Since the beginning of September, Allianz Global Investors Europe GmbH has been absorbed by Allianz Global Investors Kapitalanlagegessellschaft mbH, which has simultaneously changed its name in Allianz Global Investors Europe GmbH. This will now be the firm’s name throughout Europe, and the firm will retain the legal status of German-registered Kapitalanlagegessellschaft (KAG).The move makes it possible to simplify structures and foreground the fact that AGI uses a pan-European strategy, says James Dilworth, CEO of AGI Europe.

The German asset management firm UBS Real Estate Kapitalanlagegessellschaft mbH has announced that on 5 September 2015, it will cancel the management mandate for its real estate fund UBS Real Estate Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH, and that subscriptions and redemptions of shares in the fund will be suspended permanently. The management of the fund will be transferred on 5 September 2015 at midnight to the depository bank (Caceis Bank Deutschland), which will be in charge of selling off assets and delivering the proceeds of sales to shareholders on a half-yearly basis.Redemptions were suspended in October 2010, due to excessive demand. Since then, the asset management firm has sought to generate cash through sales of assets. Six properties have since been sold, at or above their expert valuations, for about EUR153m (23% of assets), but that will not be enough to satisfy the redemption demands.Overall, 10 German open-ended real estate funds are now in the liquidation process. Their assets total about EUR20bn, nearly one quarter of all assets managed by funds in this sector.

Graham Clapp has recruited a former colleague from Fidelity, Jonathan Relph, as an analyst, for his absolute return boutique based in London, Pensato Capital, Citywire reports. Clapp previously managed the Fidelity Funds – European Growth fund.

Gemini Investment Management is planning to launch a platform in the UK to sell its funds, Money Marketing reports. Gemini offers distribution and marketing services to fund managers who have limited experience in European markets. The firm also advises managers of foreign funds. Smart Alexander, managing director of Gemini Investment Management, points out that the firm currently has a platform in Ireland which includes both UCITS and non-UCITS products. “In the next twelve months, we will try to launch a British platform which will satisfy all regulatory requirements,” says Alexander.

A few months ago, 4 Shires Asset Management, a new British asset management firm, was born. The firm, founded by Jeremy Le Sueur, former chief investment officer at Hermes Fund Managers, will concentrate primarily on private clients in the south-eastern UK. 4 Shires AM will offer low-cost investments in order not to drag down performance, the founder of the firm says. In order to add dynamism in subscriptions, Le Sueur will also offer a stake in the firm, pro rata, for the first clients or businesses who subscribe for the first GBP100,000.

In line with what was announced two months ago (see Newsmanagers of 3 July), the German-Austrian asset manager C-Quadrat has finalised a contract with Laakman Holding Ltd to acquire the British group BCM (about EUR800m in assets) for EUR13.4m, which represents 1.67% of total assets under management.However, there will be an adjustment of up to +/-30% to the acquisition price after 3 ¾ years. Of the total price, 30% will be paid in C-Quadrat shares, which represents 3% of its capital.The transaction is expected to close in fourth quarter 2012.

The London-based asset management boutique Signia Wealth has recruited Ana Maria Harrison, who previously worked at UBS, for its Global Wealth Management unit, as executive director in charge of UHNW clients, Wealth Briefing reports. Signia Wealth also works primarily in this segment.

NYSE Euronext announced on 6 September that its scientific counsel has decided to remove the auto maker Peugeot from the CAC 40 index, to be replaced by the Belgian chemical group Solvay. A quarterly review has brought other modifications for NYSE Euronext indices, with the entry of Zodiac Aerospace to the CAC Next20, with Peugeot, while Solvay and Thales are removed. Thales, Nicox, Medica and Vilmorin & Cte join the CAC Mid 60. All of these changes will take effect from Monday, 24 September.

Henderson Global Investors has hired two senior analysts for its credit team, Rob Orman and Pieter Staelens. They will report to Stephen Thariyan, director of credit. Orman, 47, had previously been director of investment grade investments at RBS. He has 22 years of experience, 14 of them at RBS. Staelens, 36, was previously a senior credit analyst at James Caird Asset Management, where he was in charge of European high yield strategies. The fixed income team at Henderson Global Investors has a total of over EUR20l1bn in assets as of 30 June 2012.

