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28/10/2009

New head for South Korea at Fidelity

Michael Reed has joined Fidelity International as head of its activities in South Korea, according to Asian Investor. Reed previously served three years as country head for South Korea at Franklin Templeton.
28/10/2009

Good results for Franklin Resources

Franklin Resources announced net income of USD367.4m, or USD1.60 per share diluted, on revenues of USD1,238.9m for the quarter ended September 30, 2009. For the quarter ended June 30, 2009, net income was USD297.7m, or USD1.29 per share diluted, on revenues of USD1,073.6m. For the quarter ended September 30, 2008, net income was USD300.5m, or $1.28 per share diluted, on revenues of USD1,321.5m.Total assets under management by the company’s subsidiaries were USD523.4bn at September 30, 2009, as compared to USD451.2bn at June 30, 2009 and USD507.3bn at September 30, 2008. Net new flows for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 were USD12.2bn, as compared to USD6.0bn for the prior quarter and net redemptions of USD8.6bn for the same quarter a year ago.
28/10/2009

Guy de Blonay gets back to Jupiter

Guy de Blonay, the manager of the Henderson New Star Global Financials fund at Henderson New Star, is to join Jupiter, eight years after having left the company, Citywire reports. He will be co-managing the Jupiter Financial Opportunities fund with Phillip Gibbs, but in a first stage will be restricted to an advisory role.Guy de Blonay’s fund at Henderson New Star is now managed by Emily Adderson, who acted up to now as deputy manager.
28/10/2009

Hilton debt load weighs on Blackstone

Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP has begun talks with lenders to cut up to USD5bn from the USD20bn debt load carried by Hilton Worldwide, according to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports.Blackstone is considering contributing USD800m of new equity to buy back debt at a discount. It also is seeking to extend debt maturing in 2013 to 2016, while converting some junior slices of debt into equity. The USD800 million in additional equity would come from funds managed by Blackstone that already have invested in the deal, the biggest equity investment ever made by the firm.Initially, Blackstone funds and co-investors put up USD5.6bn in equity in the deal, while assuming USD20bn in debt.
28/10/2009

Clients predict that BlackRock and Carmignac have best prospects for growth

The most recent survey by the Berlin-based agency Metronomics of Europeanclients of asset management firms has found that BlackRock and Carmignac Gestion are the two operators whom a majority of respondents feel have the best prospects of “very strong comparative growth.” The two management firms finish ahead of JP Morgan Asset Management, Fidelity, DWS, and Schroders, whom a majority of respondents predict will experience “strong growth,” while Pictet Funds is considered likely to grow by “many” clients. For the French market taken in isolation, Carmignac Gestion is the only firm to have “very strong” outlooks for growth according to a majority of clients. It is followed by LCF Rothschild, which clients expect to see “strong” growth, and Fidelity, which will experience “good” growth.
28/10/2009

Six family offices join forces to found Mazabi Gestión

Six family offices (including Taresta Family Office, BNPP Fortis, and Family Office Auris 4) have joined forces to create the wealth management firm Mazabi Gestión de Patrimonios, which will start out with more than EUR300m in assets, Funds People reports. Mazabi states that it employs 13 management and advisory professionals, all of whom have at least 15 months of experience, and four main offices (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and Malaga). The president of Mazabi is Vicente Gómez de la Cruz (Taresta), and the CEO is Juan Antonio Guttiérez, (Fortis).
28/10/2009

Johan Held quits AP2 for AFA Forsakrings

Insurer AFA Försäkrings, whose assets total about NOK200bn, has announced the recruitment of Johan Held as chief investment officer. For the past 18 months (since May 2008), Held has been the CIO of the pension fund Andra AP-fonden (AP2). Previously, he was CFO for KP Pensions&Försäring, and worked for SEB Investment Management, as well as for the asset management arm of Nordea. He replaces Lars Öhrstedt, who will be retiring in the first half of 2010.
28/10/2009

One third of pension funds do not meet disclosure requirements

According to a report published on Tuesday by The Pensions Regulator (TPR), on the basis of responses form 97 defined contribution (DC) pension funds, 98% of respondents offer an open market option (OMO), but only 23% of members make use of it. However, 57% of funds need to improve the information they make available to members about the pensions they offer. Most importantly, 30% of funds are in infraction of their disclosure requirements and fail to respect information disclosure regulations in force. However, 6% of the remaining cases have been referred to control teams in order to ensure that “substantial modifications” which are necessary on retirement and process documentation are put into place. The TPR will now send a letter to approximately 4,500 pension funds to explain these findings to them, and to incite trustees to closely examine “pre-retirement” literature which is distributed to members.
28/10/2009

