La société gestion alternative Jana Partners a pris une participation de 6,2% dans le groupe américain de distribution Safeway, rapporte Reuters.Le hedge fund, qui a discuté avec la direction de Safeway sur ses différentes options stratégiques, estime que le cours des actions de Safeway est sous-évalué.

La société CCR Asset Management a indiqué sur son site qu’elle a décidé de proposer aux souscripteurs du fonds CCR Convertibles 2014 dont l'échéance était initialement prévue en décembre 2014, une « fenêtre de sortie » via la fusion-absorption du fonds par un autre OPCVM, CCR Spread Opportunities. Concrètement, les clients vont avoir deux options : racheter sans frais les parts de CCR Convertibles 2014 et récupérer leur capital (les droits de sortie acquis au fonds de 0.75% sont supprimés) ou conserver leurs parts en participant à cette fusion-absorption et bénéficier de la nouvelle stratégie d’investissement mise en œuvre par le fonds CCR Spread Opportunities."L’environnement de taux bas et la faible rémunération de la prime de risque rendent les fonds à échéance moins attractifs, explique CCR AM. Le fonds CCR Convertibles 2014, qui a largement bénéficié de la baisse des rendements obligataires en réalisant en 2012 une performance de 17.24% (part R)1, a atteint la majeure partie de la performance initialement recherchée et offre désormais un potentiel de performance plus limité avec un taux rendement brut jusqu’à maturité inférieur à 3% pour un portefeuille constitué à près de 80% de titres « High Yield » et non notés. Pour éviter aux porteurs du fonds les périodes de stress liées à une augmentation des risques de défaut à l’arrivée à maturité des titres « High Yield » en portefeuille, CCR Asset Management a décidé de proposer une « fenêtre de sortie ».Le fonds absorbant est un OPCVM crédit flexible géré activement sans contrainte d’horizon, qui déploie une stratégie pure crédit innovante visant à profiter du portage du crédit et à tirer parti du retour à la moyenne des spreads entre les zones géographiques et la qualité du crédit. Aujourd’hui, ce fonds est à dominante « Investment Grade » (l’allocation « High Yield » est limitée à 27,5% 3) avec une maturité plus longue (4 à 5 ans), note encore la société de gestion.

Le gestionnaire d’actifs Hennessy Advisors a annoncé que ses actifs sous gestion avaient franchi la barre des 4 milliards de dollars, grâce à un effet marché positif et à une collecte dont le montant n’a pas été précisé.La société relève dans un communiqué que ses encours se sont accrus de quelque 1 milliard de dollars en de moins de neuf mois

La Financière de la Cité a annoncé mercredi 18 septembre avoir confié à BNP Paribas Securities Services qui est déjà sa banque dépositaire, ses activités de conservation, de middle-office et d’administration de fonds, ainsi que la compensation de ses dérivés cotés.Créée en 2005, La Financière de la Cité est une société de gestion indépendante qui gère aujourd’hui plus de 2 milliards d’euros d’actifs pour le compte d’institutions et de grands investisseurs.

Les fonds commercialisés en Norvège ont enregistré en août des souscriptions nettes de 155 millions de couronnes norvégiennes, soit 20 millions d’euros, selon les statistiques de l’association norvégienne de la gestion financière Verdipapirfondenes forening. Les encours des fonds ont augmenté de 3,5 milliards de couronnes norvégiennes (445 millions d’euros) à un nouveau record de 623,8 milliards de couronnes (79 milliards d’euros).

FinEx Capital, part of the FinEx Group, announced on September 18 that it has entered an offer to acquire 100% of Dexia Asset Management, the subsidiary of Brussels-based banking group Dexia SA. Simon Luhr, managing partner and CEO of FinEx Capital Management LLP, commented: “FinEx has been looking to acquire an asset manager for some time to allow us to add scale to our existing platform before our planned expansion into Asia. We have been following the Dexia situation for some time and have decided to enter an offer to acquire Dexia. The business offers us a platform that is the right size and product mix for us and it will allow us to continue to grow our business.FinEx Capital is an integrated asset management business providing a full spectrum of investment solutions, including hedge funds, private equity investments and exchange traded funds. Its products, including several UCITS funds, are listed on the London, Irish and Moscow stock exchanges. It is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Central Bank of Ireland and in Russia it is licensed as a Professional Participant of the Securities Markets.Dexia SA stopped a previous attempt to buy Dexia AM on 30 July this year after a deal agreed in December 2012 with GCS Capital fell apart.

Thomas G. Engelmann, investment director and porfolio manager for infrastructure funds at KGAL Investment Management, will in early October join the renewable energies/infrastructure team at Allianz Global Investors in Munich, in order to increase the supply of new products and identify investments for the Allianz Renewable Energy Fund (EUR150m). He will report to Armin Sandhövel, CIO renewable energy/infrastructure equity.

Fondbolagens Förening, the Swedish investment fund association, has welcomed Bloomberg and SEB Fund Services as new associate members. The association now includes 40 member asset management firms and 9 associate members (providers of services to the asset management industry).