On 6 September, Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) announced plans to significantly add to its product range for British clients, especially pension funds, in the area of liability-driven investment (LDI). The asset management firm has confirmed the recruitment of Shalin Bhagwan (see Newsmanagers of 20 June), deputy head of LDI at Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), as UK head of liability driven investment (LDI) in the multi-asset client solutions team. In this newly-created position, he will report to Gilles Dauphiné, head of solution management.Bhagwan will be joined by his former colleague Lucy Barron, who had been senior structurer in the LDI fund team at LGIM, and who will report to him.Both will be based in London and will belong to the global multi-asset client solutions (MACS) team, which has 115 members and manages EUR114bn in LDI solutions for institutional investors, in Paris, London,Zurich, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

For an undisclosed amount, Morningstar has resold its “footnoted” operation to Michelle leder and his company, Financial Fineprint Inc, an operation which it acquired from them in 2010. This includes the website footnoted.com and the footnotedPro service.The footnoted service aims to provide clients and subscribers, which are often hedge funds, with interesting information which is “buried” in small print at the bottom of SEC filings.

According to a report by the Pension Consulting Alliance, which will be presented this Friday to the investment committee of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the highest returns for US buyout funds is below the pension fund’s internal benchmark, the Wall Street Journal reports.For example, funds launched in 2006, with more than USD3.5bn in assets under management, have gained 4.1%, compared with 14.1% for funds with assets of under USD300m, and 9.7% for funds which manage USD1bn to USD3.5bn, according to the consultant Cambridge Associates.Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service, for its part, reports that pension funds with over USD5bn allocate an average of 13% of their assets to private equity, compared with 9.5% one year earlier.

The Wall Street Journal reports that J. P. Morgan Chase has appointed Craig Delaney to head the unit of the “London Whale», the chief investment office (CIO), with USD323bn in assets of the end of June. The unit recently caused the bank a USD5.8bn loss.Delany, the third head of the unit in less than one year, was most recently COO of the mortgage lending unit. He has 18 years of seniority at the firm.The CIO unit will be overhauled to practice a more conservative investment policy.

The British Financial Services Authority (FSA) on 6 September opened a consultation on several modifications to the regime for custody assets and client assets partly imposed by European EMIR regulations. The modifications will make it possible to improve the process of recuperating client assets in the case of bankruptcy of investment firms. The consultation will remain open until 16 October for modifications related to EMIR regulations, and until 30 November for other proposals.

Global assets invested in ETFs and ETPs reached a record USD1.762bn as of the end of August, according to statistics from EFTGI. In the first eight months of the year, these asets were up 15.5% compared with the end of 2011. Inflows to ETFs and ETPs in the first eight months of the year have totalled USD143bn, an increase of USD23bn compared with the corresponding period of last year. ETFs and ETPs dedicated to equities have attracted the vast majority of net inflows, at USD76bn, of which USD39bn went to US and North American equities, USD22bn to emerging market equities, and USD7bn to Asia-Pacific equities. ETF/ETPs dedicated to fixed income posted net inflows of USD47bn, of which USD18.5bn went to corporate bonds, USD11bn to high yield products, and USD4.9bn to wider bond exposures. ETF/ETPs dedicated to commodities posted net inflows of USD10.5bn, of which USD9.5bn were for precious metals. In the past ten years, ETFs and ETPs have posted average annual growth of 26.5%, ETFGI says, with a total of 4,713 ETF/ETPs, from 204 providers, listed on 56 stock exchanges. These figures are a clear sign that these products have carved out a place for themselves in the market. Despite the current volatility of the markets, investors are continuing to consider ETFs and ETPs as “useful products, says Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI.

