Se référant aux Echos, le Financial Times Deutschland indique que la «banque en chaos» Dexia qui a subi une perte de 10,5 milliards d’euros sur les obligations d’Etat grecques, a tout de même payé des bonus à 360 de ses collaborateurs. Des cadres supérieurs auraient perçu des primes de 45.000 euros tandis que ceux d’un rang moyen ou inférieur ont touché entre 2.500 et 5.000 euros.

Axa a levé un fonds qui investira jusqu’à 2,5 milliards d’euros dans le développement de bureaux et de centres commerciaux en Europe continentale, pour profiter du vide laissé par le retrait des banques et autres fournisseurs de crédit du marché immobilier, rapporte le Financial Times. Le fonds a levé 585,5 millions d’euros, principalement auprès de fonds de pension et d’assurances.

La société amLeague, qui annonçait au début de l’été 2011 l’élaboration d’un nouveau mandat «Actions Internationales» d’ici à la fin de l’année, aura tenu les délais. Le mandat Global Equities a démarré au 31/12/2011 et compte d’ores et déjà 10 compétiteurs. Comme Antoine Briant, le CEO d’amLeague, l’avait expliqué (lire Newsmanagers du 07/07/2011), les Caisses de pension suisses membres du GIP - lui-même membre du club d’amLeague – ont participé à son élaboration, accompagnées d’un ou deux investisseurs français ayant oeuvré à l'établissement des mandats «actions Europe» ou «actions Euro». L’univers d’investissement de ce mandat est représenté par l’indice Stoxx 1800. En attendant des résultats tangibles pour les compétiteurs de ce dernier mandat, amLeague a communiqué en fin de semaine dernière les performances des catégories «historiques», et notamment celles investis en actions de la zone euro et d’Europe pour le mois de décembre 2011 et sur l’ensemble de l’année. Pour le mandat «zone euro», le dernier mois de l’année 2011 a consacré la gestion d’Aberdeen AM devant Invesco AM et Dexia AM avec des gains respectifs de 2,66 %, 0,97 % et 0,14%. Ces chiffres sont à rapprocher des performances de l’indice de référence – l’Eurostoxx Net Return – en baisse de 0,31 %. Logiquement, ces établissements – à l’exception de Dexia AM – affichent une sous-exposition au marché et une contribution positive du choix de valeurs. En bas de classement, Barclays AM et Mandarine Gestion ferment la marche (en perte de 1,91% et de 2,02 %). On notera que les performances de la gestion active comparées à celle de l’indice mettent en évidence le fait que sept établissements ont « rempli leur contrat» tandis que neuf n’y sont pas parvenus. Les résultats sur l’année 2011 de cette même catégorie consacrent pour sa part Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management devant CM-CIC AM et Invesco AM. Avec des pertes respectives de 11,09 %, 12,37% et 13,47 %. Ils battent de près l’indice (-15,22 %). Une fois encore, les gérants ont été plutôt sous-exposés au marché, le choix de valeurs ayant été déterminant. Le constat inverse explique les dernières places – celles de CCR AM (-24,47 %) et Federal Finance (-23,65 %). Du côté du mandat Europe, sur le seul mois de décembre, deux sociétés de gestion déjà sur le podium dans le mandat «actions zone euro» se retrouvent en haut du classement : Aberdeen AM (3,28 %) devant Invesco AM (2,69%) et CM-CIC (2,51 %). L’univers d’investissement européen s’avère plus difficile pour la gestion active puisque six gérants parviennent à faire mieux que l’indice Stoxx 600 Net Return (1,92 %), tandis que 13 sociétés de gestion se retrouvent en deça de l’indicateur. Aux dernières places figurent La Française AM (-1,29%), Federal Finance (-1,26 %) et CCR AM (-1,18 %). Parmi les éléments remarquables, on notera le très bon résultat d’Invesco AM obtenu avec un beta de 0,54 ou la troisième place de CM-CIC AM avec une… sur-exposition au marché de 1,12. A l’inverse, les dernières places s’expliquent essentiellement par le choix de valeurs des gérants qui, à l’évidence, «n’a pas payé»…Sur l’année 2011, Invesco AM (-0,37 %) devance Aberdeen AM (-2,13 %) et Petercam AM (-7,42 %). Ils battent l’indice – Stoxx 600 Net Return – qui se place en… quatrième position (-8,61 %). Ces chiffres sont à rapprocher avec ceux des derniers du classement : Mandarine Gestion (-19,31 %), CCR AM (-24,28 %), OFI AM (-29,42 %). Près de trente points de base séparent ainsi le premier du dernier... Par rapport aux plus performants, les sociétés de gestion en bas de tableau se distinguent par une «tracking error» élevée – tandis que ce n’est pas le cas pour les deuxième et troisième de la catégorie. Autres points communs dans le bas du classement : les betas sont supérieurs à 1 et la contribution du choix de valeurs, négative... L’ensemble des performances des sociétés de gestion dans les différents mandats est disponible en pièce jointe.

