La société de gestion britannique RWC Partners vient de lancer un fonds value international qui sera piloté par des anciens gérants de Schroders, Nick Purves et Ian Lance, rapporte Investment Week. Il s’agit du troisième fonds confié aux deux gérants qui ont toujours donné la priorité à une approche value doublée d’une forte propension à l’international. Le fonds Income Opportunities, l’un des deux fonds qu’ils gèrent depuis leur lancement l’an dernier, affichait au 30 juin une poche de près de 50% dédiée à l’international. Le fonds, qui a été doté de capitaux maison à l’occasion de son lancement, est ouvert aux investisseurs mais RWC Partners n’envisage pas de pousser cette offre auprès des investisseurs externes avant au moins douze mois.
In early August, Axa Wealth announced in a statement that it plans to triple its assets under management by 2015. Its managing director, David Thompson, has recently told the specialist site MoneyMarketing that the goal is to achieve assets of about GBP45bn by 2015. This optimism is based on strong growth in assets under management at Axa Wealth, thanks to the Elevate distribution platform. In first half, assets under management on the platform increased 107% compared with first half 2010, to GBP2.9bn. Activity on Elevate represents 40% of total sales, compared with 21% in the corresponding period of 2010. Assets under management at Axa Wealth, which also includes Architas (with assets up 48% in twelve months, to GBP8.6bn), have increased 21% in the past twelve months, from GBP15.6bn to GBP18.9bn.
The British asset management firm RWC Partners has announced the launch of the RWC Global Value fund, an unconstrained UCITS-compliant deep value fund, which may invest up to 100% of its assets abroad. RWC will provide the seed capital, but has no plans to open the fund to external investors for one year.The managers are Nick Purves and Ian Lance, who were recruited by the firm in August 2010. They left Schroders (which has since acquired a 49% stake in RWC) in May 2010; they will be assisted by John Teahan, also formerly of Schroders, as an analyst.
Jonathan Sharpe and Ralph Jainz, who founded Ratio Asset Management in late 2005, have decided to close the Ratio European Fund and return all assets to investors. The catalyst has been fund redemptions by two of their largest long standing investors and in the light of this and continued market uncertainty, they believe this is the best course of action for our investors. According to Financial News, the investors withdrew USD60m on total assets under management of USD160m. During 2010 the fund delivered a return of 12.7%, but this year stock selection has not proved profitable. The fund is currently down just over 4% year to date. Since its launch in February 2006, the fund produced a net return of over 25%.“We fully intend to return to the fray with another investment vehicle in the future”, Jonathan Sharpe and Ralph Jainz write in a letter to investors.
The Libyan National transitional council has appointed Mahmoud Badi to track foreign assets belonging to the country, including those held by the sovereign fund Libyan Investment Authority, with total assets of USD65bn, and to investigate potential corruption, the Financial Times reports. Badi, who hopes that the sovereign fund will have a new board in three months, has told the Financial Times that several LIA funds have lost as much as 40% of their value in the past six months, but that asset management firms were still making millions of dollars in fees.
In June, even before the turmoil in the global markets, investors were already holding back from risky assets due to uncertainties over the strength of the economic recovery and increasingly visible tensions in European debt markets.According to the most recent statistics from the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), which brings together 23 professional associations representing more than 97% of total UCITS and non-UCITS assets, UCITS witnessed a swing in net sales in June to record net outflows of EUR29bn, after recording net inflows of EUR 22 billion in May. This turnaround in net sales is attributable to large net outflows from money market funds and reduced net sales of equity and bond funds. Long-term UCITS (UCITS excluding money market funds) experienced reduced net inflows in June of EUR 7 billion, down from net inflows of EUR 16 billion in May. Balanced funds continued to record strong net sales in June increasing to EUR 6 billion, up from EUR 5 billion in May.Bond funds, however, experienced a drop in net sales to breakeven point in June, after recording net inflows of EUR 8 billion in the previous month. Equity funds experienced a turnaround in net flows during the month to record net outflows of EUR 3 billion, after recording net inflows of EUR 1 billion last month. Money market funds experienced large net outflows in June amounting to EUR 36 billion, significantly lower than the net inflows of EUR 6 billion recorded in May.
The Swiss federal financial markets surveillance authority (Finma) on 25 August published a circular which redefines its requirements for ratings agencies. It also introduces uniform conditions for ratings agencies to be recognised. Under the new rules, which will come into force on 1 January 2012, the use of credit ratings concerns not only banks and securities traders, but also insurers, Finma says in a statement. The surveillance authority has also taken into account evolutions that have taken place in Switzerland and abroad concerning ratings agencies.