On the basis of statistics compiled by ETFGI the top three global actors in the ETF/ETP segment, iShares (BlackRock), SPDR (State Street Global Advisors or SSgA) and Vanguard, had combined assets as of the end of August of USD1.20832trn, a market share of 68.6%, of which 38.5% were for iShares, 17.4% for SPDR, and 12.6% for Vanguard.They also lead in the area of net subscriptions, with a total of EUR86.08bn in the first eight months of the year, equivalent to 60.1% of net inflows of EUR143.11bn. However, the winner is Vanguard, with inflows of EUR37.77bn, followed by iShares with nearly EUR35.29bn, and SPDR with EUR13bn.In fifth and sixth place with assets of EUR60.15bn and EUR35.21bn, respectively, the European asset management firms db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) and Lyxor (Société Générale) posted net subscriptions of EUR129m in the former, and net outflows of EUR612m in the latter case. Lyxor ddoes not offer ETPs, while db x-trackers offers 106. Taking only ETFs into account, db x-trackers shows net outflows of USD318m in January-August.

As part of the evolution of the management of French-registered mutual funds in the range from BNP Paribas Asset Management, BNP Paribas IP has announced some modifications, effective from 31 August 2012. A part of the financial management of the following OPCVM funds will be outsourced to BNP Paribas Investment Partners UK Limited. This contracting our of financial management includes hedging the portfolio for forex risks, and/or hedging, via forex operations in the fund’s own currency, of net cash positions on other currencies than the currency of referrence. This modification will affect the following funds:BNP PARIBAS ACTIONS JAPONBNP PARIBAS ACTIONS USABNP PARIBAS ETHEISBNP PARIBAS FLOREAL 30BNP PARIBAS FLOREAL 70BNP PARIBAS GESTION DYNAMIQUEBNP PARIBAS GESTION EQUILIBREBNP PARIBAS GESTION PRUDENTEBNP PARIBAS IMMOBILIERBNP PARIBAS JAPAQUANTBNP PARIBAS OBLI INFLATIONBNP PARIBAS QUANTAMERICABNP PARIBAS RETRAITE BNP PARIBAS REVENUS DIVERSIFIESBNP PARIBAS DEVELOPPEMENT HUMAINBNP PARIBAS SMALLCAP EUROLANDBNP PARIBAS ACTIONS EUROLAND – pactive allocationBNP PARIBAS ACTIONS EUROPE – active allocationBNP PARIBAS CONVERTIBLES EUROPEBNP PARIBAS VALEURS FRANCAISES – active allocationBNP PARIBAS CREDIT STRATEGIESBNP PARIBAS MIDCAP EUROPEA portion of the financial mangement of OPCVM funds outsourced to THEAM will be further outsourced to BNP Paribas Investment Partners UK Limited. This subcontract for financial management includes hedging of the portfolio for currency risks and/or hedging via forex operations in the fund’s own currency, of net cash positions in currencies other than the fund’s currency of reference. This modification will affect the following funds:BNP PARIBAS 100 % E PIU - GRANDI MERCATIBNP PARIBAS CLIQUET EMERGENTSBNP PARIBAS CLIQUET USBNP PARIBAS 4 ITALY BNP PARIBAS RENDIMENTO E CEDOLAFONDO PROTETTO 90 - GENNAIO 2011FONDO PROTETTO 90 - MAGGIO 2010FONDO PROTETTO 90 - MAGGIO 2011aFONDO PROTETTO 90 - SETTEMBRE 2010HAWAI 3HAWAI 3 PEAHAWAI 2A portion of the financial management of OPCVM funds outsourced to BNP Paribas Investment Partners Netherlands N.V. Will be outsourced to BNP Paribas Investment Partners UK Limited. This subcontracting of financial management includes hedging for currency risks and/or hedging, via forex operations in the fund’s currency of reference, of net cash positions in currencies other than the fund’s currency of reference. This modification will affect the following fund:BNP PARIBAS EUROPE DIVIDENDEA portion of the fiancial management of OPCVM funds outsourced to THEAM will be further outsourced to BNP Paribas Investment Partners UK Limited (instead of Overlay Asset Management). The subcontract for financial management includes hedging of the portfolio for currency risks, and/or hedgeing via currency operations in the fund’s currency of reference, of net cash positions on currencies other than the fund’s currency of reference. This modification will affect the following OPCVM funds: BNP PARIBAS GESTION ACTIVEBNP PARIBAS GESTION ACTIVE 2FONDO PROTETTO - BIC GENNAIO 2012

