Le Portugal demande à l'UE de prendre des mesures convaincantes pour surmonter la crise

Le Portugal demande à l'UE de prendre des mesures convaincantes pour surmonter la crise

Dans son évaluation semestrielle, la FSA souligne un haut niveau de liquidité et une empreinte globalement limitée sur le marché

Il suppose l'adaptation du Code des assurances afin de permettre aux compagnies de financer ces « obligations PPP » comme des placements réglementés

Malgré un différentiel de taux de croissance en leur faveur, les indices des pays asiatiques restent corrélés à ceux des pays développés

L’équipe responsable du non coté au sein de SAC Capital Advisors cherche à lancer une société indépendante de private equity, Siris Capital, par le biais de la levée d’un fonds. L’actif de ce dernier pourrait être de 400 millions de dollars, essentiellement consacrés aux secteurs de la technologie, des télécommunications et de la santé.

Le fonds souverain de Singapour, Temasek, et celui de Pékin, China Investment Corp, font partie selon le quotidien des prétendants à la reprise d’une part de 39% du capital de Shanghai Jahwa United, détenu par le gouvernement local. C’est ce qu’a indiqué au quotidien le président du groupe chinois, Ge Wenyao. Le groupe discute également avec des acheteurs privés.

Le gouverneur Stefan Ingves et le premier vice-gouverneur Svante Oberg ont déclaré que la banque centrale suédoise pourrait relever les taux de plus d’un quart de point si les pressions inflationnistes augmentaient. La Riksbank a annoncé une hausse des taux pour la cinquième fois d’affilée à l’issue de sa réunion du 15 février.

L’Union européenne va envisager une baisse du taux d’intérêt de l’aide d’urgence allouée à l’Irlande, a annoncé lundi Olli Rehn, commissaire aux Affaires économiques et monétaires. «Nous partageons avec l’Irlande l’objectif de relancer sa dynamique de croissance et de parvenir à assurer la viabilité de la dette», a-t-il déclaré lors d’une conférence de presse. «Les conditions de tarification, je veux parler des taux d’intérêt, sont ici l’une des questions clés qui sera évoquée dans le cadre de la stratégie globale de l’Union européenne.», a ajouté Olli Rehn. L’Irlande a obtenu fin 2010 du Fonds monétaire international (FMI) et de l’UE une aide d’urgence de 85 milliards d’euros pour faire face à une dette record. Le Fine Gail, vainqueur des élections législatives de vendredi en Irlande, souhaite négocier avec l’UE une révision du taux d’intérêt de ce prêt.

Les prix de production de l’industrie française ont enregistré un quatrième mois consécutif de hausse sensible en janvier, augmentant de 0,9% par rapport au mois précédent et portant à 5,6% leur progression sur un an, selon les chiffres publiés par l’Insee. En décembre, les prix avaient également augmenté de 0,9% par rapport au mois précédent.

Les prix à l’importation ont augmenté plus que prévu en janvier en Allemagne, au vu des chiffres publiés lundi par l’Office fédéral de la statistique, notamment en raison de l’envolée des prix de l'énergie depuis février 2010. Leur hausse est de 1,5% d’un mois sur l’autre et de 11,8% annuellement, alors que le consensus donnait 1% et 11,2% respectivement.

