La volatilité du Bund reste insensible aux discussions sur le budget américain
Parce qu’elle semble bon marché, la volatilité implicite du Bund offre l’opportunité de jouer le débouclement de la crise
ICE et Nyse Euronext entrent dans la dernière ligne droite avant leur fusion
L'AMF vient de rendre un avis favorable sur le projet. Les autres régulateurs nationaux et ministres européens doivent encore se prononcer
Le marché de bureaux francilien poursuit sa correction
La demande placée a chuté de 18% sur les neuf premiers mois de l’année, en l’absence de transactions sur le marché des grandes surfaces
La CARMF a réinvesti dans le crédit
La CARMF a réalloué fin août deux fonds obligataires aggregate zone euro (60% Investment Grade et 40% High Yield) suite à une consultation restreinte. « Compte tenu des conditions de marché actuelles, nous avons décidé d’investir cette année nos flux d’investissement dans le crédit, précise Michel Manteau, responsablede la gestion Taux à la CARMF. Il nous reste un reliquat à investir que nous avons l’intention de consacrer aux obligations convertibles en nous renforçant dans un de nos fonds dédiés existants. Pour cela, nous espérons voir se dégager une fenêtre d’entrée d’ici à la fin de l’année ». Les deux fonds dédiés obligations aggregate que la CARMF vient de créer sont de taille globalement équivalente et représentent un encours total de près de 70 millions d’euros. Ils sont gérés par HSBC et Aviva Global Investors. Mais la CARMF n’a pas attendu la création de ces deux fonds dédiés pour profiter de certaines opportunités qui se sont présentées sur le crédit fin juin. « Nous avons investi dans un fonds ouvert Investment Grade le 24 juin et nous en sommes sortis fin août », ajoute Michel Manteau.
TPG et Ivanhoe Cambridge investissent dans la logistique en Europe
TPG Capital et Ivanhoe Cambridge, le bras armé du fonds de pension du Québec dans l’immobilier, ont annoncé le rachat de PointPark Properties. Ce dernier, basé à Prague, détient 48 plates-formes logistiques et entrepôts en Europe, et près de 1,5 million de mètres carrés. Propriété d’Arcapita, un fonds bahreïni en faillite, P3 avait été valorisé en 2012 à 760 millions d’euros lors d’un projet de cotation qui n’a finalement pas abouti, selon des doucments cités par Bloomberg.
BlackRock passe les 4.000 milliards de dollars d'actifs
BlackRock affichait 4.096 milliards de dollars sous gestion au 30 septembre, une hausse de 12% sur un an et de 6% par rapport à la fin juin 2013. Le gestionnaire d’actifs américain a dégagé 2,4 milliards de dollars de revenus sur le trimestre écoulé (+7% sur un an) pour un résultat net de 730 millions.
16/10/2013
Geneva's Syz & Co investigated by France
The bank Syz & Co was placed under investigation at the beginning of October in France, a spokesperson or the Genevan private bank, Ricardo Payro, confirmed the Swiss agency ATS on Monday, confirming reports on the website of the Geneva Tribune and 24 heures. The affair is related to a labour conflict following the dismissal of a French employee in July 2009. “this is simply a further procedural step, without any ultimate decision or prejudice. It is an old case, which is limited to rather technical questions of labour law and which concerns only one old employee responsible for selling investment funds to instituitonal clients,” says Payro.
16/10/2013
Liontrust enters multi-asset class management
The British firm Liontrust has acquired North Investment Partners as part of its planned development in multi-asset class management, FundWeb reports. The head of North Investment Partners, John Husselbee, is expected to lead the new multi-asset class team at Liontrust. Paul Kim, formerly of LV=, will join the team as senior manager.
16/10/2013
Henderson appoints UBS veteran as new CIO
Henderson has hired Rob Gambi as chief investment officer. He will focus on the leadership and development of Henderson’s investment capabilities globally, including its growing resources in the US and Asia. Rob Gambi joins from UBS Global Asset Management where he was a group managing director and global head of fixed income with responsibility for over USD230 billion. In addition he was a member of the executive committee of UBS Global Asset Management.Previous to this he was head of equities and head of fixed income at AMP Asset Management (AMPAM) and Henderson. He will report directly to Henderson CEO Andrew Formica and sit on Henderson’s executive committee. He will start at Henderson in 2014.