Spécialiste de l’administration de fonds (Master KAG) à la marque du distributeur, le luxembourgeois Axxion a annoncé le 6 janvier la création d’une filiale spécialisée qui internalisera aussi la valorisation des fonds, navAXX SA. Cette formule permettra de personnaliser les offres.La nouvelle filiale a commencé au début de l’année par le calcul de la valeur liquidative de 70 fonds et Axxion prévoit que ce nombre atteindra d’ici à la fin du premier semestre la totalité des 150 fonds qu’elle administre actuellement.Le partenaire informatique de navAXX est Diamos AG.

The Luxembourg-based firm Axxion, a specialist in fund administration (Master KAG), on 6 January announced that it has created a specialised affiliate which will internalise fund valuation, navAXX SA. This arrangement will allow the firm to offer custom products.The new affiliate began its operations at the beginning of the year, calculating the net asset value of 70 funds, and Axxion predicts that the number of funds it currently administers will reach 150 by the end of first half.The IT partner for navAXX is Diamos AG.

Dans un entretien à L’Agefi Hebdo, Philippe Aurain, responsable des investissements du Fonds de réserve (FRR) pour les retraites, estime que la notion d’actif sans risque est relative à chaque passif. Une solution au questionnement des actifs sans risque pourrait alors être de constituer des paniers d’actifs à faible risque, avec les obligations les plus solides afin de diversifier les risques. Concernant la stratégie d’investissement du FRR, le raccourcissement de son horizon et l’avancement des premiers décaissements à partir de 2011 nous ont obligé à opter pour une politique d’investissement à la fois prudente et active, souligne Philippe Aurain. Le portefeuille a ainsi été scindé en deux : une poche de couverture et une de performance. Dans la poche de couverture, dont l’objectif est de couvrir 85 % du passif et qui représente 60 % de l’actif, nous sommes investis à moitié en OAT et le reste en crédit et obligations internationales. Nous étions donc déjà depuis 2010 dans une logique de panier avec ce type d’allocation. Pour optimiser le couple risque/rendement d’un actif de taux, nous avons opté pour une large diversification, conclut le responsable des investissements du FRR.

Aujourd’hui, OFI Asset Management gère 11,5 milliards d’euros en investissement socialement responsable, un montant qui pourrait augmenter dans les prochaines années à la faveur de conversion de mandats, indique Eric Van Labeck, dans un entretien à Newsmanagers. Pour lui, l’ISR a vocation à se diffuser à l’ensemble de la gestion des actifs.

Cian Walsh, gérant d’obligations sur les marchés émergents, a quitté BlueBay où il a passé sept ans, selon les informations de Citywire Global. Il est parti en Norvège au sein de DNB Markets, pour occuper un poste de courtier dans l’équipe devises, taux et matières premières.