The US firm Southeastern Asset Management on 24 August notified the CNMV that its stake in Ferrovial, the principal asset of the Del Pino family, has passed the 5% threshold, and stands at 5.012%, which is equivalent to about 36.76 million shares out of a total of 733.51 million.The shares, which closed EUR8.40 on Thursday, are worth EUR303.3m. They make Southeastern AM the second-largest shareholder in Ferrovial after the Del Pino family, which retains a 45.57% stake.In early August, the US management firm announced that it held a 3.07% stake in the Spanish group, which then was worth EUR166m.
In its most recent quarterly bulletin, the asset management firm of the Acciona group, Bestinver, has announced that it continued to concentrate its international portfolio in first half 2011, as the team led by Francisco García Paramés moves to place a higher level of confidence in businesses that it has known for a long time, which are well-managed, have a low level of debt, and an inexpensive share price. The average PER for the international portfolio is 7.6 times. As of the end of June, the top 12 positions in the portfolio represented nearly 64% of assets, and assets in the top 15 positions represented 70%.Bestinver also states that in first half, all funds in its range posted gains. Returns since the beginning of the year ranged from 0.63% for the Bestinver Previsión to 5.86% for the Bestinver Global.
Clariden Leu, an affiliate of Credit Suisse, has appointed Marco Bartolucci as director of its Investment Products division and a member of its board of directors, effective immediately. Since 2003, Bartolucci had been head of the structured products division at Clariden Leu, a statement released on 25 August says.
WealthBriefing reports that UBS in July recruited Toby FitzGerald in Zurich as associate director. In 2008, FitzGerald founded a range of private banking services with Stephen Conolly at Credit Suisse, which offered homosexual client advisors and was aimed at gay, lesbian and transgender clients.UBS says, however, that FitzGerald will not focus exclusively on gay clients, though that possibility has not been ruled out.FitzGerald will report to Shona Baijal, executive director in the wealth management division at UBS.
Following an acquisition agreement, an affiliate of the investment fund TPG Capital will acquire a 30% stake in Saxo Bank, with an option to increase the stake to 40%. The shares will be sold by existing shareholders in the bank, including General Atlantic, an international investment fund, and Banco Espirito Santo, one of the largest Portuguese banks, among others. The founders of the firm, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, will retain majority stakes, and will continue to serve as co-presidents of the group, even if TPG Capital does acquire a 40% stake in the firm, a statement says. The acquisition by TPG Capital is subject to approval by regulators and antitrust authorities.
The Asian management specialist Stewart Aldcroft has joined the global transaction services division of Citi, according to Asian Investor. Aldcroft previously worked at the Hong Kong management firm EIP (Enhanced Investment Products). He began on 22 August in his new role as managing director and senior advisor for investor services in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Liechtensteinische Landesbank (LLB) has posted net inflows in first half up slightly to CHF523m, the bank announced in a statement on 25 August. However, assets under management as of the end of June totalled CHF48.7bn, compared with CHF49.8bn as of the end of December 2010, due to the negative impact of currency exchange rates (-2.7%) and the negative performance of the market (-0.5%).
Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet’s company, is going to invest USD5 billion in Bank of America. Bank of America Corporation announced on August 25 that it reached an agreement to sell 50,000 shares of Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock with a liquidation value of USD100,000 per share to Berkshire Hathaway in a private offering. The preferred stock has a dividend of 6 percent per annum, payable in equal quarterly installments, and is redeemable by the company at any time at a 5 percent premium. In conjunction with this agreement, Berkshire Hathaway will also receive warrants to purchase 700,000,000 shares of Bank of America common stock at an exercise price of USD7.142857 per share. The warrants may be exercised in whole or in part at any time, and from time to time, during the 10-year period following the closing date of the transaction. The aggregate purchase price to be received by Bank of America for the preferred stock and warrants is USD5 billion in cash.
