L'UFF, la première banque conseil en gestion de patrimoine de France entend tirer profit des temps de crise. En recrutant plus et mieux ses conseillers, en lançant des fonds d'opportunités avec des sociétés de gestion partenaires et enfin, comme l'explique Thierry Guérillot, en profitant des exagérations à la baisse des marchés d'actions et du potentiel que possèdent actuellement le non-coté ou les actifs réels en termes de diversification et de rentabilité. Dès la rentrée, la gamme de l'UFF s'étoffera dans ce sens...

Confrontés à la crise de la dette dans la zone euro, au ralentissement de la croissance en Chine, à l'éventualité d’un nouvel assouplissement quantitatif aux Etats-Unis et aux retombées des printemps arabes, les investisseurs ont limité ces derniers temps leur appétit pour le risque et réduit leur exposition à l’Europe et aux marchés émergents asiatiques.Durant la dernière semaine de juin, les fonds d’actions ont ainsi subi des rachats pour un montant de 7,7 milliards de dollars alors que les fonds obligataires enregistraient une collecte nette de 4,7 milliards de dollars, selon des estimations communiquées par EPFR Global.Sur l’ensemble du trimestre écoulé, seuls les fonds obligataires américains et globaux ont réussi à drainer plus de 10 milliards de dollars. Les fonds d’actions japonaises ont terminé le trimestre sur une collecte de 5,6 milliards de dollars et de 5,49 milliards sur le premier semestre, à comparer à une collecte de moins de 2 milliards de dollars pour les six premiers mois de 2011.En revanche, les fonds d’actions européennes ont subi leur plus forte décollecte trimestrielle depuis le troisième trimestre 2008. Après un très bon départ, les fonds d’actions émergentes ont subi des rachats pour un montant de 10,5 milliards de dollars sur l’ensemble du deuxième trimestre, avec plus de 8 milliards de dollars à mettre sur le compte des fonds d’actions asiatiques hors Japon. La collecte des fonds obligataires high yield s’est tarie à la mi-mai et les fonds d’actions de dividende ont subi des rachats en juin pour la première fois depuis plus de deux ans.Les fonds monétaires ont terminé le trimestre sur une décollecte de 19,67 milliards de dollars, qui s’explique par des rachats sur les fonds monétaires américains de 28,39 milliards de dollars. En Europe, les fonds monétaires ont enregistré une collecte de 6,5 milliards de dollars au deuxième trimestre.Sur six mois, la décollecte des fonds monétaires atteint 115,35 milliards de dollars contre un peu plus de 49 milliards de dollars au premier semestre 2011.

A fin juin, Roman G. Trageiser, un ancien d’Allianz Global Investors (AGI), a quitté la direction opérationnelle de la plate-forme d’administration de fonds Dealis Fund Operations créée fin 2008 par Deka et AGI (lire Newsmanagers du 19 décembre 2008) ainsi que de la filiale luxembourgeoise de Dealis. Depuis début mai, il est remplacé comme CEO de la société allemande par Bernd Franke.

Depuis la fin de la semaine dernière, la cote du Main Market du London Stock Exchange (LSE) comporte 1.006 références dans le domaine des ETP. Le franchissement de la barre des 1.000 unités a été occasionné par l’admission à la négociation de 64 ETF d’UBS Global Asset Management, ce qui est la plus grosse introduction en une seule journée par le nombre de produits depuis le lancement du segment en 2000. Ces ETF portent en une seule fois de 2 à 66 unités le nombre des ETF d’UBS Global AM cotés à Londres. Ils répliquent de nombreux indices de fournisseurs comme FTSE, MSCI, S&P, Markit iBox et Euro Stoxx sur des marchés d’actions européens, américain, asiatiques et émergents ainsi que des obligations et des matières premières.Depuis le début de 2012, le LSE a accueilli 74 ETF et 14 ETC.

Le conseil d’administration de la banque de gestion privée Notenstein, filiale de Raiffeisen Suisse, sera complété de quatre nouveaux membres, selon un communiqué publié le 29 juin. Se présentent à l'élection de la mi-août Günter Haag, membre de la direction de KPMG Suisse, Heinz Karrer, CEO d’Axpo Holding SA, Maya Salzmann, vice présidente de Bright Entertainment et ancienne managing director Private Banking Credit Suisse, ainsi que Thomas C. Weissmann, président du conseil d’administration d’ALSO-Actebis Holding.En plus du président Pierin Vincenz, CEO du groupe Raiffensen Suisse, Patrik Gisel, son remplaçant chez Raiffeisen, siège déjà au conseil d’administration de l’ancienne banque Wegelin.Notenstein emploie 700 collaborateurs et ses actifs sous gestion s'élèvent à environ 21 milliards de francs suisses.