A slowdown in ETF trading continued in December on the European markets of NYSE Euronext, which posted an average of 7,734 on-book trades per day and a volume of EUR268.7m per day, compared with 10,965 trades and EUR405.8m the previous month. For the year as a whole, transaction volumes have fallen 43.2%. December was the month last year when activities were at their lowest.Block trading of shares in December declined to EUR930.5m, from EUR974.9m in November, but rose compared with a total of EUR47.5m in December 2010.The average spread in December averaged 36.6 basis points, compared with 40 in November. It had been 36.3% in October, 38.83% in September, and 28.5% in August.The number of new funds launched increased for 2011 as a whole to 157 (of which 129 were primary listing and 28 were secondary listings), from 133 in 2010 (111 and 22, respectively).NYSE Euronext states that the four major underlying indices for ETFs traded on European markets last year were the CAC40 (28%), Euro Stoxx 50 (24%), the CAC40 Leverage (13%), and the Dax (6%).

Asset management firms are increasingly seeking to launch multi-asset class absolute return funds and liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies, as margins on traditional products are under pressure, a study by Cerulli Associates cited by the Financial Times reports. The research firm also finds that asset management firms are seeking to boost their sales with white-label products, particularly in Asia, where they have a freer hand to charge fees as they like.

A UCITS IV license from the French AMF and the German BaFin to the long-only funds Rouvier Valeurs, Europe and Patrimoine will allow Rouvier Associés (EUR750m) to start up its activities in Germany with the opening of a branch office in Frankfurt (see Newsmanagers of 7 November 2011).The director, Patrick Linden, predicts that the company will be present on two or three platforms by the time of the Fonds professionnell congress in Mannheim (25-26 January), Fonds Professionell reports. A cooperation agreement has already been signed for fund distribution with Fondsnet.

The Swiss private bank Julius Baer has recruited a team of eight people from its rival Sarasin, Asian Investor reports. The move comes following Julius Baer’s failure to acquire a majority stake in Sarasin from Rabobank; the stake was ultimately acquired by the Safra group. The team will cover Greater China, and will be led by Elina So, who left Sarasin in late 2011 to join Julius Baer. So began in her new position on 3 January as senior client partner. She will be based in Hong Kong.

Paranay Gupta, who had been chief investment officer (CIO) at ING Investment Management Asia Pacific, has been recruited by Lombard Odier (USD160bn) as CIO for Asia and global head of investment solutions. He will be based in Hong Kong, and will report to Vincent Duhamel, head of Asia.At ING IM, Gupta had been responsible for the investment of assets totalling USD85bn. He also belonged to the global investment leadership team, which supervised the placement of USD484bn at the manager.Before joining ING IM, Gupta has also been deputy CIO at Pearl Group, and a senior member of the management team at ABP Investments.This is the second major recruitment from ING IM at Lombard Odier Investment Management (LOIM). Less than a month ago, LOIM announced the recruitment of Jan Straatman as CIO, the same position which he had previously held at ING. In addition, he had been CEO and CIO of Pearl Group from 2006 to 2008 (see Newsmanagers of 13 December 2011)...

The National Pension Service (NPS, USD300bn), the fourth-largst pension fund in South Korea, on Sunday announced that it has obtained a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license from the Chinese authorities, and is planning to make its first direct investments in equities and bonds denominated in Chinese yuan this year, the Financial Times reports. The chairman of NPS, Jun Kwnag-woo, says that he is aiming for 25% of investments abroad by 2014, up from 10% in 2010.

The Paris Europlace association, which promotes and develops the Paris financial market, has declared its opposition to the establishment of a tax on financial transactions if it is not applied throughout Europe. A tax which would specifically sanction the French financial sector would be inappropriate, the association claimed on Friday, 6 January, pointing out the limitations and risks of such an initiative.Though the law would aim to combat financial speculation, its overly broad application would affect transactions made by private investors, businesses and institutional investors, and would cause significant risk distortions. Its cost would also penalise French banks, asset management firms and insurers, and toughen borrowing conditions for businesses throughout the French economy. It would also lead to substantial losses for the Paris financial industry, and that would come in addition to the already high cost of new financial regulations being put in place (Based 3, Solvency 2), a statement from Paris Europlace claims.The association of financial sector businesses and their retail and business clients claims that they would be at a disadvantage of the plans are put into action. If the law were applied only in France, it would inevitably lead to “a delocalisation of the activities concerned at banks, insurance companies and asset management firms, in favour of the major global financial centres, and would consequently reduce control of financing conditions in our economy and the role of the Paris market in the European and global economies,” the association claims.