L’inflation de la zone euro a été révisée en baisse en janvier mais elle reste bien supérieure à l’objectif de la Banque centrale européenne en raison surtout de la flambée des prix pétroliers. Eurostat a annoncé une inflation annuelle de 2,3% le mois dernier contre une première estimation de 2,4% et 2,2% mesurés en décembre.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Via a capital increase, Espirito Santo Financière S.A., a Luxembourg affiliate of the Portuguese Espirito Santo group, has acquired a 40% stake for an undisclosed amount in Adepa AM, which will continue to provide fund administration services to Luxembourg institutional investors, Funds People reports.The two directors and partners at Adepa, Carlos Alberto Morales López et Javier Valls Martínez, will continue to direct the business.Adepa, which was founded in Spain in 1980, has recently liquidated its Spanish activities, and now operates only from Luxembourg, where it is regulated by the CSSF.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Hong Kong financial market authority announced at the end of last week that it will be moving ahead with plans to improve requirements to attain the status of qualified professional investor, Asian Investor reports. The new set of rules, the amended Professional Investor Rules (PIR), retains the existing methods, but extends their perimeter of application.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Deutsche Börse has announced that its Luxembourg affiliate Clearstream now handles order processing, settlement and custody for Singapore-registered funds. Orders will be routed via the specialised platform Vestima+, while settlement will pass through the Central Facility for Funds, the post-market infrastructure for investment funds.As soon as the necessary authorisations have been obtained from the market surveillance authorities, investment funds from other Asian countries will be admitted to the platform.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } UBS SA on 28 February announced in a statement that it has appointed Alexander Friedman as Chief Investment Officer (Cio) of UBS Wealth Management. Alexander Friedman will begin in his new role on 1 March 2011. The CIO will be responsible for stratgy and global investment policy in close collaboration with the other departments of Wealth Management, as well as with Global Asset Management and the Investment Bank, UBS states. Friedman, former CFO for the Bill & Melinds Gates Foundation, has long experience in finance. He will be joined by Mona Sutphen, former deputy secretary general for the political affairs office at the White House, who will undertake macroeconomic analysis, and Mark Haefele, a well-known hedge fund manager, who will handle investment analysis.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } UBS has obtained initial authorisation to create its own bank in China. The bank is slated to begin operations in six months, David Li, head for China at the largest Swiss bank, has told the Reuters news agency. Banks are required to obtain authorisations in two phases in order to operate in China, in a long and complex administrative process. Li expects to receive final authorisation in six months’ time. The head of UBS is predicting continued growth in wealth management activities in China. The market for ultra-high net worth clients has been growing at 30% to 40% per year, he says. With its own bank in place as well as joint ventures, UBS is hoping to achieve a more highly effective deployment in China.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With reports in the media of the departure of the star manager Raphael Kassin, who had recently joined the Geneva-based management firm Reyl & Cie from Credit Suisse (see Newsmanagers of 9 April and 21 May 2010), the Swiss firm was under the media spotlight on Friday.In an interview with Newsmanagers, Thomas de Saint-Seine, a member of the board of directors at Reyl Asset Management, confirms the news, and puts it in perspective: “we are liquidating the Luxembourg fund Emerging Debt Opportunities, which was managed by Kassin. We have parted ways with the manager, on good terms. In fact, his entry into our business was not entirely optimal: our very strong in-house culture makes it particularly demanding in this area. With that said. The EUR86m in assets in the fund will be redeemed to subscribers beginning this Monday. Investors will not have done badly out of it, as the bond of emerging markets government bonds denominated in ‘strong’ currencies, which was managed with an absolute return approach, last year generated returns of over 7% in one year.”Reyl now has other goals in its sights. “We now have several projects, either alone or in partnership. The furthest along is a UCITS long/short equity fund, for which we are in the process of applying for a license from the Luxembourg CSSF,” de Saint-Seine says.When asked about the volumes under management, the manager states that “as of the end of February, assets in our 15 funds (six equities, four bond and five hedge funds) total about CHF1.8bn, and net subscriptions since the beginning of 2010 have totalled about CHF900m. Market effects averaged 15%, with returns as high as 30% for our emerging markets equities fund.”Currently, Reyl & Cie has about CHF4.1bn in assets under management, including CHF2.3bn in private banking (compared with CHF1.7bn as of the beginning of 2010). This activity developed “nicely” in 2010, not only in Switzerland, but also in France and Singapore.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Robert S. Zuccaro has returned to Gamco Investors, the asset management firm of Mario Gabelli, as CFO. He is currently CFO of Commonwealth Management Partners. He previously worked at Gamco in the late 1990s.