Mutual funds based in the United States dedicated to equities have seen net redemptions for the sixth consecutive week, as investors prefer bond products, according to statistics from the US asset management association ICI. Equity funds have seen outflows of USD4.43bn in the week to 29 August, of which USD3.71bn are for funds dedicated to US equities. Bond funds, for their part, have finished the week under review with net inflows of USD6.55bn, down slightly compared with the previous week (USD6.83bn). Since the beginning of the year, bond funds have seen only once week of outflows, in the week ending on 30 May, totalling USD211m. Diversified funds, for their part, attracted USD866m in the week ending on 29 August, compared with USD2.41bn the previous week.

From 7 September, subscribers, particularly institutionals, will have access to a new I share class in the Delubac Exceptions Pricing Power fund. The fund, launched on 30 September 2005, currently has assets of EUR35m, with slight net subscriptions since the beginning of the year. However, returns YTD at 5 September total 26%, compared with 18% for the best euro zone index (the Dax, ati +18%). The fund has also outperformed the best euro zone indices in 2010 and 2011, with 17.16% compared with 16.16% for the Dax, and -4.03%, compared with -11.87% for the AEX index, respectively. The fund is expected to receive a fifth star from Morningstar soon.At the end of the bear year that was 2011, eight of the 34 positions in the portfolio were nonetheless at all-time highs, says the manager, Gérard Moulin. The fund is clearly positioned on growth shares which are protected by pricing power; the average cap size for companies in the portfolio is about EUR17bn. For stock-picking, Moulin and Séverine Alluin, management assistant, refuse “to confuse performance and expensiveness,” and bet on solidity and long-term credibility.CharacteristicsName: Delubac Exceptions Pricing Power, I-class sharesISIN code: FR0011304229Front-end fee: noneManagement commission: 1% (compared with 2.15% for P-class shares)Performance commission: 15% of performance exceeding the MSCI Europe + 500 basis pointsMinimal initial subscription: EUR250,000Initial value of shares: EUR10,000

The equity specialist Zhou Ping has left GE Asset Management (GE AM) Shanghai to found his own investment boutique, dedicated to Chinese equities, Asian Investor reports. Ping, who has worked for GE AM for 17 years, and developed the Chinese office since 2005, has taken a good part of his team with him. He is planning to begin his activities by the end of the year, after receiving the necessary licenses. The firm will start with about EUR50m to EUR100m to invest, from US pension funds. Ping hopes to develop activities serving Asian institutional clients. Assets under management at GE AM totalled USD115bn as of the end of December 2011.

The largest Swiss publicly-traded real estate fund, which invests in a diversified international real estate portfolio (see Newsmanagers of 21 October 2011), Credit Suisse Real Estate Fund Global (CS REF Global), is already fully invested in assets outside Switzerland, following the recent acquisition of three more properties, one in Leeds, one in Tokyo, and one in Perth. Finews.ch reports that CHF275m in total have been invested, and credit represents about 20% of the total.

The International Alternative Investment Association (AIMA) has announced the appointment of Jennifer Wood as head of regulation in charge of asset management. Wood previously worked at a partner at the law firm Dechert, where she advised British, American, European and Asian financial services, investment and asset management firms on US regulatory questions.

VTB Capital Asset Management has launched a dividend fund, the first of its type in Russia, which will be able to buy both Russian and foreign equities, Investment Europe reports. The only other dividend fund available on the Russian market was launched in 2003 by Region Asset Management, which nonetheless decided to add an allocation of corporate bonds to the dividends shares receive. The fund will include 30% Russian and 70% foreign securities, which will provide more geographical diversification. The firms selected will be required to have a minimal market capitalisation of over USD5bn. Shares in Gazprom, Lukoil and Sherbank are in the Russian allocation of the fund, while the foreign allocation includes AT&T, Westpac Banking Corp and RWE.

