Bruxelles veut remettre en cause certains projets de compensation carbone
La Commission européenne dénonce la nature « lucrative » d’installations situées dans les pays émergents
Berlin cherche à calmer le jeu sur la dette
Le débat s'est porté hier sur la taille suffisante du Fonds européen de stabilité
Maudit automne pour FrontPoint
Le quotidien croit savoir que le gestionnaire alternatif, cité il y a trois semaines dans le cadre d’une enquête des autorités américaines sur des délits d’initié, fait face à des demandes de retrait de la part des investisseurs pour trois milliards de dollars. Soit près de la moitié des 7 milliards d’actifs sous gestion du hedge funds. Une telle déconvenue ne serait pas isolée. FrontPoint Partners s’apprêterait à tout simplement fermer son fonds dédié à la santé, au cœur des soupçons de délit d’initié. Le gestionnaire aurait assuré les clients du fonds, par un courrier cette semaine, qu’ils seraient remboursés à hauteur de 97% de la valeur d’actif net au 19 novembre.
La FSA conciliante avec le trading haute fréquence
Pas de doute aux yeux d’Alexander Justham, haut responsable de l’autorité britannique des marchés, la Financial Services Authority, le trading haute fréquence ne pose pas de soucis en soi, tant que les autorités disposent des moyens nécessaires pour suivre les développements technologiques que les opérateurs de marché.
KKR ne lésine pas sur le prix pour acquérir Del Monte Foods
Associé à Vestar Capital et Centerview, KKR a accepté de payer 19 dollars par action, soit un montant total de 5,3 milliards de dollars dette comprise
Politique monétaire allopathique ou homéopathique ?
Les traitements prescrits aux économies américaine et européenne par leurs banques centrales respectives s’opposent. Allopathie pour la Fed, qui cherche à faire baisser les taux longs par des achats massifs d’obligations. Homéopathie pour la BCE, qui s’assure de la fluidité des marchés par des achats parcimonieux d’obligations.
La Chine envisage de nouvelles mesures pour freiner l'inflation
L’accélération en octobre du rythme de la progression des prix à 4,4 % a conduit la banque centrale à annoncer de futures hausses de taux et de réserves obligatoires
Les clauses d’action collective visent à organiser les restructurations de dettes d’Etat
Ce dispositif est largement utilisé par les pays émergents pour leurs émissions en dollars à la suite de la crise argentine en 2001
Adjudication de BTF le 29 novembre
L’Agence France Trésor annonce l’adjudication, le lundi 29 novembre, d’un montant global de 8 milliards d’euros de bons du Trésor (BTF). Cette opération portera sur 4,5 milliards d’euros de bons à 13 semaines qui arriveront à échéance le 03/03/11, sur 2 milliards d’euros de bons à 24 semaines, à échéance du 19/05/11, et sur 1,5 milliard d’euros de bons à 50 semaines, à échéance du 17/11/11.
L'aide à l'Irlande devrait être finalisée début décembre
Les discussions sur l’aide accordée par l’Union européenne (UE) et le Fonds monétaire international (FMI) à l’Irlande devraient s’achever d’ici au début décembre, a annoncé jeudi un porte-parole du commissaire européen à l’Economie et aux Affaires monétaires Olli Rehn. Aucune discussion portant sur d’autres pays désireux de solliciter une aide financière de l’Union européenne n’est engagée, a déclaré, par ailleurs, Amadeu Altafaj, porte-parole de la Commission. La CE qui n’a pas d’opinion arrêtée quant à savoir si les créanciers obligataires doivent également assumer la charge du règlement de la dette irlandaise. La ministre de l’Economie, Christine Lagarde a, de son côté, déclaré que le futur mécanisme permanent européen d’assistance financière à un Etat en difficulté devra être conforme aux règles du Fonds monétaire international (FMI).
25/11/2010
Hamon launches a Chinese absolute return fund
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Asian boutique Hamon Asset Management has launched a new absolute return fund focused on Greater China, Citywire reports. The Hamon Greater China Absolute Return Fund, based in Luxembourg, will be managed by the firm’s trio of China specialists, Nina Wu, Lisa Jiang and William Liu.
