Franklin Templeton acquired Ukrainian international bonds for a total of nearly USD5bn at the end of August, one fifth of the total international government debt from the country in circulation, the Financial Times reports. The investments were led by Michael Hasenstab, who was also the architect of the massive redemptions of Irish debt, which helped to calm the markets in the country in the wake of the financial crisis. This Irish bet paid off for the asset management firm. But the Ukrainian investment is potentially more risky, the FT comments.

In a statement dated 31 October, proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) announced that the board of directors at its parent company, MSCI Inc., has authorized it to explore all strategic options concerning its future, and that this may include a total separation of the two entities.

Dirk von Velsen, a board member at the Cologne-based Flossbach von Storch (which had more than EUR12bn in assets under management as of the end of May), has announced the recruitment of three people as additions to its wholesale and institutional distribution. Heike Ahlgrimm has been appointed as director of fund sales and will be responsible for monitoring banks, savings banks, Landesbanken, wealth managers and fund of fund managers for North and North-East Germany. She had previously been director, banks at Invesco Asset Management.Peter Guntermann becomes director, institutional investors, and joins from Sal. Oppenheim, where he has been responsible for senior clients and a senior portfolio manager for institutional clients for 15 years.Lastly, Sebastian Grund, who had been in the department of the institutional key accounts management team at Union Investment Institutional, has also been appointed as director, institutional investors.

The German insurer Allianz on 8 November slightly raised its operating profit targets for 2013, after earning increased net profits in third quarter, due to good performance in its health and damage divisions. “In light of the positive development of the Allianz group in the first nine months of 2013, we are now projecting operating profits for the year as a whole slightly over EUR9.7bn,” Michael Diekmann, head of Allianz, says in a statement. In July to September, the group has seen its net profits rise 6.3% in one year, to EUR1.44bn. It has also reported operating profits in third quarter of EUR2.52bn, down slightly by 0.7% compared with the same period last year. Its operating profits, for their part, have remained generally stable, at EUR25.1bn (-0.2% year on year). “In third quarter, Allianz extended the positive developments in first half, despite negative currency effects,” he says. Asset management activities saw a decline of 7.7% in their operating profits year on year, to EUR1.7bn, due to “volatility on the markets” as well as unfavourable currency effects.

Rachel Lord, global head of corporate derivatives at Citigorup, has been recruited as head of iShares for the Europe/Middle East/Africa region, replacing Joe Linhares, who is returning to the United States as head of the Platinum Programme from BlackRock, Money Marketing reports.

Federal Finance, the asset management firm of French group Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, and SEB Asset Management group, an asset management affiliate of the Swedish bank SEB, have formed a partnership for cross-sales, Newsmanagers has learned. This agreement will allow the French structure to sell some of its funds in Sweden and the Scandinavian firm to distribute its products in France.The alliance has recently led to an investment by the SEB private bank in Luxembourg in the Schelcher Prince Convertibles fund, a fund from the asset management firm Schelcher Prince Gestion, which is controlled by Federal Finance, said Laurent Farcy-Briant, head of sales for France and French-speaking Switzerland at SEB, and Estelle Levy, Merger-Lévis, head of international development at Federal Finance.The fund is among the ones selected by the teams at SEB to be ‘pushed’ to private banking and institutional investor clients.Once the agreement was signed, the two banks undertook a sort of ‘due diligence’ of the other firm’s product range, in order to identify products that would be likely to interest them. At the conclusion of this analysis, SEB selected the Schelcher Prince bond strategy (and thus the Schelcher Prince Convertibles fund as well as the SP Convertibles Global Europe), and the IR variable rate funds from Federal Finance, a bond management with a socially responsible side.From Federal Finance, the expertise selected from SEB was in areas which distinguish the Scandinavian asset management firm: Scandinavian equities, equities from countries of Eastern Europe, and global equity quantitative management.In both cases, the partners have selected areas of expertise which they don’t have internally, and which offer some attraction in the current context. They will make products available to their private or institutional clients via multi-management or mandates. However, they are not considering selling products over their networks.The partnership, which has been called a “win-win” by SEB and Federal Finance, will be extended to other products as opportunities arise. It may also include joint sales or marketing efforts.

A committee appointed by the Norwegian government recommends that decisions by the Norwegisn sovereign fund (USD800bn in assets) to exclude companies or sectors for ethical reasons will be taken by the central bank of the country, the Financial Times reports. It is currently the Norwegian finance minister who takes these decisions, on the advice of an ethical board composed primarily of Norwegian professors. This system has sustained cirticism, since it leads to slow decision-making processes.

Oddo Asset Management has obtained permission to sell the Oddo Equity Large Cap Europe, a fund which invests in European large cap equities, on the Italian market, Bluerating reports. The number of funds from the French asset mangement firm licensed for sale in Italy thus totals 18.

Riding on the success of the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (ticker: DXJ), which has USD10.6bn in assets, largely due to USD9bn in inflows since the beginning of this year, Wisdomtree on 7 November launched the WisdomTree Korea Hedged Equity Fund (DXKW).The new ETF replicates the WisdomTree Korea Hedged Equity Growth Index; it invests in quality South Korean equities, but hedges currency risks against the won by shorting with futures contracts.The total expense ratio is 0.58%.