16/10/2013
Bonus caps for fund managers may be dropped
To widespread surprise, Lithuania, which currently holds the European Union presidency, has accelerated the process of the UCITS V directive, increasing the likelihood that the controversial measure to cap bonuses will be dropped, Financial Times fund maangement reprts. In July, the European parliament rejected a proposal to limit bonuses to 100% of fixed salaries and to forbid performance commissions for UCITS funds by a vote of 348 to 341. Due to the tightness of the vote, many thought that it might be overturned by the parliament formed after the elections in May 2014. Lithuania has formed a working group for 21 October, which suggests that the planned directive may be completed by spring, meaning that the new parliament will not have a chance to review it.
16/10/2013
Specialist advisers manage twice the assets of generalists
Specialist advisers manage nearly two times as many assets on average than advisers overall, according to a study carried out by Cerulli Associates in “The Cerulli Edge – Advisor Edition” (Fourth quarter). As of the end of June 2013, assets under management by specialists represented about 29% of total assets for advisers. “The great majority of financial advisers are generalists. Only 15% of advisers carry out their activities for a single client category, institutionals, corporate retirement programmes, or high net worth (HNW) investors,” says Bing Waldert, director at Cerulli. According to Cerulli, specialists clearly limit the market for an adviser but improve the degree of success in the development o the activity. By targeting a very small market and setting up a range of services which is tailored to it, advisers have more chances of winning requests for proposals when they are competing with a generalist.
16/10/2013
Pimco strengthens German-speaking institutional sales team
Philipp Orth, Nadejda de Lousanoff and Umberto Prandi have been recruited for the institutional sales team at Pimco for the German and Austrian markets, and will report to Frank Witt, executive vice president and head of institutional customer relationships for Germany and Austria.The first of these becomes vice president and CRO. He had previously been director of customer relationships at Vescore. De Lousanoff joins from Banesto, where she had been head of distribution of structured products in Germany and the Scandinavian countries for the Spanish firm Santander. She is appointed as head of clients at Pimco.Lastly, Prandi is leaving Infineon Technologies, where he had been manager for mergers and acquisitions, to become a client adviser at Pimco.
16/10/2013
HSH Nordbank sells its real estate unit for one euro
According to NDR info radio, the Landesbank of Schleswig-Holstein and Hambourg, HSH Nordbank, in August sold its division HSH Real Estate for a symbolic one euro. That includes real estate funds with assets of EUR2bn and properties valued at EUR320m. A spokesperson for HSH Nordbank declined to comment on the reports, Fondsprofessionell says.
16/10/2013
Hedge funds target Puerto Rican debt
Hedge funds and “distressed” asset managers are buying Puerto Rican debt, taking advantage of sales by traditional investors, the Financial Times reports. “Many traditional funds are selling these securities at a discount, and since several entities in Puerto Rico sell bonds, the liquidity is good. That is unusual in the municipal bond market,” says one manager. The monthly trading volumes on Puerto Rican bonds have increased to USD30bn at the end of September, compared with an average of UDS3-5bn, according to Citigroup.
16/10/2013
Norwegian fund teams up with Axa Real Estate in commercial RE debt
Norges Bank Investment Management manager of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, and Axa Real Estate Investment Managers have entered a European commercial real estate loan co-investment programme.The programme will target investments in large size senior loans, of up to EUR600 million, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
16/10/2013
CPSS and IOSCO launch consultation on central counterparties
The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on October 15 published for public comment a consultative document on the Public quantitative disclosure standards for central counterparties. In order that the risks related to the use of central counterparties (CCPs) can be properly understood, CCPs need to make relevant information publicly available, as stated in the CPSS-IOSCO Principles for financial market infrastructures, published in April 2012. To provide guidance on what should be disclosed by a CCP and other financial market infrastructures, CPSS and IOSCO published a Disclosure framework in December 2012, primarily covering qualitative data that need relatively infrequent updating (for example, when there is a change to a CCP’s risk management framework). To complement that disclosure framework, the document now being published sets out guidance on the quantitative data that a CCP should disclose more frequently. Comments on the report are invited from all interested parties and should be sent by 13 December 2013.
