Feri Finance AG, an affiliate of MLP, on 27 September announced that it is combining its advisory operations serving high net worth retail and institutional clients, which had previously been housed at Feri Family Trust GmbH and Feri Institutional Advisors GmbH, in a single structure, Feri Institutional & Family Office GmbH.All services from the two companies in areas including and connected with wealth management will be concentrated in another new firm, Feri Trust GmbH.All “support” functions, such as book-keeping, reporting and investment controlling, will now be placed in a new entity, Feri Investment Services GmbH.With Feri EuroRating Services AG, the Feri group thus includes four companies.

US-based BNY Mellon on 27 September announced that it will now be offering settlement and clearance services directly in the Netherlands. To this end, it has signed an agreement with Euroclear Netherlands, which will provide its clients for broker-dealer services (USD1.8trn in tri-party balances worldwide) faster and more convenient access to the Dutch market.

In an internal memo sent to North American employees of the group, Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the board of directors, and Sergio Ermotti, interim CEO of UBS, on Monday clearly stated that their wealth management activities in the United States are not for sale, Handelsblatt reports.The two heads of the Swiss group are also supporting Robert McCann, CEO, Wealth Management Americas, in whom they say they have confidence to continue to develop this activity in a highly important market.

Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Société Générale is seeking to sell its stake in Newedge, its derivative products affiliate, owned jointly with Crédit Agricole, as part of its plan to sell off non-strategic assets estimated at EUR250m. In addition to Newedge, the French bank may also sell SGSS, its securities management affiliate. The same source says that no decisions have been taken so far. Société Générale et Crédit Agricole had no comment on the reports.

Emmanuelle Hsu joined Global Financial Services (GFS), a third-party marketing firm which helps asset management firms in introducing their funds to qualified institutional investors in France and internationally, in early September. Hsu will be in charge of development for France and internationally for multi-manager and institutional clients. Hsu was previously head of distribution for France and Monaco at Threadneedle Asset Management from 2006 to 2009, Since 2009, she had been a partner at Spread Box, a start-up specialised in competitiveness, marketing and social media optimisation. In June, GFS made another addition to its sales team, in the person of Linda Caussade, who was appointed head of development for France and internationally. Caussade most recently worked at Calyon as a structured products salesperson for equities indices and mutual funds to clients of the regional banks of the Crédit Agricole network. The recruitments come at a time when GFS has recently integrated the financial company Assya, in order to strengthen the latter’s unit dedicated to asset management.

The European open-ended residential real estate fund reserved for institutional investors Bouwfonds European Residential Fonds (DE000A0M98N2), available from Robeco, has announced that it has made an investment of EUR23.4m in a student housing complex in Stuttgart (initial gross return: 6.6%), and another investment of EUR10m in two residential properties in Stockholm (initial gross return: 5.4%). Currently, net assets in the fund total EUR280m, in 40 properties. Counting leverage, the total volume of the fund is EUR350m, with the objective of reaching EUR1bn in assets.

Carmignac Gestion on Tuesday, 27 September officially unveiled the Luxembourg-registered fund Carmignac Emerging Patrimoine (a sub-fund of the Carmignac Portfolio Sicav) to the European press. The product has EUR120m in assets, and was launched on 31 March 2011 with EUR20m of seed capital.The most recent addition to the Patrimoine trange is managed jointly by Simon Pickard for the equities portion, Charles Zerah for the bond portion, and Frédéric Leroux, who handles the coverage for the portfolio and derivative strategies, along with other resources from the Carmignac team. The asset management firm has also recently recruited Haiyan Li-Labbé from OFI as an analyst responsible for the Chinese and Taiwan markets. At her previous employer, Li-Labbé had been manager of a fund investing in local Chinese equities (A shares) and head of the asset management team specialised in Asian markets."The Carmignac Emerging Patrimoine fund is a capital preservation fund, which is flexible, balanced, and oriented to the long term, with a tactical overlay», Eric Le Coz, deputy CEO, explained.In light of the current market conditions, the fund is defensively positioned, with 25% of its assets in equities (out of a maximum of 50%), and a net exposure to equities of 15%, with 10% short positions on emerging markets indices. The portion of assets freed up by the limited equities exposure is taken up by bonds and fixed income, with a highly active management of duration, and a 10% exposure to Treasury bonds denominated in Singapore dollars (6 months), as Carmignac Gestion is currently highly pessimistic about the euro.CharacteristicsName: Carmignac Emerging PatrimoineISIN codes:A share class in euros: LU0592698954E share class in euros: LU0592699093GBP shares: LU0592699176USD shares: LU0592699259Front-end fee:A shares: maximum 4%E shares: noneGBP shares: 4% maximumUSD shares: 4% maximumManagement commission:A shares: 1.50% maximumE shares: 1.25% maximumGBP shares: 1.50% maximumUSD shares: 1.50% maximumWithdrawal fees: NoneVariable management commission: 15% of performance exceeding the fund’s performance benchmark in case of positive returns.Performance benchmark: 50% MSCI Emerging Markets in euros and 50% JPMorgan GBI EM global diversified in euros.