The financial data provider FactSet has announced that it has joined the Market Vectors ETF platform from Van Eck. Market Vectors ETFs and indices will be available on SPAR (Style Performance and Risk) and FactSheet Portfolio Analysis, a tool which allows portfolio managers to study the performance, composition and characteristics of a portfolio on an absolute basis or compared with an index. In an initial phase, bond ETFs from Van Eck covering international credit, investment grade, and high yield, will be integrated, as well as municipal bonds. Equity ETFs will be taken next.

On 7 November, Global X Funds listed the Global X Next Emerging 7 frontier ETF (ticker: EMFM) for trading on the NYSE Arca platform, with fees of 0.58%. It replicates the Solactive Next Emerging & Frontier Index from the German firm Solactive AG (basis of 100 for 22 October 2013).“Next emerging markets” exclude the BRIC countries, as well as the most developed emerging countries, which currently include South Korea and Taiwan. The index includes 21 frontier and 14 emerging countries.The underlying is composed of equities, ordinary shares, either ADR and GDR, from a selection of businesses worldwide which are domiciled in these countries, or which have their primary listing or derive more than 50% of their revenues from these countries. The equities selected have been chosen from among the largest caps on the basis of publicly-traded capital, and their weighting is then a function of liquidity.

The team responsible for liquidating the business bank Lehman Brothers has filed a lawsuit in New York bankruptcy court against Credit Suisse, according to the news agency Dow Jones. It accuses the bank of having inflated the losses undergone due to the bankruptcy of the US bank. The trustee is asking for the USD1.2bn sought by Credit Suisse in damages and interest to be lowered by more than USD1bn. He claims that the initial amount is exaggerated and that the claims of Credit Suisse are valid only for about USD75m. He also claims that Credit Suisse owed him CHF150m for international transactions.

Janet Squitieri, chief compliance officer and senior vice president for North America at HSBC Global Asset Management from August 2010 to September 2013, has been appointed as vice president, global head of compliance at Van Eck Global.In this role, she succeeds Joseph McBrien, who has been appointed as senior vice president & chief legal counsel.

The council of governors of the European Central Bank (ECB) has presented two candidates to take over as head of the future euro zone banking supervisory body, the French Danièle Nouy and the Dutch Jan Sijbrand, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports. The ECB will ask the European parliament to select one of these two candidates, who are currently active as banking supervisors in their respective countries, the German newspaper continues.

Aberdeen AM France has had an equity type alternative multi-management mutual fund under management for five years, and has a similar “global” fund managed in London, but not on sale in France. Despite the interest for these funds by competitors, their assets are low... The deputy CEO of Aberdeen France in charge of investment, Sandra Craignou, analyzes investors' reticence, and the means that the firm is using to win them back.

Worldwide, in the first ten months of the year Vanguard was the ETP promoter which posted the most net inflows, totalling USD51.6bn, ETFGI reports. In second place is iShares, with USD51.3bn.These actors are far ahead, as the third-largest promoter by net subscriptions was WisdomTree with USD12.8bn, just ahead of PowerShares, with USD12.6bn. In fifth place is SPDR (State Street Global Advisors) with USD9.5bn.

Axa, in sixth place with USD1.47457trn in assets, BNP Paribas, in ninth place with USD1.30399trn, Amundi, in 14th place, with USD961.24bn), and Natixis, in 18th, with USD6779.32bn, are cited by Pensions & Investment and Towers Watson in their rankings of the 500 largest asset management firms in the world as of the end of 2012, published on 11 November.The two world leaders remain unchanged compared with the end of 2011: BlackRock, with USD3.79159trn, and Allianz, with USD2.44782trn. But Vanguard, with USD2.21522trn, has stolen third place from State Street, which falls to fourth, with USD2.08622trn.Total assets as of the end of 2012 came to USD68trn, up by 8.2% year on eyar, after a decline of 3% in 2011. They are now near an all-time record of USD69trn as of the end of 2007.The study also finds that since 2002, passively-managed assets have increased by 13% per year, while the market as a whole gained only 6%.

Macquarie Group will make a cash offer of GBP500m for Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in the next two weeks, in order to push the other suitor, Aberdeen Asset Management, out of the running, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the matter.Aberdeen AM emerged two weeks ago as the favourite for the acquisition of the Lloyds asset management affiliate. But plans by the Scottish firms to issue shares to Lloyds to finance the acquisition reduced the attractiveness of the offer, and the British banking group is continuing talks with Macquarie for a cash offer.Sources familiar with the matter say that Lloyds will take a decision on the sale of SWIP by 22 November.

Quilter Cheviot has recruited Matthieu Duncan as chief operating officer, Fund Web reports. Duncan had previously been head of strategy at Newton Investment Management and chief investment officer at Cambridge Place Investment Management.