Chief financial officers are playing an increasingly important role in the definition and communication of socially and environmentally responsible policies at their businesses, a report published by Ernst & Young funds. This is for a simple reason: investors want to evaluate the financial performance of businesses in the light of their social and environmental impact. Hence the increasingly prominent place of ESG criteria in the current fiscal year, which has gradually become the province of CFOs, whose responsibilities have been enlarged into an area that extends well beyond the expertise required of them a few years ago. The CFO is now expected to lay out the sustainable development policies of businesses to investors, who now view the financial and extra-financial performance of a company as two sides of the same coin. A growing number of instruments to measure sustainable development are also a manifestation of this fundamental trend. Shareholders in companies are also tuned in to these issues: in 2011 general shareholders’ meetings, 40% of proposals voted on were related to social or environmental issues. While in 2005, only 3% of resolutions which were social or environmental in nature received 30% or more votes in favour, in 2001, 31.6% of resolutions achieved this level of support. Reporting on sustainable development has become the norm. According to Ernst & Young, an integrated report on sustainable development and financial results may become the new standard by the end of this decade.
Andreas Folgner, who has been at HSBC Trinkhaus for ten years, has been appointed as head of the new «corporate business» service at HSBC Global Asset Management (Deutschland). With his team, which also includes two other people, Folgner will be in charge of relationship management for major corporations and SMBs which are headquartered in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. He will also be in charge of development of asset management solutions for short and long-term capital investment by corporate clients.The new corporate business service is part of the Institutional & Corporate Business Germany/Austria unit at HSBC GAM Germany, led by Leonard Fröhling.
The BdB association of German private sector banks has told Handelsblatt that it has revised its projection of the cost of the Lehman bankruptcy to its guarantee fund downward from EUR6.7bn to EUR6.2bn.Since the beginning of 2009, banks of the association have managed to recuperate EUR1.3bn in assets from the German affiliate Lehman Brothers Bankhaus AG.
Le cours du métal jaune a chuté de 7,4 % en trois séances à 1.758 dollars l'once après les relèvements des appels de marges du CME et les prises de profits des investisseurs
En plus de prélever 1,5 milliard d'euros, la mesure pourrait peser sur les comptes des entreprises et inciter certaines d'entre elles à revoir leurs projets en France
L'autorité réexaminera avant fin septembre cette mesure. D'ici là, elle continuera à surveiller étroitement les marchés des dix groupes financiers concernés
En relevant le forfait social sur l’intéressement et la participation à 8 %, le gouvernement porte un coup au développement de l'épargne salariale. Et la réforme du régime du report déficitaire risque de chambouler la fiscalité des entreprises.
L’augmentation du chômage en France s’est accélérée en juillet pour retrouver un niveau sans précédent depuis février 2000, montrent les statistiques publiées hier par le ministère du Travail et Pôle Emploi. Le nombre de demandeurs d’emploi en catégorie A (ceux n’ayant exercé aucune activité au cours du mois) en France métropolitaine a augmenté de 36.100 (+1,3%) le mois dernier pour s'établir à 2.756.500. Sur un an, le nombre de chômeurs en catégorie A a progressé de 2,8%, soit 76.200. En ajoutant les personnes exerçant une activité réduite (catégories B et C), la hausse du nombre de demandeurs d’emploi est ramenée à 0,6%, soit 24.300 personnes de plus en un mois, pour atteindre 4.128.000. En rythme annuel, la progression pour ces trois catégories confondues est de 4,3%. Le nombre d’inscrits à Pôle Emploi depuis un an ou plus a quant à lui augmenté de 0,8% par rapport à juin et bondi de 9,2% sur un an.
Les inscriptions au chômage aux Etats-Unis ont augmenté contre toute attente lors de la semaine au 20 août, à 417.000 contre 412.000 (révisé en hausse) la semaine précédente, a annoncé le département du Travail. Les économistes attendaient en moyenne 405.000 inscriptions au chômage la semaine dernière, après 408.000 annoncées initialement pour la semaine précédente.
L’autorité américaine de régulation du secteur nucléaire (NRC) a annoncé hier qu’elle demanderait aux opérateurs des 104 réacteurs du pays de réexaminer leurs risques sismiques afin d’améliorer, si besoin est, leur résistance. La NRC a indiqué que selon ses études préliminaires, la conception des centrales au regard du risque sismique était adéquate et qu’elle fournirait avant la fin de l’année à ces opérateurs un système d’analyse leur permettant de réaliser «une évaluation actualisée».
Le moral des consommateurs allemands devrait légèrement se dégrader en septembre, touchant un plus bas de dix mois dans le contexte de la crise de la dette en zone euro et de la crainte d’une récession aux Etats-Unis, montre jeudi l’enquête mensuelle de l’institut GfK. Cet indicateur avancé du sentiment des consommateurs, calculé sur la base d’une enquête auprès d’environ 2.000 personnes, ressort en baisse à 5,2 pour septembre contre 5,3 pour août, mais en ligne avec le consensus.