On 6 January, Source announced that the Nomura Voltage Mid-Term Source ETF has been admitted to trading on the XTF segment of the German Xetra electronic trading platform (Deutsche Bank). The fund is an Irish, German-registered product (DE000A1JQQZ6), and the listing comes in addition to the version of the product already available in US dollars on the London market (VOLTLN). It allows investors to invest in euros and provides them simple and rapid access to an instrument exposed to volatility.The ETF, which charges fees of 0.30%, replicates the Nomura Voltage Strategy Mid-term 30-day USD TR index. It applies a tactical approach to volatility, which allows investors to profit from volatility peaks, while reducing the costs associated with permanent long positions on volatility. Assets in the fund, launched in April 2011, total over USD165m.

The German investment firm Union Investment Real Estate has sold the office property Aile Sud (7,315 square metres) in Boulogne-Billancourt, for an undisclosed sum, to TF1. UIRE bought the property in 1999 for the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Europa. The asset management firm states that the property, which is leased directly to TF1, has generated significant returns for the fund during those twelve years.Karl-Joseph Hermanns-Engel, a member of the board of directors at UIRE, says that the transaction is a sign of the firm’s continued active asset management policy in France, where the objective is now to sell properties acquired in the first investment phase between 1999 and 2004, which no longer are in line with current strategy.In 2011, UIRE resold French properties with gains for a net of about EUR450m. The proceeds of these sales will be reinvested in Paris and in French regional markets in the next 12 to 15 months.

Jean-Pierre Grimaud, chief investment officer at Swiss Life France, in charge of the administrative and financial department, the securities investment department and the real estate department at Swiss Life France, and also chairman of Swiss Life Asset Management (France) since 2007, as well as Swiss Life Immobilier and of the supervisory board at Viveris Reim, on 1 December became director of a new special unit dedicated to third-party asset management (TPAM). The structure, which will report to the management of the Swiss Life group, will aim “to assist Swiss Life in its ambitions in Switzerland, France, Germany and Luxembourg,” the group says in a statement.Thierry Van Rossum, chief operating officer (COO) at Swiss Life France since 2008, succeeds Grimaud as chief investment officer (CIO). Van Rossum had previously been chief financial officer (CFO) at Swiss Life Belgium from 2002 to 2008.Cécile Mérine succeeds Van Rossum as chief operating officer, and will retain her responsibilities as director of marketing and product development, a position she has held since 2008 at Swiss Life France, where she began in 2002.

The alternative asset management firm Black Diamond Capital Management (BDCM), with assets under management totalling over USD10bn, has appointed Kenneth Rubin as senior managing director and hedge fund portfolio manager. Rubin will be responsible for the hedge fund platform, alongside Stephen Deckoff, a partner at BDCM.

Assets under management in China have fallen 13% in 2011, from CNY2.479trn as of the end of 2010 to CNY2.169trn, according to Z-Ben Advisors. The decline was particularly marked for equity funds, where assets contracted from CNY927bn to CNY704bn, and for balanced funds, which declined from CNY741bn to CNY544bn. However, the fixed income category saw an increase in assets, from CNY302bn to CNY464bn. The majority of this has gone to money market funds, where assets total CNY295bn. Between September and December 2011, this category saw a 133% leap in its assets. But the trend is expected to reverse in early 2012, Z-Ben Advisors predicts. Pessimism about the markets has led to a decline in interest in funds on the part of investors, Z-Ben Advisors notes. During the final three months of 2011, the average product launch attracted assets totaling just CNY1bn, compared with CNY2.6bn in fourth quarter 2010. However, the lower level is also due to a 43% increase in the number of funds launched in 2011.