Le 29 juin, la Commission des valeurs chinoises (CSRC) a octroyé un agrément de commercialisation à deux ETF lancés par des sociétés bénéficiant de statut de Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII). Il s’agit du Hang Seng Index ETF de China AMC et du Hang Seng China Enterprise de E-Fund. Cet agrément couvre également les fonds nourriciers de cex deux produits. La souscription devrait commencer début juillet et le lancement effectif intervenir début août.

Credit Suisse va terminer le deuxième trimestre avec un résultat bénéficiaire, a indiqué vendredi le groupe suisse dans un bref communiqué. Le numéro deux bancaire helvétique, insuffisamment doté en fonds propres selon la Banque nationale suisse (BNS), s’attend à être bénéficiaire dans l’ensemble de ses divisions.

Suite à la démisssion d’Anja Mikus, qui va quitter la société au 31 juillet, Union Investment a recruté Björn Jesch, le directeur de global investment solutions Allemagne (et membre de la direction générale du pôle private wealth management) de la Deutsche Bank comme directeur de la gestion des portefeuilles. Il sera ainsi responsable d’une équipe de gestion de fonds de 240 personnes et d’un encours de l’ordre de 140 milliards d’euros.

Swiss & Global Asset Management a fait admettre le 29 juin quatre ETF à gestion active à la négociation sur le segment Active ETF de la plate-forme électronique Xetra de la Deutsche Börse. Il s’agit de la cotation principale de ces fonds de droit luxembourgeois qui appartiennent à la gamme des produits Julius Bär Smart Equity et qui répliquent des indices MSCI. Les taux de frais sur encours s'échelonnent entre 0,60 % et 0,70 %.

La BaFin et la FMA ont accordé leur agrément de commercialisation pour respectivement l’Allemagne et l’Autriche à deux classes de parts du GLG Financials Alternative Fund, produit de droit irlandais qui met en œuvre la stratégie long/short sur les financières que GLG a lancée en mai 2002. Le portefeuille de ce produit coordonné est composé de 30 à 60 lignes ; il est géré par David Sanders et Stephen Holliday.La souscription minimale est fixée à 1.000 euros pour la part retail (IE00B73DP106) et à 100.000 euros pour la part institutionnelle (IE00B771GJ57).

Simon Borrows, le nouveau directeur général de 3i, tente de relancer le vétéran britannique du capital-investissement en fermant six bureaux et en coupant les effectifs de six autres, rapporte Les Echos. Un tiers des postes sont concernés. Sa levée de fonds est reportée d’un an, à la fin 2013. Le cours de Bourse de 3i a chuté de plus de 80% en cinq ans.

Sean Chang, récemment recruté chez HSBC Global Asset Management (lire Newsmanagers du 3 mai), a annoncé en tant que head of Asian debt chez Baring Asset Management à Hong-Kong que le gestionnaire britannique a l’intention de lancer de nouveaux fonds obligataires asiatique et de commercialiser les produits existants par de nouveaux canaux de distribution, rapporte Asian Investor.Le Asian Debt Fund, un fonds coordonné domicilié en Irlande et dont Sean Chang est le gérant principal, vient d’obtenir l’agrément de commercialisation des autorités de Hong-Kong. D’autre part, Sean Chang a indiqué que Barings étudie la possibilité de lancer des fonds obligataires/pays également.

BaFin and the FMA have issued sales licenses for Germany and Austria, respectively, to two share classes in the GLG Financials Alternative Fund, an Irish-registered product which deploys the GLG financials long/short strategy launched in 2002. The portfolio of the UCITS product is composed of 30 to 60 positions; it is managed by David Sanders and Stephen Holliday.Minimum subscription is set at EUR1,000 for the retail share class (IE00B73DP106) and EUR100,000 for the institutional share class (IE00B771GJ57).

Swiss & Global Asset Management on 29 June listed four actively-managed ETFs for trading on the Active ETF segment of the Xetra electronic platform from Deutsche Börse. These include the primary listings of Luxembourg-registered funds which are part of the Julius Bär Smart Equity product range, replicating MSCI indices. TER for the products range from 0.60% to 0.70%.

On 29 June, the Chinese securities commission (CSRC) issued a sales license for two ETFs launched by companies with status as Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII). They are the Hang Seng Index ETC from China AMC and the Hang Seng China Enterprise fund from E-Fund. The license also covers feeder funds for these two products. Subscriptions are expected to begin in early July, with official launch in early August.

UFF, the top wealth advising bank in France, is planning to take advantage of the times of crisis. By recruiting more and better advisers, launching opportunistic funds with partner asset management firms, and lastly, as Thierry Guérillot explains, by taking advantage of exaggerated downsides on equity markets, and the current potential which private equity and real assets have in terms of diversification and profitability. The UFF product range will be moving in this direction from this autumn.