25/11/2010
Russell awards an Australian equities mandate to Ankura (BNY Mellon AM)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Australian management firm Ankura Capital Pty Ltd, an affiliate of BNY Mellon Asset Management, has obtained a management mandate from Russell Investments for an allocation from the Australian Shares Enhances Income Fund, BNY Mellon AM has announced. It is the second mandate for Akura’s high-yield Australian equities strategy. In May, the management firm also received a high yield mandate from IPAC for its diversified high yeild fund Axa Generator. Assets at Ankura for Australian and Japanese equities total about AUD1bn. The firm, based in Sydney, manages institutional funds, primarily for Australian clients.
25/11/2010
Mike Sargeant joins Reeves IM
Reeves Investment Management (RIM) has appointed Mike Sargeant as investment director with responsibility for developing its current range of investment strategies. He will also be a member of the senior management team responsible for the asset allocation and fund selection of the company’s discretionary portfolios.Prior to joining RIM, Mike Sargeant was managing director of Pharon IFA for 6 years from 2004, and also managing director of its associated company, Lawrence House Fund Managers, an independent boutique investment house dedicated to supporting IFAs, prior to its acquisition by Brooks Macdonald Asset Management in September 2009. RIM is part of Reeves & Co LLP, an accountancy firm. It provides discretionary management services to Reeves & Co clients, especially those advised by Reeves Financial Planning, the firm’s IFA arm. RIM currently has over GBP70million invested in portfolios across three main investment strategies, Income; Balanced; Growth, with exposure to most asset classes through the use of collective investments and structured products.
25/11/2010
Dismissal of global equities team cost Liontrust GBP781,000
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Investment Week reports that laying off the global equities team led by Ross Hollyman, who joined Liontrust from GAM in October 2009, cost the management firm more than GBP781,000 in severance pay and costs to close down the structures in Guernsey and Jersey. The team managed less than USD1m in assets.
25/11/2010
Liontrust posts losses of GBP1.6m
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } For the half-year ending on 30 September 2010, Liontrust Asset Management has posted a pre-tax loss of GBP1.6m, compared with pre-tax profits of GBP0.7m, and performance commission revenues of GBP199,000, compared with GBP2.24m. Assets as of 30 September totalled nearly GBP1.13bn, compared with GBP2.18bn one year earlier, but they totalled nearly GBP1.25bn as of 23 November. In addition, the British management firm has posted net subscriptions of GBP41m since the beginning of the period as of 23 November, with more than GBP76m since the beginning of October. CEO John Ions says losses in the first half of the fiscal year should be viewed in the context of the rapid changes which have been taking place at businesses in the past few months, an increase in marketing spending to generate subscriptions, new activities, and a rebound in net subscriptions. The other reason for the loss is, of course, related to the fact that assets under management have declined, in a trend which has since then successfully been reversed. This has led to net subscriptions of GBP9bn in July-September, which was the first positive quarter since the first calender quarter of 2008. The CEO adds that the last fiscal year in which Liontrust posted positive net subscriptions was 2003-2004. Ions also says that due to the success of the marketing campaign so far, the firm has decided to allocate a further GBP0.7m to its budget for second half (until 31 March), meaning that the increased total marketing spending throughout the period will have been GBP1.2m.
25/11/2010
Man Group offers its employees an option to change countries
According to Financial News, Man Group, that recently acquired GLG, is offering its employees the change to relocate abroad, GLG co-founder Pierre Lagrange told a roundtable of journalists this morning. He added that «very few» have moved so far.
25/11/2010
Hedge funds: asset allocation adjustment more important than stock picking
Wisely adjusting exposure to various asset classes may well be the most useful part of the investment process for hedge funds in the long term. This flexibility has more likelihood of having an impact on value than stock-picking or strategic exposure to equities, according to a study by Mellon Capital Management Corporation, a boutique from BNY Mellon Asset Management.Eric S. Goodbar, hedge fund strategist at Mellon CM, says well-made and correctly timed allocation decisions are likely to reduce the correlation between the performance of a hedge fund and that of equities or bonds. Unfortunately, insists the co-author of the study along with Karsten Jenske, senior quantitative analyst at Mellon AM, many hedge fund portfolios have a large static allocation to equities, which increases correlation with the performance of this asset class.The study finds that hedge fund managers who successfully reduce the correlation of their portfolios with the performance of traditional investments in equities are more likely to avoid a deterioration in their performance in falling markets than those who retain a static allocation to equities. Jeske says increasing the importance of asset allocation and reducing strategic allocations to equities and bonds is a way to reduce risks for the portfolio and position it in a way that better reflects the expertise of the manager than movements in the market.
