The additional retirement institution for public employees (ERAFP) has launched a consultation to award a real estate asset management mandate. The consultation will issue two allocations, corresponding to two types of mandates.The first will be for an allocation to private properties in France, mostly offices, commercial and residential properties. This allocation will select three candidates, two of them for standby mandates. The total investment amount will be about EUR310m in the next three years.The second mandate is for an allocation to private properties in Europe. This allocation will also select three candidates, two of them for standby mandates. Investments will total about EUR345m in the first three years.The new mandates must comply with the ERAFP SRI charter.

SEI has announced that it has won a fund administration, trust and custody mandate for the new range of Irish-registered Qualified Investment Funds (QIF) from the London-based asset manager Asset Value Investors (AVI, USD2.6bn in assets). AVI has chosen the QIF formula which allows investors a regulated vehicle while preserving flexibility of investment strategies.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs Asset Management (USD828bn in assets as of the end of December) announced that it has acquired the defined-contribution retirement planning specialist Dwight Asset Management (USD42bn in assets as of the end of December) from Old Mutual Asset Management (USD224bn as of the end of September). The sale price for this deal which will be finalised in second quarter has not been disclosed.

Sal Naro, former head of international bonds at UBS and a former co-managing partner at Sailfish Capital, has launched its own boutique, Coherence Capital Partners, based in New York, a specialist in bonds, Investment Europe reports. The creation of Coherence Capital is related to an MBO at the insurance entity of Jefferson National, Naro’s last employer, where he had been a shareholder, vice-chairman of Jefferson National Financial and CEO of Jefferson National Asset Management. The management team at Coherence Capital includes Vincent Mistretta, former head of portfolio management at Jefferson AM, Greg McKay, former chief operating officer at Jefferson AM, and Robert Del Grande, former CFO at Jefferson AM.

Prudential Asset Management has recruited Jeremy Hall as head of sales for northern Asia, as part of a development of its activities serving institutional investors, Asian Investor reports. Hall, who had previously worked at RREEF (Deutsche Bank), will be based in Hong Kong, and will serve China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

On 3 February, the CNMV registered the Foncaixa Deuda Publica España, FI, from InverCaixa Gestión. As its name indicates, the new product will be invested primarily in Spanish government bonds, with an option to invest up to 35% of its assets in public debt from other European countries.The KIID states that the fund is aimed primarily at subscribers seeking to invest exclusively in Spanish public debt, such as insurance companies and labour disability mutuals. Liquidity will be daily.CharacteristicsName: Foncaixa Deuda Publica España, FIISIN code: ES0137505006Benchmark:90% BofA Merrill Lynch Spanish governments 1-10 years10% EoniaManagement commission: 0.81%

As of 31 December, assets in collective investment institutions in Spain totalled EUR201.78bn, 7.8% less than at the end fo 2010, the Inverco association of asset management firms states in its annual report. Assets under management by real estate funds were down by 26.6%, while assets at Spanish investment firms were down 7.6%, Spanish funds were down 7.5%, and foreign asset management firms were down 6.3%.Net redemptions from Spanish funds contracted 65% compared with 2010, to EUR8.421bn, compared with EUR23.889bn.Transfers from one fund to another totalled EUR27.844bn, which represents 55% of gross subscriptions (EUR50.692bn) and 20.8% of average assets in 2011.Lastly, the number of shareholders last year declined by 7.4% to a total of 6.2 million as of the end of December.

In the last month of 2011, hedge funds saw net outlfows of USD5.2bn, and assets as of the end of December totalled USD1.64trn, a level 7.7% lower than at the end of 2010, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs.The BarclayHedge hedge fund index fell 0.4% in December, after a decline of 1.4% in November. Since May 2011, hedge funds have seen losses every month, except in October. For 2011 as a whole, hedge funds lost 5.5%, while the S&P was flat.

Last year, net subscriptions of owners’ equity to closed-end German funds rose 0.2% to EUR5.8461bn, compared with EUR5.8351bn in 2010, according to estimates by the VGF professional association, taking into account the 39 member firms and shareholders who raised at least EUR5m in owners’ equity in the past three years, a sample of 168 firms, of whom 112 had disclosed their results to the VGF. Inflows from private clients represented EUR4.8078bn, compared with EUR5.2125bn the previous year, while institutional investors increased 67%, to EUR1.3083bn. As of the end of 2011, assets in funds were down to EUR9.8908bn, compared with EUR10.8003bn twelve months previously. DWS Access (Deutsche Bank group) has stated that it was the closed fund manager with the largest inflows last year, with EUR504.3m in owners’ equity. The largest success was the DWS Access Deutsche Bank Türme fund, with a volume of EUR665.7m and subscriptions of EUR340m.