According to reports in Investment Week, Chris Rice, who managed European equity funds at Cazenove, has founded Sanditon Asset Management with his predecessotr Tim Russell, who left Cazenove in July 2011. Pending approval by the FCA, they are planning to launch a long-only fund and a long/short UK equity fund in second quarter 2014, managed by Tim Russell, as well as a long-only fund and a European long/short equity fund managed by Chris Rice.

The UBS group has announced the launch of a new family office activity in Australia in order to assist with the needs of high net worth clients in Australia, according to reports in several Australian publications. The initiative will include the merger of investment banking and wealth management activities at UBS in Australia, in order to cover existing clients of the bank and other prospective clients among the 50 most wealthy families in Australia.

Les neuf premiers mois 2013 ont permis à Swiss Life Asset Managers d’acquérir de nouveaux mandats de gestion de fortune pour le compte de clients externes et d’enregistrer ainsi une collecte nette de 2,5 milliards de francs suisses, selon les chiffres publiés le 12 novembre.Le rendement net des placements des trois premiers trimestres 2013 se monte à 3,1%, (non annualisé, année précédente: 3,7%). Le groupe Swiss Life annonce par ailleurs la nomination de Patrick Frost, actuellement chief investment officer, au poste de CEO à compter du 1er juillet 2014. Il remplace à ce poste Bruno Pfister qui entend donner une nouvelle inflexion à sa carrière.

Un porte-parole de Fidelity Worldwide Investment a confirmé à finews.ch qu’Alfred Strebel, country head Switzerland depuis 2007, quittera l’entreprise début 2014 pour «relever d’autres défis professionnels» dans la gestion d’actifs. Son poste sera repris par Adam Lessing, head of Austria & Eastern Europe depuis 2010. L’intéressé cumulera ses fonctions actuelles avec la responsabilité du marché helvétique.

Funds People rapporte que BNP Paribas Investment Partners a fait enregistrer auprès de la CNMV huit compartiments de la gamme Easy Future au sein de la sicav luxembourgeoise BNP Paribas Plan pour la vente en Espagne. Il s’agit de fonds à liquidité journalière et à échéances comprises entre 2018 et 2043.

Adam Levinson, le directeur des investissements des fonds Asia Macro de Fortress Investment Group, est en négociations avec son employeur en vue de lancer sa propre société, rapport Hedge Week, qui cite Bloomberg. Aucune décision n’a encore été prise et le «spinoff» (essaimage) ne devrait pas intervenir avant début 2015, indique une personne proche du dossier. Cela serait la première fois que Fortress (58 milliards de dollars d’encours) finance la société de l’un de ses collaborateurs.

Le géant obligataire Pimco a accusé des rachats nets (hors groupe) de 29 milliards d’euros au troisième trimestre dans ses produits obligataires traditionnels, montrent les résultats de sa maison mère, Allianz. Il y a un an, sur la période correspondante, le groupe avait enregistré des souscriptions nettes de 30,9 milliards d’euros, rappelle Financial News. Les encours sous gestion hors groupe de Pimco sont ressortis à 83,9 milliards d’euros au 30 septembre, contre 85,6 milliards d’euros au 31 décembre.

Le sélectionneur de fonds Vasco Nuno Jesus a décidé de quitter le groupe portugais BPI Asset Management après avoir passé six ans dans la société, est en mesure de révéler Citywire Global. Il quittera le groupe le 11 novembre et n’a pas encore dévoilé ce qu’il ferait après son départ. BPI affiche un encours sous gestion de 18 milliards d’euros.

La société de gestion Tikehau IM vient de lancer le FCT Tikehau Corporate Leveraged Loan Fund, conseillé par Gide Loyrette Nouel..Ce fonds, constitué le 6 novembre 2013 à l’initiative de Tikehau IM, est l’un des premiers fonds de prêts à l'économie (FPE), créé en application du décret du 2 août 2013 modifiant certaines règles d’investissement des entreprises d’assurance.Ce fonds a vocation à participer au financement des entreprises, cotées ou non, situées dans l’Union Européenne, en souscrivant à des émissions d’obligations ou en acquérant des créances de prêts dans le cadre d’opérations d’acquisition d’entreprises pour un montant de 250 millions d’euros.

Surfant sur le succès du WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (code mnémonique DXJ) qui affiche 10,6 milliards de dollars d’encours grâce notamment aux quelque 9 milliards collectés depuis le début de cette année, WisdomTree a lancé le 7 novembre le WisdomTree Korea Hedged Equity Fund (DXKW).Ce nouvel ETF réplique le WisdomTree Korea Hedged Equity Growth Index ; il investit en actions sud-coréennes de qualité mais couvre le risque de change sur le won en «shortant» par le biais de contrats à terme.Le taux de frais sur encours se situe à 0,58 %.

Dans un communiqué daté du 31 octobre, le «proxy advisor» Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) a indiqué que le conseil d’administration de sa maison-mère, MSCI Inc, l’a autorisé à explorer toutes les options stratégiques concernant son avenir et que cela pourrait déboucher sur une séparation totale des deux entités.