In June, the Chinese State Office of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) issued Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) quotas totalling USD1.35bn, Z-Ben Advisors reports. Among the beneficiaries who did not have quotas previously are BlackRock Trust, Northern Trust, Mercuries Life Insurance, American International Insurance, Capital Research and Management, City of London Investment and Okasan Asset Management.

Facing a debt crisis in the euro zone, slowing growth in China, a potential new round of quantitative easing in the United States and a continuation of the Arab Spring, investors have recently had a limited appetite for risk, and have reduced their exposure to Europe and to Asian emerging markets. In the last week of June, equity funds saw redemptions totalling EUR7.7bn, while bond funds posted net inflows of USD4.7bn, according to estimates from EPFR Global. Over the past quarter overall, only US and global bond funds have managed to attract more tan USD10bn in assets. Japanese equity funds finished the quarter with inflows of USD5.6bn, and USd5.49bn in first quarter, compared with inflows of less than USD2bn in the first six months of 2011. However, European equity funds have seen their heaviest quarterly outflows since third quarter 2008. After a very good start, emerging market equity funds have seen redemptions totalling USD10.5bn for second quarter as a whole, with over USD8bn to contribute to Asia ex Japan equity funds. Inflows to high yield bond funds slowed in mid-May, and dividend equity funds underwent redemptions in June for the first time in over two years. Money market funds finished the quarter with outflows of USD19.67bn, which is due to redemptions from US money market funds of USD28.39bn. In Europe, money market funds posted inflows of USD6.5bn in second quarter. In the past six months, inflows to money markets total USD115.35bn, compared with slightly over USD49bn in first half 2011.

As of the end of June, Roman G. Trageiser, formerly of Allianz Global Investors (AGI), left the operational management of the fund administration platform Dealis Fund Operations, founded in late 2008 by Deka and AGI (see Newsmanagers of 19 December 2008), and of the Luxembourg affiliate of Dealis. Since the beginning of May, he has been replaced as CEO of the German firm by Bernd Franke.

Following the resignation of Anja Mikus, who will be leaving the asset management firm on 31 July, Union Investment has recruited Björn Jeach, director of global investment solutions for Germany and a member of the board of directors in the private wealth management unit at Deutsche Bank, as director of portfoio management. He will be responsible for a fund management team of 240 people, and assets of about EUR140bn.

Sean Chang, who has recently been recruited from HSBC Global Asset Management (see Newsmanagers of 3 May), has announced as head of Asian debt that Baring Asset Management in Hong Kong that the British asset management firm is planning to launch new Asian bond funds, and to more widely promote existing funds in new distribution channels, Asian Investor reports. The Asian Debt Fund, a UCITS fund domiciled in Ireland, for which Chang is the lead manager, has recently received a sales license from the Hong Kong authorities. Chang has also announced that Barings is studying the possibility of also launching bond/country funds.

The board of directors at the private management bank Notenstein, an affiliate of Raiffeisen Switzerland, will be taking on four new members, according to a statement published on 29 June. The candidates in the mid-August election will include Günter Haag, a member of the board at KPMG Switzerland, Heinz Karrer, CEO of Axpo Holding SA< Maya Salzmann, vice president of Bright Entertainment and former managing director of Private Banking at Credit Suisse, and Thomas C. Weissmann, chairman of the board of directors at ALSO-Actebis Holding. In addition to chairman Pierin Vincenz, CEO of the Raiffeisen Switzerland group, and Patrik Gisel, his replacement at Raiffeisen, are already members of the board at the former Wegelin bank. Notenstein has 700 employees, and its assets under management total about CHF21bn.

Barclays has today (Monday, July 2nd) announced the resignation of its chairman, Marcus Agius. The search for a new successor both from within the existing board members and from outside will be led by Sir John Sunderland and will commence today. Mr Agius will remain in post until an orderlu succession is assured and Sir Michael Rake has been appointed deputy chairman Commenting, Marcus Agius said, “It has been my privilege to serve as Barclays Chairman for the past six years. This has been a period of unprecedented stress and turmoil for the banking industry in particular and for the wider world economy in general. Barclays has been well served by an excellent executive team - led, first by John Varley, and now by Bob Diamond – which has worked constructively with a strong and supportive Board of directors. Barclays has remained resilient throughout the crisis, and has worked hard to ensure that today it is a strong, well capitalised and profitable business. But last week’s events – evidencing as they do unacceptable standards of behaviour within the bank – have dealt a devastating blow to Barclays reputation. As Chairman, I am the ultimate guardian of the bank’s reputation. Accordingly, the buck stops with me and I must acknowledge responsibility by standing aside».The Board has also agreed to launch an audit of its business practices.