For the first time, Barbara Knoflach, head of SEB Asset Management, on Tuesday did not rule out the possibility that the open-ended real estate fund ImmoInvest (over EUR6bn in assets) may have to be liquidated, Handelsblatt reports. The fund, which has been frozen to redemptions since May 2010, still has not reached the 30% liquidity level considered necessary for redemptions to be reopened, and a sale of the family jewels, the 19-building complex at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, is taking longer than expected. The properties are valued at EUR1.4bn, but the market is difficult, and buyers are taking their time, though the deadline to reopen the fund is May 2012, as it is for the Credit Suisse Euroreal, the other major real estate fund currently closed to redemptions.

In January, three open-ended real estate funds, Deka-ImmobilienEuropa, Deka-ImmobilienGlobal and WestInvest InterSelect had net subscriptions of EUR400m, comparedf with EUR320m in the corresponding month of 2011. Of this total, about EUR270m were from reinvestment of dividends distributed by two Deka funds. However, net subscriptions in January 2010 totalled EUR415m.

Pioneer Investments has launched a fund dedicated entirely to the Italian bond market, Bluerating reports. The Pioneer Obbligazionario Sistems Italia a distribuzione fund will be composed of Italian government bonds and high quality corporate bonds issued by businesses based in Italy with healthy balance sheets and convincing business plans.

The Swedish SEB group has merged its London-based boutique Key Asset Management with its alternative investment team (AIT) in Stockholm, Hedge Week reports. The new merged entity will be led by Mikael Spångberg as managing director based in Stockholm, and Chris Rule as deputy CEO and CIO, in London, Key AM is specialised in funds of hedge funds, while SEB AIT has expertise in seed capital and incubation. The merger coincides with the departure of Chris Jones, who spent seven years as head of Key AM.

The European Commission will today present a proposal which would create a legal status for European foundations, which would allow institutions to be active in other EU countries beyond their country of origin, by eliminating taxation obstacles, Expansión reports.The foundations are important economic actors, whose assets are estimated at over EUR350bn. The proposals would preserve a double system which would allow for national regimes to coexist alongside the European regime.Political foundations would be excluded from the rules, as they are already covered by separate legislation.

Skandia Investment Group (SIG) has removed Julius Lipner of Aviva Investors from its Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund. The mandate stood at GBP7m out of assets under management of GBP52.1m as of the end of December.Lee Freeman-Shor, portfolio manager for Skandia Investment Group, said: “We have made the decision to remove the mandate from the Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund due to the uncertainty and unknown consequences, created by Aviva Investors’ announcement that it plans to review active equity management and concentrate on fixed income, real estate and multi asset solutions.”Lipner’s mandate will be equally redistributed amongst the remaining managers within the Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund (Richard Packett and Mark Lyttleton of BlackRock, Phil Hardy of Polar Capital, Colin McLean of SVM, Tim Steer of Artemis and Paul Casson of Henderson).

Schroders is going to launch in the United Kingdom the Schroder Strategic Bond Fund (subject to FSA approval) which aims to achieve a total return by investing across a broad range of fixed income markets. The fund will be managed by Gareth Isaac, senior portfolio manager, who joined Schroders in 2011 from GLG. The alternate manager will be Bob Jolly, head of global macro.The benchmark unconstrained fund will invest in fixed income opportunities across the globe while actively allocating between government bonds, investment grade corporates, high yield corporates and emerging market debt of both governments and credit. Additionally the fund may use derivatives to limit downside risk, with 80% of the portfolio being hedged back to sterling.

The working group at the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), on general shareholders’ meetings, chaired by Olivier Poupart-Lafarge, a member of the college, has delivered its conclusions. The group has laid out 34 proposals which are centred around four themes: dialogue between shareholders and issuers; voting; the meeting office and voting on regulated conventions. In general, the report delivers an overall positive opinion of the functioning of general shareholders’ meetings in France, and consequently proposes areas for improvement in the areas given. In the chapter on voting, the working group proposes that a third type of vote be introduced to realise the concept in French law of a “genuine abstention” as opposed to a “nay” vote. The group also proposes an improvement to the relatively comp[lex voting mechanism for non-resident shareholders. At the conclusion of the public consultation, which will remain open until 7 March, the group’s proposals, which do not require amendments to legislative or regulatory texts, may be applied at the recommendation of the AMF, and subsequently at shareholders’ meetings held from 1 January 2013.