Renta 4 launches a hedge fund investing in Spanish RMBS

Asset management firm Renta 4 on Monday announced the launch of the Spanish RMBS Fund, which, as its name indicates, will invest in primarily Spanish Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS). The limit for foreign issues is set at 30% of the portfolio, Funds People reports. The average maturity for bonds will be 15 years, and the average duration for the fund will range from 5 to 8 years. The fund, which will offer monthly liquidity, will charge 2% management commission and a 20% performance commission, with a minimal subscription of EUR50,000, the legal minimum for products of this type.
28/10/2009

CESR launches a consultation on standardisation of financial reporting

The Committee of European securities regulators (CESR) on 27 October announced the launch of a public consultation on the use of a standardized reporting format for financial information. The consultation provides an occasion for the CESR to gather feedback from market actors on the use of XBRL markup language, already used by international and European regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States, the CEBS (Committee of European banking supervisors), and the French Commission Bancaire-Banque de France. The CESR states that the consultation will concentrate on the potential introduction of an IFRS reporting format in the mid- to long term. The consultation will be open until 30 November.
28/10/2009

Turquoise adds six ETCs

Turquoise, the pan-European equity trading services company, announced that it will extend its services to include six Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs) to trade via its MTF platform. The series of six new ETCs, tracking the performance of physical gold and silver, as well as gold bullion indices, will be available to Turquoise members from 13 November, 2009.
28/10/2009

The jury is still out on actively-managed ETFs

In an interview with Asian Investor, Tony Rochte, senior managing director of State Street Global Advisers (SSgA), claims that “there is a lot of talk about actively-managed ETFs, but they have had a slow start. This evolution is due to the fact that investors looking for actively-managed ETFs want to see a track record of one, three, or five years. For investors who really want to pay added commissions, the performance has to be there. In other words, we don’t have a definite opinion yet about actively-managed ETFs, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not interested. We have also submitted applications to launched an actively-managed ETF and a horizon ETF in the United States. Rochte also states that SSgA has no immediate plans to launch inverse or leveraged ETFs.
28/10/2009

State Street investor confidence index shows net decline in October

State Street Global Markets has announced that its institutional investor confidence index in October fell to 108.4, from 118.4 in September, with the heaviest decline - 12.8 points, to 101.1 - for the North American regional index. In Europe, the index is down 9.3 points, to 101.8, while the Asian index has risen to 95.3 from 92.9. A level of 100 represents neutral confidence, the point at which institutional investors neither increase nor decrease their allocations to high-risk assets. October is the seventh consecutive month in which the index has remained below the 100 mark overall. Ken Froot, the Harvard professor who developed the index with State Street Associates, says that although quarterly results have been relatively robust thus far, “the number of pleasant surprises in employment figures, retail sales, manufacturing output and commerce were fewer and further between, and this may have had an impact on investors’ appetite” for risk.
28/10/2009

Bill Gross predicts that the rally is over

The founder of Pimco, Bill gross, estimates that the market rally observed in the past six months has reached its peak, and that the Fed will need to maintain its interest rates for another 18 months. In his most recent column, published on the Pimco website (November 2009), Gross explains that in the post-crisis environment, nearly all assets appear to be overvalued for the long term, which has the consequence that monetary and economic policy chiefs will need to maintain interest rates at artificially low levels, and rely on aid measures to sustain growth. From his point of view, the Fed may wait for up to 18 months before raising interest rates. “My feeling is that the nominal GDP will need to show tangible signs of stabilisation at about 4% for the Fed to decide to take the risk of raising interest rates,” Gross writes. Meanwhile, an investor in US Treasury bonds should not expect miracles: 0.15% on Treasury bonsd, less than 1% on two-year notes, and a meagre 3.4% on 10-year paper. And the entire US bond market, including corporate bonds, is bringing in returns of only about 3.5%. Investors should not expect much more, and risks related to high yield, distressed or equities far outstrip the positive prospects at this point in the conjunctural cycle.
28/10/2009