In 2011, 156 funds out of 184 applicants obtained the Novethic SRI label, which aims to provide a benchmark for individual investors. Last year, 142 funds out of 182 received the distinction, and in 2009, in the first year of the label, 92 out of 121 were granted it. “The label now has reached critical size,” says Dominic Blanc, head of research at Novethic. It now covers half of the market, as the number of SRI funds in France as of the end of June 2011 was 307, with assets of EUR47bn. Seven asset management firms and 20% of funds were candidates for the label for the first time in 2011, including products from Sycomore Asset Management and La Financière de l’Echiquier. And among those which were granted the label, 65 funds have had it for three years. However, 15 funds, whose names have not been disclosed, lost their labels in 2011. “These are often from firms which had a stagnant SRI range,” says Blanc. Although asset management firms appear to have widely adopted the label, what do the retail investors for whom the label was created think of it? According to Novethic, inflows to funds with an SRI label (in 2010) remained positive in the first half of 2011, at EUR587m, though this was largely due to the weight of money market funds in this category. Equity funds bearing the SRI label saw net redemptions of EUR253m, But Anne-Catherine Husson-Traore, CEO of Novethic, points out that the label is developing in a difficult overall context for financial management. She also notes that there is an increasing and encouraging presence of the SRI label on the funds on the websites of retail networks of banks. A list of funds bearing the label may be found here: http://www.novethic.fr/novethic/developpement-durable/liste-fonds-inves…

As John Paulson is going through one of the most difficult periods of his career in terms of performance, he is also having to confront hoardes of vulture investors who are hoping he will have to initiate a fire sale of his investments, the Wall Street Journal reports. Rival hedge funds, brokers and other firms are going through the investments of Paulson & Co with a fine-toothed comb, in an effort to second-guess what the manager would sell first, if he needs liquidity to pay off investors. Some firms have even approached Paulson and made him cut-price offers for some of his assets.

Thomas Vester Nielsen, a manager of frontier markets mandates at BankInvest in Denmark, has been recruited by the British firm Lloyd George Management (LGM, an affiliate of BMO Asset Management), Investment Week reports. Nielsen has been appointed head of the new “equities, frontier markets” strategy at LGM, which launched a fund in the segment earlier this month.

The Luxembourg investment fund association (ALFI) is setting itself new ambitions. At its 20th annual conference, held on 27 and 28 September in Luxembourg, ALFI is unveiling its action plan for the next four years.In a difficult international environment, ALFI is planning to create a more propitious environment for investment funds, by highlighting their positive contribution for savings investors and society. Luxembourg is now the largest domicile for investment funds in Europe, largely due to its rapid transposition of European UCITS fund directives. “However, the recent crisis has shown the importance of better protection for savers. ALFI would like to show that UCITS funds already offer highly significant protection. Our ambition is to meet these challenges, and is based on two strong convictions: on the one hand, funds are beneficial for all; and on the other, Luxembourg is good for funds,” the president of ALFI, Marc Saluzzi, says.A reference document, “ALFI Ambition Paper 2011-2015,” translates these two convictions into five objectives: to ensure that UCITS funds remain the standard for savings investor protection; to help fund managers and institutional investors to participate in the development of regulated alternative funds, under the AIFM directive; to stimulate innovation, facilitate international fund distribution, and lastly, to strengthen the position of Luxembourg as a preferred partner in the asset management sector.In order to realise these ambitions, ALFI will work in close collaboration with its members and partners, and with all parties associated with the development of the industry. In the next few months, the action plan will be discussed by the High Market Committee, chaired by Luxembourg’s finance minister, Luc Frieden.