16/10/2013
Moody's planning to modify methodology for asset managers
The financial ratings agency Moody’s on 15 October launched a call for comments on proposed modifications to the ratings methodology for asset management firms. This would more systematically evaluate risk factors concerning alternative management firms, while also increasing the number of risk factors on the balance sheets of traditional asset management firms.
16/10/2013
CPR AM launches thematic household consumer spending fund
CPR Asset Management has announced the launch of the CPR Consommateur Actionnaire fund, a European equity fund eligible for investment from PEA accounts. The product has the primary objective of benefiting from household consumer spending worldwide. The managers of the fund, Nicolas Johnson and Caroline Canard, select the best-performing European businesses in sectors which are affectd by household spending. “The investment universe of CPR Consommateur Actionnaire is not limited to the ‘household’ basket but takes an interst in all sectors directly affected by household consumer spending worldwide. It is a fund whose vocation is to track the evolution of ‘trends’ while respecting the profile of household consumption. The particularly of the investment strategy is to construct the portfolio with a balance between the weight of the varius household spending areas,” a statement says. Currently, 10 areas are listed (housing, transportation, health, clothing, leisure, clothing, eduction, consumer, etc.). CharacteristicsISIN code: P share class FR0010258756 / I share class FR0011554237Subscription commission not paid to the FCP maximum 3%Recemption commission not paid to the FCP P and I share classes: noneMaximum annual management fees P share class: 1.50% in cluding all tax / I share class: 1% including all taxPerformance commission P and I share clases: 20% including all tax on performance exceeding the MSCI Europe, up to 2% of net assets
16/10/2013
Pimco launches Bravo II fund
After the success of the Bravo I Fund, with USD2.35bn, which has proven that it is possible to make a lot of money (34% per year) with NPLs, Pimco is preparing to launch the Bravo II (Bank Recapitalization and Value Opportunities), which is expected to raise USD4bn by a closing scheduled for February, Handelsblatt reports.The lead portfolio managers are Dan Ivascyn and Josh Anderson, who also manage the Bravo I.
16/10/2013
Star manager Neil Woodford leaves Invesco Perpetual
Neil Woodford, a colossus in British asset management, is leaving Invesco Perpetual after a quarter century, the Financial Times reports. Shares in Invesco, its US parent company, fell 5% on the news. Woodford controls half of funds under management at Invesco Perpetual, and some financial advisers predict large-scale redemptions. He has GBP33bn in assets under management (more than any other British fund manager), and has one of the best track records around. The manager hopes to found a new asset management firm in April, once he has left his employer.
16/10/2013
Record assets for UK ethical funds
At the 6th annual national ethical investment week in the United Kingdom (13-19 October), the extra-financial research agency EIRIS has determined at assets in “green” and ethical retail funds now total a record GBP12.2bn. They totalled only GBP4bn in 2001. EIRIS counts 80 funds, of which 10 have seen increases of more than 50% in their assets in the twelve months to the end of June 2013, while 23 have seen an increase in their total assets of 20% to 50%.Meanwhile, on the basis of a survey of 2015 adults, EIRIS has found that 18% of respondents would like their pension fund to be totally invested in shares in companies which do not contravene best practices in environmental, social and governance areas.For its part, Triodos Bank has determined that 17 million British citizens potentially hold assets which do not correspond to their ethical convictions. And only 20% of investors say they are aware of the exact percentage of their fund activities, pension fund or stocks and bonds that they hold are genuinely ethical or not.
16/10/2013
Very good first quarter for Hargreaves Lansdown
The British firm Hargreaves Lansdown has reported growth of 8% in its assets under administration of its first quarter 2013-2014 to the end of September, which have reached a total of GBP39.3bn, comapred with GBP36.4bn at the end of June, according to interim results released on 15 October. The firm calls the activity in first quarter “exceptional,” as this time of year is generaally very quiet. The number of active clients on the platform increased by 20,000 to 528,000. In the first quarter of the previous year, the number of clients increased by only 7,000.