OECD pension funds lost USD5.4trn in 2008

Pension funds in OECD countries lost USD5.4trn last year. They also posted averaage negative performance of 21.4% in nominal terms, and 24.1% in real terms, the OECD reports in its most recent bulletin on pension funds (Pension Markets in Focus, October, Issue 6). However, in the first half of 2009, pension funds, which earned average returns of 3.5%, recuperated more than USD1.5trn. As of 30 June 2009, pension funds only needed to make up 14% in order to catch up with thelr levels as of December 2007. The rebound in the performance of pension funds continued until 30 September this year, thanks to rallying markets, but they will need more time before the sector completely offsets its losses, the OECD estimates. The best-performing pension funds in the OECD countries were in Norway and Turkey, with returns of over 10%. Meanwhile, US pension funds earned average returns of 4% in nominal terms, while Australian funds gained only 1%. Funds in these two countries had the highest exposure to equities, at 46% for the US, and 59% for Australia.
28/10/2009

Institutional investors will return to alternative assets

BlackRock estimates that institutional investors will once again take an interest in alternative assets. Some alternative asset classes seem to be very attractively priced at present. New private equity funds will also invest at very attractive valuation levels, at the bottom of the economic cycle, and they won’t need to rely on leverage to generate returns. Distressed businesses may also present opportunities. Pension funds may also turn to alternative investments as a key component of their allocation. According to a BlackRock study, a 25% allocation for an international equities portfolio in a basket of alternative assets would have reduced volatility from18% to 16% per year in the period from January 1990 to December 2008, while also increasing annual returns by 0.6%.
28/10/2009

XTF segment now lists 518 ETF funds

Deutsche Börse announced on Tuesday that it has admitted eleven new Luxembourg-registered bond ETF funds from ComStage (see yesterday’s edition of Newsmanagers) to trading. The products bring the total number of tracker funds listed on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic platform from Deutsche Börse to 518. Average monthly trading volume for products of this type comes to EUR12bn.
28/10/2009

Vanguard to accelerate its development on retirement market

In reaction to the acquisition of Barclays Global Investors by BlackRock, Vanguard UK is seeking to accelerate its development in the UK defined-contribution retirement market, the Financial Times reports. Peter Robertson, retail director at Vanguard UK, says several pension institutions have expressed an interest in the management firm’s range of products and services.
28/10/2009

Two new funds from Jupiter

Citywire reports that Jupiter has been authorised to launch two investment funds managed by the star manager Philip Gibbs in the next three months. The two funds will give Gibbs – the only manager to have received a Citywire rating since the creation of the firm eight years ago - the necessary flexibility to manage as he prefers. In detail, the Jupiter “Absolute Return” fund, which complies with the UCITS III directive, will provide the manager with the ability to hold liquidity and to invest in instruments which may include derivatives, in order to maintain the necessary flexibility to react rapidly to changing market conditions. The fund is benchmarked against the Libor 3 month, and will be managed in a manner similar to that of Gibbs’ hedge fund, Hyde Park, but with lower volatility and less leverage. The second fund, Jupiter Financials, is also compliant with UCITS III, and will invest in international financial sector equities. Unlike the Jupiter Financial Opportunities fund, it will allow the manager to adopt short positions on shares or indexes. It will be benchmarked against the Footsie Global Financials index.
28/10/2009

Fidelity closes one of its Europe funds to new subscriptions

Citywire reports that the management firm Fidelity has closed its FAST Europe fund to new investments, due to the volume of assets in the fund (USD2.5bn). The decision was taken in order to prevent deposits from new investors from having a negative impact on the fund’s strategy. The fund, managed by Anas Chakra, uses derivative products and leverage to improve performance. In the past three years, FAST Europe has posted gains of 7.2%, compared with losses of 21.1% for the MSCI Europe index.
28/10/2009

Deutsche Bank to acquire 100% of Sal. Oppenheim holding company

According to reports in Die Welt, it will be announced on Wednesday afternoon that Detusche Bank will acquire all shares in the Luxembourg holding company of Sal. Oppenheim for about EUR1bn. Sal. Oppenheim will retain only slightly over 75% of a shareholder-governed (KGaA) company which oversees operational activities, while slightly less than 25% would remain in the hands of the current owners. This arrangement is the most tax-effective for all parties. Die Welt states that the former owners will earn bonuses in proportion to the number of clients who choose to remain loyal to the firm.
28/10/2009