US Federal judge Jed Rakoff has set a limit to the claims of Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for the business interests of Bernard Madoff. Picard will be allowed to seek only USD83.3m in alleged false profits and USD301m in principal from the owners of the New York Mets baseball team, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, the Wall Street Journal reports. Picard was seeking restitution of USD300m in false profits and USD700m in principal from the two men.In addition to setting a two-year time limit on the case, the judge has required the trustee to provide more conclusive evidence that Wilpon and Katz were wilfully blind to signs of fraud.

European investors are paying higher transaction costs to use ETFs than their American counterparts, the Financial Times reports. For example, the average spread for trading the MSCI Emerging Markets ETF from iShares on the London Stock Exchange is 28 basis points this week. That means that investors are paying transaction costs of 0.28% to enter or exit the fund in London. By comparison, in the same period, the average spread for the equivalent product traded in New York was 8 basis points, meaning costs of 0.08%. The difference in spreads between the two regions is due to the lower transaction volumes and fragmentation of liquidity in Europe, the FT reports.

State Street’s Global Investor Confidence increased slightly to 89.9 in September, up from August’s revised reading of 88.1. The gains in the index originated in Europe and Asia. The European Investor Confidence Index gained 5.6 points to reach 95.7, up from August’s revised reading of 90.1, while the Asian Investor Confidence Index behaved in a similar fashion, rising 5.5 points to reach 100.7. Among North American investors, sentiment declined slightly to 85.1, down 1.1 points from August’s revised level of 86.2. “On the face of it, it may seem surprising to measure an increase in Global Investor Confidence in a month in which equity volatility has increased substantially,” commented Ken Froot, who created the index. “There are two points that should be kept in mind about the increase. First, confidence remains in the eighties, a relatively low level, albeit better than the low eighties observed in late 2008. Second, despite all of the concern surrounding sovereign balance sheets, corporate balance sheets remain in relatively good shape at present, and this is an attractive feature of equities for institutional investors.”

Dans un entretien au magazine Option Finance, Didier Bonneau, directeur financier de Vauban Humanis revient sur les chantier en cours au sein de son groupe. Le principal problème que nous rencontrons dans le cadre de Solvabilité 2 consiste à anticiper et à gérer la volatilité du bilan économique, et donc de nos actifs. Dans ce cadre, nous étudions avec Christophe Cattoir la mise en place d’outils de mesure du portefeuille qui nous donnent à la fois sa performance, son niveau de risque et de volatilité en fonction de scénario de stress de marché. Le point essentiel consiste à pouvoir détecter une aggravation ou une amélioration de la situation économique et de voir, lorsqu’un événement non envisagé se produit, comment réagit le portefeuille. Nous souhaitons également consolider notre démarche d’investisseur responsable (IR). La problématique d’IR est apparue dans notre gestion depuis trois ans; notre norme interne d’analyse IR est opérationnelle depuis le début de l’année. Nous souhaitons déployer progressivement cette démarche dans l’ensemble de nos portefeuilles et supports. Par exemple, nous l'étudions actuellement pour le non coté avec deux axes principaux: la santé et le développement régional des régions dans lesquelles Vauban Humanis est présent, comme le Nord ou le Centre. Nous l'étendons aussi aux produits structurés et à la gestion alternative.

Les membres de la Commission européenne devaient encore débattre hier mardi des taux applicables aux transactions financières dans le cadre du projet de taxe qui doit être dévoilé aujourd’hui devant le Parlement européen par leur président, José Manuel Barroso. Le cadre général de la taxe, dont l’entrée en vigueur est prévue pour 2014, est proche de ce qu’avaient proposé le ministre de l’Economie français François Baroin et son homologue allemand Wolfgang Schaüble le 9 septembre. Mais le taux, différent pour dérivés, d’un côté, et actions et obligations, de l’autre, continuait de diviser le collège. Pour être adoptée au niveau de l’Union européenne, cette proposition, à l’instar de toute législation fiscale,devra être acceptée par les 27 ministres des Finances de l’Union européenne. Le projet rencontre des résistances, notamment en Grande-Bretagne, en Suède et aux Pays-Bas.