16/10/2013
Hedge funds return to positive performance in September
After an average loss of 0.54% in August, hedge funds covered by the BarclayHedge index in September posted average returns of 2.09%, bringing gains to 7.28% for the first nine months of the year. In September, only equity short bias (3 funds) has seen losses, of 3.55%, while the decline since the beginning of the year is 19.84%. However, equity long bias (202 funds) stand out with gains of 3.63% in September, and 15.23% for the first three quarters, while remaining behind the healthcare and biotech strategy (20 funds), whose performances total 4.27% and 20.93%, respectively. The 27 Pacific Rim funds have gained 17.20% in the first nine months of the year, but “only” 2.62% in September.
16/10/2013
Value at Risk is a “time bomb”
The widespread use of “value at risk” to measure the risk exposure of funds is a “time bomb” which could provoke a serious crash on the markets, according to Jeremy Monk, chief investment officer at Akro Investicni Spolecnost in Prague, cited by Financial Times fund management. He estimates that in the case of a fall on the equity markets and a rise in volatility, fund managers would have to sell equities, which would exacerbate the fall.
16/10/2013
City opens to Chinese finance
At a time when the position of London as the major foreign offshore centre for the Chinese yuan outside Hong Kong has recently been strengthened, the Chinese and British authorities have announced three major agreements during a visit to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, Les Echos reports. Firstly, Chinese banks will be allowed to operate in the City as branches. The second agreement signed by the British delegation is an additional quota for direct investment in Chinese publicly-traded equities for British companies. Its maximum has been set at GBP8.2bn. Lastly, the two countries have agreed that the pound becomes the fourth currency, after the US dollar, the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen, to be allowed to be traded directly with the yuan, on markets in Shanghai and in licensed offshore centres. A timeline has not yet been set.
16/10/2013
HSH Nordbank vend son pôle immobilier pour un euro
Selon la radio NDR info, la Landesbank du Schleswig-Holstein et de Hambourg, HSH Nordbank, aurait vendu en août sa division HSH Real Estate pour un euro symbolique. Cela recouvre des fonds immobiliers d’un encours de 2 milliards d’euros et un parc immobilier de 320 millions d’euros. Le porte-parole de HSH Nordbank a refusé de commenter l’information, précise Fondsprofessionell.
16/10/2013
Pimco muscle sa force de vente institutionnelle germanique
Philipp Orth, Nadejda de Lousanoff et Umberto Prandi ont été recrutés pour l'équipe de ventes institutionnelles de Pimco sur les marchés allemand et autrichien, sous la responsabilité de Frank Witt, executive vice president et head of institutional customer relationships pour l’Allemagne et l’Autriche.Le premier devient vice president et CRO. Il était auparavant directeur du suivi de la clientèle chez Vescore. Nadejda de Lousanoff vient du Banesto, où elle était responsable de la distribution des produits structurés en Allemagne et dans les pays nordiques pour l’espagnol Santander. Elle est nommée chargée de clientèle chez Pimco.Enfin, Umberto Prandi quitte Infineon Technologies, où il était manager pour les fusions et acquisitions, pour devenir chargé de clientèle chez Pimco.
16/10/2013
Le gérant star Neil Woodford quitte Invesco Perpetual
Neil Woodford, l’un des colosses de la gestion britannique, quitte Invesco Perpetual après un quart de siècle, rapporte le Financial Times. L’action d’Invesco, la maison mère américaine, a chuté de 5 % à cette annonce. Neil Woodford contrôle la moitié des fonds sous gestion d’Invesco Perpetual et certains conseillers financiers prédisent de nombreux rachats. Il a 33 milliards de livres sous gestion (soit plus que tout autre gérant de fonds britannique) et affiche l’un des meilleurs historiques de performance. Le gérant espère créer une nouvelle société de gestion en avril lorsqu’il quitte son employeur.