The Scottish asset management firm of the Dutch financial services group Aegon MN, Kames Capital, has obtained a license from the CNMV to sell two bond funds in Spain, Kames High Yield Global Bond Fund and Kames Strategic Global Bond Fund, which will be sold by Allfunds Bank, Funds People reports.Assets at Kames Capital currently total EUR61bn.

Assets in Swiss investment funds as of the end of August totalled CHF731bn, up 0.7%, or CHF5bn, compared with the previous month, according to monthly statistics released on 18 September by Swiss Fund Data and Lipper. Net inflows for the month totalled CHF1.4bn.The largest inflows were to money market funds, with a total of CHF1.6bn, followed by hedge funds (CHF521m). However, equity and bond funds finished the month of August with respective outflows of CHF641m and CHF272m.Invesco has posted the strongest inflows for the month, with CHF931m, followed by Credit Suisse (CHF819m) and Pictet (CHF732m).

According to reports in finews.ch, Partners Group is selling its majority stake in the wealth management firm Asset Management Partners to the partners, Marianne Kirchhofer and Ivo Roos, as part of a management buyout.Roos will succeed Kurt Kohler as CEO of AMP, while Kohler will remain as senior adviser and member of the investment board at the firm.

Bruno Schneller, previously an analyst at Bayerninvest in Zurich, has founded the asset management firm Skënderbeg Asset Management, which will launch a hedge fund specialised in long/short equities in 2014, finews reports, relaying information from the hedge fund specialist Opalesque. Funds of hedge funds have gone out of fashion in recent year. They bottomed out in 2005, and their assets under management now total close to their 2001 levels. Schneller claims, however, that the time has come to launch such a vehicle. “After seven bad years, seven good years should follow,” he tells Opalesque.

The German credit fund Deka Infrastrukturkredit has acquired a tier 1 stake in one of 14 wind power installations which will generate 2.5 megawatts each, and which will be located in the French department of Aube, at Mont d’Arcis, for EUR10m.The fund (EUR185m as of the end of August) is aimed at institutional investors, and acquires only senior infrastructure credit debt. It is invested in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Finland and the United States.DekaBank has engaged to acquire at least 50% of the fund’s investment in all senior equivalent rounds of infrastructure credit.

The German asset management firm db x-trackers (Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management group) on 16 September listed six bond ETFs on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic platform from Deutsche Börse. The additions bring the number of ETFs listed in Frankfurt to 1,013.The six new Luxembourg-registered products are the following:db X-trackers II Canadian Dollar Cash UCITS ETF (LU0892103994), with a TER of 0.20%db X-trackers II IBoxx Spain UCITS ETF (LU0925589755) 0.20%db X-trackers II IBoxx Spain 1-3 UCITS ETF (LU0925589672) 0.15%db X-trackers II MTS Italy Aggregate 1-3 Years-Ex-Bank of Italy UCITS ETF (LU0877808211) 0.15%db X-trackers II MTS Italy Aggregate 3-5 Years-Ex-Bank of Italy UCITS ETF (LU0877808484) 0.20%db X-trackers II IBoxx Sovereigns Eurozone Yield Plus 1-3 UCITS ETF (LU0925589839) 0.15%

The ten largest ETFs account for 24.96% of overall assets under management in the European ETF segment, according to a research published by Lipper. The 41 ETFs (out of a total of 1,743 ETFs) with more than 1 billion in assets under management account for 44.55% of the overall assets under management. The European market thus remains highly concentrated, and this is not going to change in the near future, Detlef Glow, head of research for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Lipper comments.Of the 41 largest funds, the majority are equity funds (28), followed by bond funds (11) and commodity funds (2) that invest in physical gold. The largest ETF (iShares DAX) holds 5.29% of overall assets under management.A total of 361 ETFs were domiciled in France as of the end of June, of which 258 were equity funds. Luxembourg and Ireland have 568 and 557, respectively.Assets under management grew by EUR34.84bn or 15.23% over the last twelve months (30.06.2012 - 30.06.2013) up to EUR263.57bn, but in the first six months of 2013, the growth is 1.95%, or EUR5.04bn.

AllianceBernstein funds will be available on the investment platform from Skandia Vita in Italy, under the terms of an agreement signed between the two firms, Bluerating reports. This will allow the US firm to strengthen its presence on Italian retail market.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched a new fund for the Italian market: the Global Quality Fund from Morgan Stanley Investment Funds, Bluerating reports. It is a product which invests in high-quality businesses.

Fonds Nieuws reports that Invesco Asset Management has introduced 25 “zero rebate” funds on the Netherlands market, to comply with new regulations in the Netherlands which prohibit rebates from January 2014. The “Z” share classes were created on 21 August, according to Willem Herman van der Waal, head of wholesale for the Netherlands.

The Luxembourg-registered global small caps fund Allianz Global Small Cap Equity Fund is now available in the Netherlands, Fonds Nieuws reports. It is also available in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.The objective is to outperform the MSCI World Small Cap Total Return index.