Belgians have EUR30bn in Swiss bank accounts, the Belgian minister for foreign affairs, Didier Reynders, said on 6 September. He has not ruled out the possibility of repatriating a third of that amount as part of a regularisation operation.“We are talking about EUR30bn, according to the Swiss central bank. If we tax that at over 30%, we would have more than EUR10bn coming back to Belgium,” Reynders told Belgian public radio network RTBF, after a return from Switzerland earlier this week.According to the head of the Belgian diplomatic service, Switzerland is offering to sign an agreement with Belgium, as it has done with other countries, including Germany and the UK, to regularise the situation for those with accounts at Swiss financial establishments.The “Rubik” agreements state that non-resident holders of Swiss bank accounts will initially pay a withholding tax, the revenues from which are transferred to their home country, in exchange for their anonymity being maintained. There is then a capital gains tax applied annually, which is also transferred to their home country, with the anonymity of accounts being maintained.According to the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, Bern is offering Belgium a withholding tax of 34% on the EUR30bn to EUR35bn in Belgian assets in Swiss accounts, which would thus bring in EUR10bn, and then an annual tax rate of 25%.

Selon Les Echos, la Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations a signé un accord avec la China Development Bank, son homologue chinois, pour investir dans les PME françaises et chinoises. Les deux partenaires créent un fonds de 150 millions confié à Cathay Capital qui associe depuis près d’une dizaine d’années Ming-po Cai, ancien dirigeant de SEB en Chine, et Edouard Moinet, un ex-responsable du français Siparex. Ces derniers feront co-investir le fonds bilatéral aux côtés de leur propre véhicule de 200 millions d’euros. « Les Chinois ont accepté de venir à parité dans un fonds de droit français et libellé en euros, qui prendra des intérêts minoritaires pour moitié dans des PME françaises se développant vers le marché chinois et pour moitié dans des PME chinoises se développant en France. Toutes les décisions seront prises en commun, indique Jean-Pierre Jouyet, son dirigeant.

Les Bourses de la zone euro ont accru leurs gains jeudi après-midi après que le président de la BCE Mario Draghi a annoncé une série de mesures visant à sortir la zone euro de la crise de la dette, notamment un nouveau programme d’achats d’obligations des pays fragilisés, sans limite de montant.

Mariano Rajoy et Angela Merkel ont dit jeudi ne pas avoir débattu des conditions d’une aide à l’Espagne lors de leur entretien à Madrid. Mariano Rajoy a déclaré avoir le soutien de Berlin pour son programme de réformes structurelles. Il a ajouté que Madrid et Berlin étaient d’accord pour juger que les primes de risque sur le marché ne reflétaient pas les fondamentaux de l'économie espagnole.

Les inscriptions au chômage ont diminué de 12.000 aux Etats-Unis lors de la semaine au 1er septembre, à 365.000 contre 377.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente, a annoncé le département du Travail. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 370.000 inscriptions au chômage. La moyenne mobile sur quatre semaines s'établit à 371.250 contre 371.000 (révisé) la semaine précédente.

Michael Noonan se prépare à effectuer une tournée européenne. Il se rendra dans diverses capitales européennes la semaine prochaine dans l’espoir d’obtenir un assouplissement des conditions du plan d’aide au secteur bancaire irlandais. Le responsable sera à Paris mercredi puis se rendra jeudi à Berlin et Rome, à la veille d’une réunion Ecofin prévu à Chypre vendredi.

La coalition au pouvoir en Allemagne va proposer un collectif budgétaire pour l’année 2012 afin d’y inclure la contribution allemande de 1,6 milliard d’euros à une augmentation de capital de la BEI et une augmentation du nombre de crèches dans le pays. Volker Kauder, président du groupe CDU au Bundestag, a précisé que la création de crèches coûterait 580 millions d’euros supplémentaires.