Avant la fin septembre, Jörn Stobbe, associé du cabinet d’avocats Clifford Chance et jusqu’en août président de l'émanation en Allemagne de la Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, rejoindra comme membre de la direction générale RREEF Management GmbH, une filiale de Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM). Il aura le rang de managing director et sera responsable des activités gestion d’actifs et transactions pour l’espace germanophone (Allemagne, Suisse, Autriche). Jörn Stobbe est également membre du directoire de l’Initiative Corporate Governance (ICG) du secteur immobilier allemand.Pierre Cherki, global head of alternatives & real assets de DeAWM, a indiqué que Jörn Stobbe sera subordonné à Georg Allendorf. Il a mis en exergue l’expertise du nouvel arrivant dans le domaine des «investissements opportunistes».
La Deutsche Bank a annoncé le 2 septembre avoir bouclé la transaction par laquelle, en mai, elle avait acquis les 51 % que Xchanging plc détenait dans leur coentreprise Xchanging Transaction Banking (XTB).Les autorisations nécessaires ayant été obtenues des instances de surveillance et des actionnaires d’Xchanging, le changement de propriétaire est devenu effectif au 1er septembre et XTB sera désormais exploitée sous le nom de DB Investment Services GmbH.Holger Wegmann devient CEO de DB Investment Services tandis que Catrin Röthe, membre de la direction générale de XTB, exercera les fonctions de chief production officer. Quant au poste de COO, il échoit à Thomas Beemelmann.
Avec effet au 1er septembre 2013, Gunther Will est devenu directeur de la distribution des fonds offerts au public de Berenberg auprès des gestionnaires de fortune, des fonds de fonds et des CGPI. L’intéressé qui a été pendant quelques mois président du directoire du pool de couriters Argentos Verwaltungs-AG, après avoir été jusqu’au printemps 2012 head of retail sales chez Alceda Fund Management SA et responsable de la distribution des fonds pour l’ensemble du groupe Aquila Capital.Gunther Will sera subordonné à Uwe Schedewsky, head of client management du pôle gestion d’actifs de Berenberg. Les actifs gérés par la plus ancienne banque privée allemande se situent à environ 28 milliards d’euros.
Sous la marque «Deka Institutionell», Deka recalibre sa gestion institutionnelle en incluant dans ce pôle un ensemble de prestations permettant d’offrir aux clients une chaîne de valeur complète. Depuis l’analyse stratégique jusqu’au reporting et au contrôle de gestion, en passant par la sélection de solutions produit appropriées et leur mise en œuvre, a souligné hier Klaus-Dieter Böhme, directeur de la distribution institutionnelle de l'établissement.Actuellement, l’encours institutionnel de Deka, le gestionnaire d’actifs central des caisses d'épargne allemandes, représente 85 milliards d’euros, sur un total de 177 milliards. Cette filière couvre les fonds offerts au public dédiés aux institutionnels (10 milliards), les fonds institutionnels (Spezialfonds) pour 62 milliards, les ETF (4,6 milliards) et les actifs conseillés (8,5 milliards). Sur les 85 milliards d’encours institutionnels totaux, environ 60 % proviennent d’entreprises et d'établissements qui font partie de la galaxie des caisses d'épargne. Deka prévoit que les rentrées nettes du pôle institutionnel atteindront 6 milliards d’euros cette année.
Michael O. Bentlage, associé-gérant responsable du pôle asset servicing, a annoncé que la banque privée francfortoise Hauck & Aufhäuser Privatbankiers (H&A) reprend les fonctions de banque dépositaire exercées jusqu'à présent par SEB pour sept fonds Ampega. H&A prend également en compte six fonds Ampega lancés en mai et juillet de cette année.Michael Bentlage a précisé à cette occasion que H&A a l’intention de développer l’activité de banque dépositaire et a déjà entamé des pourparlers à ce sujet avec plusieurs maisons.
The Swedish asset management firm Carnegie is closing the Carnegie Sverige Select fund, an unconstrained Swedish equity fund, to new investors. “In order to preserve our freedom, we must close the fund before it becomes too large,” explains Simon Blecher, manager of the fund. The fund, launched on 28 September 2007, now has SEK1.6bnin assets, or EUR180m. Carnegie Sverige Select, highly concentrated, has about 15 positions in its portfolio, and one single share can represent about 30% of the fund.
By the end of September, Jörn Stobbe, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance, and until the end of August chairman of the German arm of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, will join RREEF Management GmbH, a real estate fund management affiliate of Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM), as a member of general management. He will have the position of managing director, and will be responsible for asset management activities and trading for the German-speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria). Stobbe is also a member of the board at the Corporate Governance Initiative (ICG) by the German real estate sector.Pierre Cherki, global head of alternatives & real assets at DeAWM, states that Stubbe will report to Georg Allendorf. He highlights the expertise of the new arrival in the area of “opportunity-driven investment.”
Deutsche Bank on 2 September announced that it had completed a transaction by which, in May, it acquired the 51% stake held by its partner, Xchanging plc, in their joint venture, Xchanging Transaction Banking (XTB).As the necessary permission had been obtained from the supervisory authorities and the shareholders in Xchanging the change of ownership took place on 1 September, and XTB will now be known as DB Investment Services GmbH.Holger Wegmann becomes CEO of DB Investment Services, while Catrin Röthe, a member of the executive team at XTB, will serve as chief production officer. The position of COO will go to Thomas Beemelmann.