Anthony Bolton has personally lost more than USD1m due to heavy losses from his China fund last year, the Financial Times reports. The decline represents one third of the value of his 2.5 million shares in the Fidelity China Special Situations fund. The fund, which raised GBP460m at its launch in April 2010, saw a decline in its share price of one third in 2011.

An increase in taxation on savings in Spain will make investments in the form of shares in investment funds more competitive, since the subscriber will deal with the tax office only when selling off the investment. In addition, the investor will remain able to modify the investment profile without paying taxes, as trades between funds retain a tax exemption, Cinco Días reports.These advantages will prove more important if the higher taxes on savings are truly limited to two years, as announced.Cinco Días reports that the investment fund sector has suffered considerably due to the crisis, with assets now back to their 1996 levels.

Van Eck is adding to its investment team. The US asset management firm has recruited Imaro Casanova as a senior analyst specialised in gold. She joins the team responsible for the International Investors Gold Fund, Global Hard Assets Fund and Van Eck VP Global Hard Assets Fund, among others. In total, the three mutual funds have USD6.6bn in assets.The team dedicated to hard assets now includes 12 people. Casanova joined Van Eck from McNicoll Lewis & Vlak, where she had been a senior analyst in equities research, specialised in the mining sector.

The chairman of BNP Paribas, Baudoin Prot, on 6 January announced on BFM that results at BNP Paribas would be down significantly despite a profitable fourth quarter. “Fourth quarter will clearly bring a profitable result,” said Prot, but added that for the fiscal year as a whole, results would be “noticeably down” compared with 2010. Dividends are also expected to be reduced, as will bonuses for management and market operators at BNP Paribas.

The US asset management firm Putnam Investments, an affiliate of Power Corporation of Canada, has announced that due to market volatility, it will be laying off 78 employees in the Boston region, equivalent to 4.4% of its 1,767 employees. The Boston Globe reports that this is the fourth wave of layoffs since Robert “Bob” Reynolds became CEO in July 2008. Since then, the firm has recruited 500 people and laid off 489.The new layoffs will primarily affect operations and not investment professionals.As of the end of December, assets at Putnam were down to USD117bn, compared with USD121bn one year earlier.

According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, Thibault de Vitry quit Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) on 31 December. The asset management firm confirmed to Newsmanagers that de Vitry, who had since 2007 served as Global Head of Investment Solutions, and had been head of asset liability management and multi-asset investment activities as well as AXA funds of hedge funds, had left the firm. Other sources report that the firm is seeking a replacement for de Vitry to be recruited from another asset management firm. Until his replacement arrives, a transitional committee has been established. Before joining Axa IM in 1998, de Vitry held a series of positions as managing director of quantitative and structured investments, global head of operations at AXA IM, global head of insurance investment, COO of securities investment management, and finally global head of insurance investment at AXA IM.

Axa has raised a fund which will invest up to EUR2.5bn in the development of offices and shopping centres in continental Europe, in order to profit from a gap left open by the withdrawal of banks and other credit providers from the real estate market, the Financial Times reports. The fund has raised EUR585.5m, largely from pension funds and insurers.

Members of the European parliament are highly reticent about complex financial products. More than half of them (57%) would like to forbid complex or manifestly risks financial products, according to a survey by Cicero Consulting and ComRes of a sample of 100 European MPs about the regulatory and gestation framework for the asset management sector. A majority of MPs estimate that financial establishments which hold savings should be subject to much stricter regulations. One of the few sources of disagreement between MPs is about the impact of reforms on the flow of capital to offshore financial centres. 36% of respondents say that tighter regulations would reduce the flow, while 37% think the opposite.

The hedge fund services firm GlobeOp Financial Services is in talks with the private equity firms Advent International and TPG over a potential takeover bid, Reuters reports. GlobeOp, whose assets under administration total USD173bn, is being advised in the talks by Evercore Partners. The talks are still at a preliminary stage, GlobeOp states.