Although they have received written support from the SEC and the Department of Labor, two former employees of Fidelity have had their complaints against their former employer dismissed by the US Court of Appeal for the 1st Circuit, Mutual Fund Wire reports. The court of appeals has overturned a prior judgement by a Boston federal judge that the two people who called the attention of authorities to irregularities at the business that employed them (“whistleblowers”) were protected by terms in the Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowing law. The court of appeals found that the Sarbanes-Oxley law applied exclusively to publicly-traded businesses, while the whistleblowers were employees of private affiliates of Fidelity.

Accola, Investeam and MiddleNext on 7 February unveiled a newly-created common investment fund (FCP) which will allow 20 publicly-traded French midcaps to issue bonds to be purchased by the FCP fund, whose shares will then be subscribed to by professional investors. As the needs of SMEs and ETIs are enormous in a context of rare and costly bank financing, Accola and Investeam have developed a scheme to meet this demand in the form of a contractual horizon FCP, Micado France 2018, for which Portzamparc Gestion will be responsible for managing. The two investment businesses CM-CIC Securities and Portzamparc, a stock market firm, approached the firms issuing debt, and with the legal advice of CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre and Fidal, developed a common methodology for the issuing of bonds at a set rate to mature simultaneously in 6 years, from several mid-sized publicly-traded firms, which will allow them access for the first time to the bond markets. The bonds will be issued by firms with a total market capitalisation of EUR30m to EUR1bn, and earnings of nor more than EUR2bn. Portzamparc Gestion will select firms on the basis of their credit quality, and will aim for diversification of funds, particularly by sector. The overall size objective for the fund is EUR300m; each business will need to issue EUR5m to EUR20m. The fund, notably, is not planning to mutualise risks, and each issuer will retain its own portion of the risks. At the conclusion of this construction phase, the portfolio will include a portion of public and private ETIs, which will represent 80%, and a 20% exposure to highly liquid French non-financial sector corporate bonds from private investment grade businesses; that proportion may eventually rise to 40%. Bonds from the firms, listed on Alternext or Euronext, will be listed on Alternext. The fund will be sold by Investeam.

In January, the Pimco Total Return Fund (USD250.5bn), managed by Bill Gross, made 2.44%, compared with 0.45% for its benchmark index, and has posted USD230.6m in net subscriptions, the first in four months, Mutual Fund Wire reports. In 2011, the fund underperformed its benchmark by 3.68 points, and saw net outflows of USD5bn.

Although JP Morgan Chase appears to have thrown in the towel, the list of potential buyers for the asset management activities of Deutsche Bank, particularly DWS in the United States, still includes six candidates, Mutual Fund Wire reports: Guggenheim Partners is said to have joined the small remaining group of contenders which also includes Power Corp of Canada, Macquarie Group, State Street Corp, Ameriprise Financial and Apax Partners.

Elles devraient avoir la possibilité de durcir les ratios réglementaires pour gérer un risque systémique identifié localement

Alors que quarante prêts sous-jacents sont arrivés à maturité, seuls cinq ont été remboursés dans les temps selon Barclays Capital

La Chine refuse que ses compagnies achètent du CO2 alors que la participation de l'aérien au marché du carbone doit soutenir les prix

Le gestionnaire américain EIG Global Energy Partners, dont le fonds souverain chinois CIC est actionnaire minoritaire depuis peu, pourrait faire faux bond à la plateforme de cotation de Goldman Sachs, GSTrUE, pour introduire son véhicule d’investissement Gateway sur la Bourse de Hong Kong. Un signe clair selon le quotidien du manque d’attractivité du cadre réglementaire aux Etats-Unis.

Les autorités ciblent le soutien au marché immobilier, mais aussi aux PME et aux ménages avec une hausse du salaire minimum de 13% par an d'ici 2015

La division de gestion d’actifs de Goldman Sachs rachète Dwight Asset Management, une société de gestion détenant 42 milliards de dollars d’actifs, à Old Mutual Asset Management. La transaction doit être finalisée au deuxième trimestre. Dwight est un gérant spécialisé dans des fonds à valeur fixe pour des plans de retraite.

La filiale du LSE et le courtier ont annoncéle lancement de leur plate-forme de repo tripartite, Agency Cash Management. Un projet annoncé en septembre et destiné à profiter du développement du financement interbancaire sécurisé.

L’Etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la fonction publique a lancé une consultation pour l’attribution de mandat de gestion d’actifs immobiliers. Cette procédure négociée portera sur deux lots: un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en France et un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en Europe. Les nouveaux mandats intègreront le dispositif ISR du régime.

Hedge Fund Research a indiqué que son indice HFRI Fund Weighted Composite, retraçant la performance des fonds alternatifs dans le monde, a progressé de 2,63% le mois dernier. Soit sa meilleure performance mensuelle depuis plus d’un an.