Since the beginning of the year, Moneta Asset management has taken in EUR350m in net susbcriptions, Romain Burnand, CEO of the firm, announced on Wednesday evening, and assets now total EUR1.5bn, of which EUR1.2bn are in the Moneta Multi Caps (MMC) and Moneta Micro Entreprises (MME), an FCP fund which has been closed for four years to prevent its volume becoming disproportionate for the small caps segment it operates in.The Moneta Long Short has assets of EUR85m, while the Totem Fund has EUR29m.The increase in assets due to market appreciation has represented about 20% since the beginning of the year.By major types of clients, life insurance and pension funds represent about 30% of total assets under management, as for private banks, while funds of funds account for about 15%.

The alternative management firm Jana Partners has bought a 6.2% stake in the US retail group Safeway, Reuters reports.The hedge fund, which has discussed various strategic options with the management of Safeway, claims that the Safeway share price is undervalued.

The asset management firm Hennessy Advisors has announced that its assets under management have topped USD4bn, due to positive market effects and inflows whose total has not been disclosed.The firm says in a statement that its assets have increased by about USD1bn in less than nine months.

Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) on 18 September announced plans to sign an agreement to adopt the Value Added Network (VAN) solution from SWIFT to connect to TARGET2-S (T2S).The objective for T2S is to facilitate the European integration of Post Trade by offering common clearing and delivery services, which are neutral, and harmonised in central bank currency, for virtually all securities in Europe. As part of preparations for the future T2S settlement platform, whose debut is planned for early 2015, SGSS has selected the SWIFT network to receive a part of the joint commitment of SGSS and SWIFT to the T2S project as soon as it starts up, and its sustainable realisation with SWIFT, notably via the various working groups working to establish the ISO 20022 format.

Funds on sale in Norway recorded net inflows in August of NOK155m, or EUR20m, according to statistics from the Norwegian fiancial management association Verdipapirfondenes forening. Assets in funds increased from NOK3.5bn (EUR445m) to a new record of NOK623.8bn (EUR79bn).

BlueBay Asset Management, which is part of RBC Global Asset Management, has recruited Richard Blake as director of sales for alternatives, Financial News reports. Blake had previously been head of investor relationships for Europe at Moore Capital Management.

The British asset management firm Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI), which has offices in Hong Kong, is planning to develop in Asia, particuarly in Taiwan and Singapore, Asian Investor reports.OMGI, the entity born of a merger of Skandia Investment Group (SIG) with Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK), would like to set up an investment team in the region, and to increase its capacity on the distribution front.Meanwhile, the firm has lost its head of sales for Asia, Jane Fung, who is said to have spent 10 years at the firm, and who will soon begin in a similar role at another firm in Hong Kong. Old Mutual has already found a successfor, but could not reveal his or her identity before receiving permission from the supervisory authorities.

Ian Penrose, who had been deputy head of global fund distribution to British professional clients at Barclays Capital Funds & Advisory, has been appointed as head of distribution for the United Kingdom at the Swiss firm Syz Asset Management, which covers both segregated mandates, funds of the Syz AM range, and products of the Oyster range.

Les rendements des emprunts souverains européens baissaient nettement jeudi après l’annonce surprise par la Fed du maintien, à 85 milliards de dollars, de son programme de rachats d’actifs. Les taux 10 ans français et allemands se détendaient de 11 pb, à 2,39% et 1,89% respectivement, et le 10 ans britannique de 15 pb à 2,85%.

La BNS a laissé son taux directeur inchangé à 0-0,25%, de même que le plafond de 1,20 entre l’euro et le franc suisse, à l’issue de sa réunion de politique monétaire de septembre. Elle a relevé ses prévisions de croissance, tablant désormais sur une progression du PIB de 1,5% à 2% cette année contre 1% à 1,5% auparavant. La banque centrale suisse a par ailleur relevé de 0,1 point ses prévisions d’inflation pour 2013 et 2014, à -0,2% cette année et 0,3% l’an prochain. «L'économie suisse reste fermement ancrée en territoire déflationniste, et dès lors la politique de taux zéro et de taux de change minimum de la BNS va persister un certain temps», réagissent les économistes de BNP Paribas.

L’Espagne a placé 3,1 milliards d’euros de dette à moyen et long terme, au-delà du montant maximal prévu et à des rendements en baisse, grâce au statu quo décidé mercredi par la Réserve fédérale américaine. Le Trésor espagnol visait 2,0 à 3,0 milliards d’euros. Madrid a placé 2,064 milliards d’euros d’obligations juillet 2016, à un rendement moyen de 2,225% contre 2,636% lors de sa dernière adjudication du 1er août. Le ratio de demande sur offre a été de 2,3 contre 3,3 précédemment. Le Trésor a aussi adjugé 1,0 milliard d’euros de sa nouvelle obligation à 15 ans, syndiquée en juillet, et premier titre de cette échéance à faire l’objet d’une adjudication depuis mars 2011. Le rendement moyen a atteint 4,809% et le ratio de couverture 2,7 fois.