25/11/2010
Vulture funds gather in Madrid
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Major specialists in high-risk assets are meeting in Madrid to negotiate the acquisition of defaulted debt accumulated by Spanish entities in need of liquidity, Expansión reports.Among the vulture funds that have swooped down on Spain in the past few days are Fortress, Lone Star, Varde Partners and Carval, as well as platforms such as TDX and Lindorff. Apollo, for its part, is planning to set up a local team to manage its portfolios.
25/11/2010
Amancio Ortega strips Sicavs for capital
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Since the end of September, assets in the three Sicavs owned by Amancio Ortega have fallen by one third, to EUR168m, Expansión reports. The founder and head of Inditex has withdrawn a total of nearly EUR1bn since 2008 from Keblar, Alazán Inversiones 2001 and Gramela Inversiones 2004, either because his other participations, such as Habitat, needed liquidity, or in order to reinvest in real estate outside Spain.
25/11/2010
Madoff: Picard sues UBS
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Wall Street Journal reports that Irving Picard, the legally-appointed trustee for victims of Bernard Madoff, is seeking USD2bn from UBS in court. He accuses the Swiss bank of having actively participated in the fraud by lending legitimacy to certain feeder funds which invested with Madoff.
25/11/2010
Arrest in US insider trading investigation
Don Ching Trang Chu, an Asia and technology expert at Primary Global Research, has been arrested by the FBI on conspiracy charges, says the Financial Times. US federal prosecutors allege that in July 2009, Mr Chu arranged for a hedge fund trader to obtain revenue, sales and margin figures from an official at a publicly traded technology company several hours before the figures were officially announced.
25/11/2010
Pictet plans to develop alternative management
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Agefi Switzerland reports that Pictet & Cie is rethinking its alternative management platform. Nicolas Campiche explains that the structure he is responsible for (Pictet Alternative Investments) would like to increase the percentage of its investments directed to “new and less well-known” managers to 60%, up from about half of the EUR10bn it currently has under management. The move will come to the detriment of established stars of the hedge fund industry. “We are trying to reorient our portfolio a little bit to focus more on less well-known, smaller, more flexible entities,” the CEO has told the news agency Bloomberg. Pictet is seeking flexibility and reactivity in an effort to improve returns. “It is a typical post-crisis situation,” says Campiche. “People tend to focus too much on risk and not enough on returns.” According to a survey by Pertrac Financial Solutions, hedge funds with less than EUR100m earned annualised performance of 16% between 1996 and 2007, compared with 11.5% for managers in charge of more than EUR500m in assets.
25/11/2010
Carmignac Gestion adds to its trading department
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Carmignac Gestion has announced the arrival in its trading department of Alexandre Pitois-Jones. Before joining the French management firm, Pitois-Jones was an equities derivatives trader at Amundi Asset Management. His arrival brings the number of traders in the trading department, led by Nicolas Courbon, to four.
25/11/2010
CBT Gestion already has EUR25m in assets
The structure officially launched in early November by Christian Bito, Vladimir Danesi and Jean-Luc Fargin, CBT Gestion (see Newsmanagers of 20 September and 8 November), has already collected EUR25m, of which EUR1.8m are for its first FCP fund, CBT action euro vol 20.Other products will follow, possibly in January, with the objective of extending the strategy to diversified and open-ended products which would also use the management approach oriented to volatility, with a supplementary layer of tactical investment.