Sal. Oppenheim sold for parts to Deutsche Bank

On Wednesday, the supervisory board at Deutsche Bank is expected to approve the acquisition of the wealth management operations of Sal. Oppenheim. It is expected that the investment banking activities, in which Deutsche Bank is not interested, will be acquired by Macquarie, while LGT is a candidate to take over BHF, which is well-positioned in private banking and asset management, Handelsblatt reports. BHF also has a sizeable custody activity, which may potentially interest BNP Paribas, as well as BNY Mellon.
27/10/2009

BankInvest regroupe sa distribution mondiale à Luxembourg

A compter du début 2010, le gestionnaire danois BankInvest centralisera sa distribution internationale au Luxembourg, ce qui entraînera la fermeture de la succursale bavaroise de Straßlach/Kleindingharting qui couvre l’Allemagne, la Suisse et l’Autriche, rapporte fondsprofessionell. Le sales & relationship manager de cette antenne allemande, Joachim Böttcher, poursuivra ses activités à partir du Grand-Duché.
27/10/2009

Affaire Lehman Brothers : Citibank choisit l'affrontement

Selon l’Echo, Citibank a fait le choix d’un procès dans l’affaire de la vente de produits Lehman Brothers plutôt que d’opter pour un arrangement à l’amiable. Le week-end dernier, le parquet de Bruxelles avait requis que la banque rembourse entièrement ses clients dupés, précise le quotidien, soit 4 000 clients (pour 128 millions d’euros).Le procès commencera le 1er décembre prochain.
27/10/2009

Luxalpha: l’AG repoussée au 18 décembre

Selon Les Echos, les liquidateurs de la sicav luxembourgeoise Luxalpha, liée à la fraude de Bernard Madoff, ont annoncé que l’AG de Luxalpha se tiendrait le 18 décembre. Soit deux mois après la date initialement prévue. Une manifestation d’agriculteurs dans le Grand-Duché, le 19octobre, avait eu raison de sa tenue. L’ordre du jour n’a pas changé, «ainsi que les documents requis pour la première assemblée», précise le communiqué qui annonce qu’"une nouvelle convocation sera envoyée aux actionnaires inscrits». Ces deux mois pourront être mis à profit pour faire reconnaître la qualité d’actionnaires, toujours pas acquise, aux investisseurs floués, essentiellement des Français.
27/10/2009
Fonds

BlackRock lance un fonds obligataire "tous terrains"

Avec le compartiment Fixed Income Strategies de sa sicav luxembourgeoise BlackRock Strategic Funds (BSF), BlackRock a lancé le 30 septembre un fonds obligataire à gestion active et «tous terrains» destiné aux investisseurs de la zone euro. Ce produit se présente comme une version de performance absolue sur 3 ans roulants (rolling three year cycle) et conforme à la directive OPCVM III des BGF Euro Short Duration Bond Fund et Bond Fund pilotés par le même gérant, Michael Krautzberger, co-head de l'équipe fixed income.Le nouveau fonds peut investir dans le monde entier et de manière souple en emprunts d’Etat, en obligations «investment grade» et «non investment grade», en Asset Back Securities (ABS), en Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS), en obligations indexées sur l’inflation (linkers) ainsi qu’en positions synthétiques longues et courtes.En principe, le portefeuille comportera un minimum de 30 % d’obligations d’Etat et un maximum de 70 % d’obligations d’entreprises. La part des ABS et de MBS, investment grade ou non, ne pourra dépasser 50 %.Caractéristiques Code isin : LU0438336264
Fonds
27/10/2009

AUA : un hedge fund surenchérit sur l'offre de la Lufthansa

La compagnie aérienne Lufthansa propose aux minoritaires qui détiennent encore 4 millions d’actions AUA Austrian Airlines un montant de 50 cents par action. Le hedge fund Exchange Investors vient de leur offrir 1,50 euro par titre, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Il considère que l’offre de la Lufthansa est une discrimination insupportable, puisque l’OPA s'était fait début septembre sur la base de 4,49 euros, et suggère que cela pourrait même cacher des problèmes de paiements et de liquidités dans l’entreprise. Manifestement, Exchange Investors espère pouvoir négocier un prix plus intéressant auprès de cette dernière.

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