuté de 156 à 109. Mais la réduction du nombre de fonds primés s’explique aussi par un taux de fonds recalés plus important cette année par rapport à l’année précédente : 22 % contre 15 %.Une hausse qui est le résultat direct du durcissement de la méthodologie pour l’attribution des labels. Cette année, en effet, Novethic demande désormais aux promoteurs de fonds ISR souhaitant obtenir le label de prouver que l’analyse des caractéristiques ESG (environnement, social, gouvernance) a un impact sur la sélection des entreprises en portefeuille. Un exercice délicat qui consiste notamment à comparer les portefeuilles aux univers analysés en fonction de critères environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance. Et au total, «28 des 31 fonds ont été rejetés pour un impact trop faible de leur analyse ESG sur la gestion», indique Dominique Blanc, responsable de la recherche de Novethic.Quant à savoir si ce label, conçu pour promouvoir les fonds ISR auprès des particuliers, a atteint son objectif, Anne-Catherine Husson Traore, directrice générale de Novethic, se montre nuancée. «Nous avons contribué à offrir un repère aux particuliers, mais nous voyons bien que le maillon entre les sociétés de gestion et les réseaux de distribution reste grippé».

Le groupe Syz & Co a annoncé le lancement du fonds Oyster Emerging Opportunities. Si le fonds actions émergentes a pour objectif de battre l’indice habituel MSCI Emerging Markets NR Net USD, il ne se base en revanche pas sur ce dernier pour la construction du portefeuille, mais sur un nouvel indice développé en interne par l’unité Syz Fund Research. Cet indice, le Syz Emerging Markets Index, est équipondéré entre les 21 pays qui composent l’indice MSCI EM, avec un ajustement en fonction de la liquidité du marché. L’indice est rebalancé une fois par année ou en cas d'événement exceptionnel. Confiée à Acadian Asset Management, la stratégie de gestion limite à +/-2.5% les écarts d’allocation par pays entre le fonds et l’indice et à 5% l’erreur de tracking ex ante par rapport à l’indice Syz Emerging Markets. Acadian utilise un modèle multi-factoriel d’optimisation, ce qui permet d’introduire des contraintes, telles que celles imposées au fonds en matière d’allocation par pays ou de budget de risque. Le fonds n’a pas de contraintes sectorielles et investit dans des sociétés ayant une capitalisation boursière d’au moins 200 millions de dollars. Le portefeuille devrait compter environ 200 positions, avec un turnover de l’ordre de 40 % à 80 %.CaractéristiquesClasse EUR : LU0497641547Commission de gestion : 1,50 %

Au premier semestre 2012, l’encours des hedge funds asiatiques a progressé de 2,5 % ou de 3,5 milliards de dollars, pour se situer à 144 milliards de dollars au 30 juin, rapporte le China Daily, relayé par HedgeWeek.Les actifs gérés à Hong-Kong se sont accrus de 6,5 milliards pour atteindre 47,1 milliards de dollars pendant que ceux gérés à Singapour diminuaient d’un peu plus d’un milliard de dollars à 19,8 milliards. Quant aux encours des hedge funds japonais, ils ont plongé de 41 % à 5,72 milliards de dollars.

La semaine dernière, la Suède était le premier grand pays européen depuis la crise financière à annoncer un plan de relance. De fait, le pays, tout comme ses voisins nordiques, détonne dans un paysage européen marqué par la rigueur. Ces nations, incluant aussi la Norvège, la Finlande et le Danemark, affichent un endettement faible et pour certaines d’entre elles des excédents budgétaires. Et leurs entreprises se portent bien. Un terrain favorable pour les sociétés de gestion nordiques comme SEB Wealth Management et Nordea Investment Funds qui n’hésitent plus à mettre en avant leurs produits d’actions locales en France. Certes, si la zone euro devait imploser, la Suède, la Norvège, le Danemark et la Finlande ne seraient pas épargnés, d’autant que la région reste le premier partenaire des pays nordiques pour les exportations, selon Tommi Saukkoriipi, qui gère le SEB Nordic depuis environ un an. Néanmoins, ce dernier souligne que la part des marchés émergents grandit. Martin Nilsson, qui gère le fonds Nordea 1 – Nordic Equity Fund que Tommi Saukkoriipi gérait d’ailleurs précédemment, souligne quant à lui que les pays nordiques ne sont pas dépendants des pays du sud de l’Europe et que les plus gros marchés d’exportation sont l’Allemagne, l’Asie et les Etats-Unis.Autre préoccupation grandissante : l’appréciation de la couronne suédoise et de la couronne norvégienne face à l’euro qui à terme pourrait pénaliser les exportations des entreprises locales très tournées vers l’international. Pour Martin Nilsson, le problème se pose surtout pour les petites entreprises. En revanche, les grandes sociétés ayant des unités de production locales seront peu affectées. C’est également l’avis de Tommi Saukkoriipi. Il ajoute également que tout est question de compétitivité et souligne que la Finlande, le seul pays nordique à avoir adopté l’euro, a conservé la même compétitivité que son voisin suédois.

Dirk Bednarz a rejoint au 1er août RBC Investment Services SA à Luxembourg en tant que directeur du développement pour l’Allemagne et l’Autriche, rapporte Fondsprofessionell. L’intéressé a été pendant cinq ans l’un des trois dirigeants de l’agence de conseil et de notation allemande Kommalpha, en dernier lieu comme membre du directoire (lire Newsmanagers du 6 octobre 2010)

Le gestionnaire helvétique Swisscanto a obtenu de la BaFin l’agrément de commercialisation en Allemagne de son hedge fund coordonné Swisscanto (LU) Equity Fund Long/Short Selection International, un produit acheteur/vendeur market neutral de droit luxembourgeois (lire Newsmanagers du 17 août). Le fonds a également reçu l’homologation de la FMA autrichienne.