25/11/2010
Edhec-Risk defines the ideal investment strategy for sovereign funds
The Edhec-Risk Institute has released a publication which proposes a formal analysis of the optimal investment policy and risk management practices of sovereign wealth funds, Hedgeweek reports.The results suggest that the investment strategy for a sovereign wealth fund should involve a state-dependent allocation to three building blocks: a performance-seeking portfolio (typically heavily invested in equities), an endowment-hedging portfolio (customised to meet the risk exposure in the sovereign wealth fund endowment streams), and a liability-hedging portfolio (heavily invested in bonds for interest rate hedging motives, and in assets exhibiting attractive inflation-hedging properties when the implicit or explicit liabilities of the sovereign wealth fund exhibit inflation indexation).
25/11/2010
Northern Trust appoints a head for global fund services division
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } ICFA reports that Northern Trust has announced the appointment of Peter Cherecwich as director of its global fund services (GFS) division. He will be based in Chicago, and replaces Wilson Leech, who has been appointed CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
25/11/2010
Legg Mason creates a retirement advisory council
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Legg Mason has announced the creation of the Legg Mason Retirement Advisory Council, which will aim to generate ideas in the area of retirement. The think tank is composed of 14 personalities from the world of finance, specialised in this area. It will meet every quarter to debate products, services and practices in the industry. The 14 members are Ted Benna, president of the Malvern Benefits Corporation 401(k) Association, Thomas Clark Jr., president of Lockton Financial Group, Paul D’Aiutolo, vice-president of UBS Wealth Management, Charles Epstein, founder of the 401(k) Coach Program, Robert L. Francis, chief operating officer of National Retirement Partners, Joseph Frustaglio, vice-president and head of Retirement Plans Sales, National Sales Manager at Nationwide, Gary Kleinschmidt, head of retirement specialists at Legg Mason, Dave Master, managing director strategy and business development at Legg Mason, Joseph Masterson, senior vice president at Diversified Investment Advisors, Joe Mrozek, national sales manager – retirement at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Edward O’Connor, managing director, head of retirement services at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Michael Shamburger, vice president of National Sales Manager 401k, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Scott Sides, senior vice president and corporate benefits director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and Marcia Wagner, managing partner at Wagner Law Group.
25/11/2010
Pictet veut faire évoluer sa gestion alternative
Selon L’Agefi suisse, Pictet&Cie repense sa plateforme de gestion alternative. Nicolas Campiche explique que la structure dont il est responsable (Pictet Alternative Investments) veut augmenter à 60% la part des investissements auprès de gérants «nouveaux et moins connus», contre environ la moitié des 10 milliards sous gestion actuellement. Et ce, au détriment des stars établies de l’industrie des hedge funds. «Nous essayons de réorienter un peu notre portefeuille sur des entités moins connues, de plus petite taille, plus flexibles», a précisé le CEO à l’agence Bloomberg.En recherchant la flexibilité et la réactivité, Pictet affiche sa volonté d’améliorer les rendements. «C’est une situation typique d’après-crise», reprend Nicolas Campiche. «Les gens ont tendance à trop se focaliser sur le risque et pas assez sur la performance».D’après une enquête de Pertrac Financial Solutions, les hedge funds de moins de 100 millions ont affiché une performance annualisée de 16% entre 1996 et 2007, contre 11,5% pour les gérants responsables de plus de 500 millions d’actifs.
25/11/2010
Carlyle acquiert six distributeurs auprès de Primondo
Le gestionnaire alternatif The Carlyle Group a annoncé le 24 novembre l’acquisition de six distributeurs multi-canaux qui appartenaient à l’allemand Primondo Specialty Group (PSG), une ancienne filiale d’Arcandor. Les modalités financières de la transaction n’ont pas été dévoilées.Dans le détail, l’opération porte sur Versandhaus Walz, avec Baby Walz, Die Moderne Hausfrau et d’autres marques, Planet Sports, Bon’A Parte, Elégance, Mirabeau et 50 % de Vertbaudet Germany.L’acquisition a été réalisée par le fonds Carlyle Europe Partners III (5,4 milliards d’euros), dont c’est le cinquième investissement cette année, après l’achat de B&B Hotel Group, Giannoni, NBTY et Commscope.
KKR sur les rangs pour reprendre BHF
La première banque allemande Deutsche Bank négocie avec « plusieurs parties » la cession de sa filiale BHF, dont le fonds d’investissement américain KKR, rapporte la Tribune. Deutsche Bank en espère 650 millions d’euros.