Philippe Dutertre, at the helm of a largely captive entity overseen by two supervisory boards, with slightly over EUR13.7bn in assets under management, is pushing both for transparency in reporting and for an extension in the area of application of SRI.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Shareholders at US businesses proposed 360 resolutions at general shareholders’ meetings in spring 2011, according to the annual report from the As You Sow foundation. Of this total, nearly 290 proposals have yet to be voted on. More than one third of these resolutions (131) are related to environmental issues, or requests for information related to sustainable development. About one quarter of proposals (84, up from last year) are related to requests for information about political contributions by businesses. Managers of SRI funds are the largest source of proposals, contributing 24% of the total. Calvert Investments proposed 21 resolutions, Trillium AM 16, and Walden AM 14. Pension funds were also highly active, with 19% of the total. Then come religious institutional investors (15%), unions (13%), and retail investors (also 13%), who are increasingly active despite being unfamiliar with the regulatory process. Last year, nearly 20% of all investors supported initiatives to require US businesses to release more information, and concrete actions related to environmental issues.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The New York-based activist hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management (USD2.4bn in assets) has found a new target: it has filed a lawsuit against Energy Future Holdings Corp., formerly known as TXU, which was acquired for USD45bn by the private equity investors KKR and TPG in 2007, the Wall Street Journal reports.Aurelius states that the largest affiliate of EFH, Texas Competitive Electric Holdings Company, is technically in default on USD23bn in credit, and that it granted a loan of USD1.9bn to its parent company EFH at a rate of only 500 basis points above the Libor, which is far below the market rate.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Under a settlement reached on Friday evening, investors who lost money in the Madoff scandal due to investments in funds from Tremont Group Holdings, which funnelled money to Bernard Madoff, will share USD100m, the Wall Street Journal reports.The subscribers accuse Tremont of failing in their fiduciary duty, failure to undertake the necessary due diligence, and of deliberately ignoring warning signs.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, Mehdi Rachedi has been appointed head of partnerships in the external distribution management team at Natixis Asset Management. In this position he replaces Cédric Michel, who left the job in mid-February to join Fidelity (Newsmanagers of 15 February 2011). Michel joined Natixis AM in early 2009, with Stefan de Quelen. Direction of external distribution, which was directed by de Quelen, provides direction for sales to independent financial advisers (IFAs), platforms, insurers, private banks, and multi-managers. Rachedi will take over relations with IFAs and distribution platforms. He joined Ixis Asset Management in 2005, and in 2009 was appointed as a representative for external distribution at Natixis Asset Management.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to a survey by Accenture and RBC Dexia, outsourcing, particularly of back-office and middle-office, is perceived by asset management players as a structural solution to improve the profitability of proprietary capital in the industry. La Tribune reports that the survey of over 80 fund managers worldwide, entitled “Outsourcing: opportunities and strategies,” finds that 59% of respondents are now predicting an ROE of lower than or equal to 15%, compared with 20% previously. The major cause motivating asset management firms to outsource some of their activities is cost savings, for 95% of respondents, while 77% find that outsourcing is now a trend among funds. In terms of the providers selected, the market leaders, State Street and BNY Mellon, are the most often cited.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } FinanceAsia reports that Goldman Sachs has reorganized its PIA (principal investment area) investment division in Asia, with the addition of India and Japan, which had previously been handled separately, and the appointment of Ankur Sahu and Andrew Wolff, as co-directors of the unit. Both men have worked at Goldman Sachs since 1998.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } For the first time in several months, Swedish savers in February pulled out of equities in favour of bond funds, Private Affarer reports, citing Nordnet. The move is due to turbulence on the markets related to events in North Africa and the Middle East.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The founder of the private equity firm Hopu Investment Mangaement, Richard Ong (ex-Goldman Sachs), has left the firm to create his own Asia fund, which will invest in financial establishments, consumer goods, natural resources, and foodstuffs. At the time of its inception in 2008, Hopu received an investment of USD1bn from the Singapore sovereign fund, Temasek, and launched an Asia fund with about USD2.5bn in assets. RRJ Capital, the new firm from Ong, will operate one of the largest funds dedicated to Asia. The fund is hoping to raise USD1.5bn by the end of March, with a second closing at USD2bn planned for early June.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Russell Investments and Research Affiliates on 24 February announced the launch of a new series of indices based on a methodology developed by Research Affiliates, which takes into account fundamental criteria about the business, and not its capitalisation. The new range, entitled Russell Fundamental Index Series, will include 24 new indices designed to offer beta solutions to investors seeking access to products not weighted on the basis of capitalisation. The fundamental criteria used to construct the various indices are earnings, operational cash flow, average dividends and equities buybacks.

Jefferies Group, LoanCore LLC et le fonds souverain de Singapour, le Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), ont annoncé la création de la co-entreprise Jefferies LoanCore LLC, une société d’investissement financier dans l’immobilier commercial. Les promesses d’investissement s'élèvent d’ores et déjà à 600 millions de dollars.