Simon Borrows, the new CEO of 3i, is seeking to bring a fresh start to the veteran British private equity firm, closing six offices and cutting staff at six more, Les Echos reports. One third of all jobs at the firm will be affected. Fundraising has been extended for one year to the end of 2013. The share price of 3i has fallen by more than 80% in five years.

The School of Management at the University of Strasbourg (EM Strasbourg) and CCR Asset Management have announced that they are teaming up to create a chair in behavioural finance. The chair will be funded for three years, and will be led by three researcher-teachers in the LaRGE finance speicalist research laboratory: Marie-Hélène Broihanne, Patrick Roger, and Maxime Merli, who will direct the effort. Research in behavioural finance questions the rationality of investors, behavioural biases in financial decision-making and the impact of these biases on financial markets. “This financing will allow us to develop relationships with colleagues in North America working in these areas, to have access to original databases, which are currently indispensable for the analysis of investor behaviour,” explains Merli in a statement. CCR Asset Management feels that supporting academic research is “a necessary complement to traditional analysis (micro, macro, fundamental, technical, etc), in order to allow us to better understand our clients and better comprehend the markets,” says Lorenzo Ballester, chairman and CEO of CCR AM. The collaboration between researchers at EM Strasbourg and CCR Asset Mangaement has already resulted in two studies. The first, undertaken in partnership with Morningstar in June 2011, found that finance professionals have too much confidence, a bias which influences their financial risk-taking. The second study focuses on investor sentiment and its impact on financial markets. It was presented at the annual conference held by CCR Asset Management in Paris on 28 June 2012, which was attended by nearly 250 professionals.

According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, Eric Boutchnei has quit his job. The co-founder of Métropole Gestion with François-Marie Wojcik and Isabel Levy, deputy CEO oand director of strategy at the firm, is said to have quit on Friday last week. Divergences in point of view at the asset management firm specialised in value style management is reportedly the cause of the departure of Boutchnei, who two years ago gave up his role as head of development to François Carlotti. The co-founder of Métropole Gestion then took over responsibility for the firm’s strategy, and became involved in issues at the asset management firm related to new regulatory constraints on institutional investors (Solvency, etc.). The departure of Carlotti from the asset management firm one year after his recruitment, with more mixed results in terms of development, will not have an effect. Boutchnei leaves a firm which he created with his partners following their departure from CCR in 2002, and which now has EUR2bn in assets. Boutchnei, a member of the SFAF, a graduate of the Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Banque (1985),and of the Institut Technique Bancaire (1981), Boutchnei began his career as a financial analyst at BNP. Between 1985 and 2000, he was also deputy CEO of BNP Paribas Equities, and then CEO of Julius Baer France, before participating in the creation of Métropole Gestion and serving as a director there

The financial services provider State Street Corporation on 29 June announced that it is extending its partnership with Mitsui Fudosan, a Japanese real estate firm, to offer administration and trustee services for two new real estate funds, Moorgate Property Unit Trust and Mark Lane Property Unit Trust. State Street had originally been retained by Mitsui Fudosan, one of the largest Japanese real estate asset management firms, in 2008, to assist it in its development on the real estate market in the United Kingdom, providing administration services for the 5 Hanover Square Unit Trust. The decision by Mitsui Fudosan to extend its range of Jersey Property Unit Trusts (JPUTS) reflects a rising interest on the part of investors in the real estate market in the United Kingdom.

The TCW Group has recruited David Loevinger, a former senior coordinator for Chinese affairs at the Treasury. He will join the emerging markets division of the firm as management director and analyst for sovereign debt. TCW has more than USD9bn in assets under management in emerging markets, a statement says.

Convictions Asset Management has awarded an execution mandate for fixed income transactions to BNP Paribas Securities Services. Convictions AM, whose assets under management currently total about EUR630m, would like its portfolio managers to concentrate on analysis, research and allocation of investments, in order to adapt to difficult market conditions. The asset management firm has chosen BNP Paribas SS, which already held a five-year outsourcing mandate for middle and back office functions. The outsourcing of front office functions is a new trend in the asset management sector, with Convictions AM one of the first exemplars.

Sébastien Le Louarn, who most recently had been a senior private banker in the major private investor team at the Indosuez Banque Privée, has joined the management team at Reyl & Cie France “recently,” as director and senior portfolio manager.In his new role. Le Louarn will be in charge of developing and leading the investment advising range for private companies and advising to entrepreneurs. Le Louan, an equestrian jumping competitor, will also be hoping to develop a range more specifically aimed at the equestrian community at Reyl & Cie (France). The arrival of Le Louarn comes soon after that of Virginie Robert (see Newsmanagers of 11 June), who joined from Raymond James Asset Management.