Le gouvernement français va créer pour 2012 une taxe exceptionnelle pour les industriels soumis aux quotas de dioxyde de carbone (CO2), a confié hier à Reuters une source gouvernementale, confirmant une information du quotidien Le Figaro. Cette taxe sera assise sur leur chiffre d’affaires hors taxe, à un taux variant entre 0,08% et 0,12%, et elle devrait rapporter près de 250 millions d’euros, indiquait hier soir le journal sur son site internet. Les électriciens, en première ligne EDF, en payeront le tiers, précisait-il, tandis que «les petits pollueurs, ceux qui ont reçu des quotas pour moins de 60 000 tonnes, en seront exonérés». La source gouvernementale a confirmé la création de cette taxe ainsi que son taux, mais pas le rendement attendu. Le gouvernement doit présenter dans la journée le projet de budget pour 2012 qui vise à ramener le déficit public de la France à 4,5% du produit intérieur brut à la fin de l’an prochain.

La Banque des règlements internationaux, via sa commission «Marchés», a publié un rapport relatif au trading haute fréquence sur les marchés de change. Estimant que ce type de trading aura des implications significatives, le rapport recommande aux régulateurs de développer des contacts appropriés avec les diverses plates-formes de trading, les prime brokers et la communauté du trading algorithmique et haute fréquence.

«De mon point de vue, le programme de rallongement de la maturité, combiné à celui de rachat de MBS, représente une tentative pondérée et progressive d’apporter plus de soutien à la reprise. Ca ne consiste pas à réparer tout ce qui ne va pas dans l'économie mais ça devrait aider», a déclaré hier le président de la Fed d’Atlanta.

Selon les chiffres publiés par la Banque de France, la croissance des crédits aux sociétés non financières en France a maintenu son rythme de croissance (+6,0% en rythme annuel après +6,1%). Le fléchissement des crédits à l’habitat aux ménages s’est parallèlement confirmé (+8,4%, après +8,7% en juillet).

Le rendement d’obligations souveraines italiennes à deux ans a atteint 4,511% lors d’une adjudication du Trésor hier, soit un plus haut depuis juillet 2008. L’Espagne a de son côté émis pour 3,23 milliards d’euros de papier à trois et six mois, consentant également dans les deux cas un rendement plus élevé que lors d’opérations précédentes, avec des taux respectifs de 1,692% et 2,665%.

L’indice de confiance des consommateurs américains mesurée par le Conference Board a quasiment stagné en septembre à 45,4 après 45,2 (révisé de 44,5) au mois d’août. Le consensus Reuters laissait prévoir un indice à 46,0.

Président du directoire de La Banque Postale Gestion Privée, Lorenzo Gazzoletti prend la suite de Jean-Philippe Taslé d’Héliand, nommé président d’Oddo Banque Privée, et devient directeur général délégué d’Oddo Asset Management, a annoncé mardi le groupe financier. Il entre également au comité exécutif d’Oddo & Cie.

La banque centrale effectuera six ventes et treize achats de titres chaque mois, pour un volume moyen de 44 milliards de dollars

Le zloty polonais perd 11 % contre le dollar et le forint hongrois 10 % depuis le début du mois. Les niveaux de CDS se creusent

Les prix des logements se stabilisent en rythme mensuel mais les facteurs de baisse restent nombreux

Le taux de défaut sur les produits structurés européens s'élève à 1,2 %, un chiffre relativement bas mais qui cache de fortes disparités

Dans le cadre des négociations concernant le second plan de sauvetage de la Grèce, pas moins de sept pays sur les 17 qui composent la zone euro seraient favorables à un élargissement de la contribution du secteur privé, selon le quotidien qui cite des sources officielles. En tête de cette coalition, l’Allemagne et les Pays-Bas, qui se fondent sur des pertes grecques plus élevées qu’initialement prévues. Ces deux pays rencontrent néanmoins une fin de non-recevoir de la part à la fois de l’Etat français et de la Banque centrale européenne qui cherchent à enrayer les craintes concernant le secteur bancaire européen, sous haute tension.

Le fonds créé par Dominique Oger se donne selon le quotidien jusqu’à Noël pour trouver un repreneur après avoir mis un terme aux négociations pourtant avancées avec Duke Street. Les parties ne sont pas parvenues à un accord sur les conditions financières, en particulier selon le quotidien sur le partage des plus-values avec le fondateur et les investisseurs.