With effect from 1 September 2013, Gunther Will has become director of distribution of open-ended funds from Berenberg to wealth managers, funds of funds and IFAs.Will, who for some months was chairman of the board at the brokerage pool Argentos Verwaltungs-AG, served until spring 2012 as head of retail sales at Alceda Fund Management SA, and head of fund distribution for the Aquila Capital group.Will will report to Uwe Schedewsky, head of client management at the asset management business unit of Berenberg. Assets under management by the oldest private bank in Germany total about EUR28bn.
Currently, institutional assets at Deka, the central asset management firm for the German savings banks, represent EUR85bn, out of a total of EUR177bn. This includes open-ended funds dedicated to institutionals (EUR10bn), institutional funds (Spezialfonds) for EUR62bn, ETFs (EUR4.6bn), and advised assets (EUR8.5bn). The unit will now be placed under the heading “Deka Institutionell” and will allow the firm to offer clients a complete value chain, from strategic analysis to reporting and controlling, without forgetting the selection of appropriate products solutions, and their deployment, says Klaus-Dieter Böhme, director of institutional distribution.Of this total of EUR85bn in institutional assets, about 60% come from businesses and institutions which belong to the galaxy of the savings banks. Deka predicts that net inflows to the institutional unit will total EUR6bn this year.
The Banque J. Safra Sarasin on 3 September announced the recruitment of four experienced specialists as additions to its team of wealth managers. Florian Esterer (who joins from MainFirst, after several years at Swisscanto) is the new head of the wealth management team in the area of equities, and is joined by Thomas Zbinden, senior wealth manager (who also joins from Swisscanto), as well as Christoph Lang, wealth manager, who joins from the Cantonal Bank of Zurich. The German Helmut Kotschwar, head of investment strategy and portfolio analysis at SAM Sustainable Asset Management since 2008, has also been recruited to serve in the newly-created position of head of the investment centre. He will be responsible for developing portfolios for all asset management units.
The Swiss wealth management firm Aquila has lost its chief investment officer, Jürg Furrer, who had also been a member of the executive board at the group, the specialist information website finews reports.After nine years at Aquila, Furrer will on 1 October join the Swiss office of the US group Pimco. The head of Pimco Switzerland, Christian M. Staub, had recently announced that he wished to strengthen his team with the recruitment of professionals with a lot of knowledge of the Swiss market.
Azimut, via its Luxembourg sub-holding company AZ International Holding, has subscribed to a capital increase related to the acquisition of a 51% stake in the capital of An Ping Investment, the holding company which controls all capital in Sinopro Financial Planning Taiwan Limited, Bluerating reports. Sinopro is a Securities Investment Consulting Enterprise which is present in the distribution of asset management products in Taiwan. The total cost of the operation is EUR3bn. The objective for the agreement is to create a joint venture for the distribution of asset management products in Taiwan.
SPDR ETF, the tracker platform from State Street Global Advisers, on 2 September announced the launch on the London stock exchange of three new short-term bond ETFs. The three new ETFs are also listed on Deutsche Börse (see Newsmanagers of 30 August).The three new physical replication ETFs come as additions to the SPDR ETF bond tracker range, which offers exposure to a variety of indices – Global, US, Europe, United Kingdom, Emerging Markets, High Yield and inflation-linked bonds. Due to the recent volatility observed on the markets and rising interest rates, the maturity of securities is again attracting the attention of invetors, as a major risk in their bond portfolios. One way to circumvent these risks related to maturity is to invest in short-term bonds, which could improve risk-adjusted returns and reduce the general sensitivity of a portfolio to changes in interest rates.
The British firm Milton is planning to launch a long/short equity fund dedicated to British equities, Fundweb reports. George Godber, who joined Milton earlier this year, may become manager of the new strategy, the specialist website reports. Assets under management at Milton totalled slightly over GBP2bn as of the end of June. Since then, Milton has acquired Psigma AM, whose assets under management total about GBP750m.
Mark Lacey will join Schroders as a co-fund manager on Schroder ISF Global Energy and Schroder ISF Small Cap Energy. He joins on 9th September from commodities trader Mercuria Global Energy Solutions and brings with him more than 17 years’ of investment experience in the global energy sector.Mark Lacey will work alongside the funds’ existing manager John Coyle ; the investment objective of both funds remains unchanged. He will report to Peter Harrison, Global Head of Equities and will work alongside the Global and International Equities team providing specialist energy analysis and stock recommendations.Ben Wicks, an existing equity analyst within the Global and International Equities team, will assume the role of Global Sector Specialist - Energy.
JP Morgan has decided to limit access to an Asian equity fund managed by Pauline Ng, Citywire reports. The fund, the JP Morgan ASEAN Equity, had been subject to access constraints since June. As of the end of July 2013, its assets under management peaked at USD1.2bn, and had then fallen back to USD1.04bn. The fund has earned returns of 49.51% for the three years to the end of July 2013, compared with gains of 36% for the Citywire benchmark index, the MSCI South East Asia TR USD, over the same period.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) released on September 2 the final framework for margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives.Under the globally agreed standards published yesterday, all financial firms and systemically important non-financial entities that engage in non-centrally cleared derivatives will have to exchange initial and variation margin commensurate with the counterparty risks arising from such transactions.The final requirements have been developed taking into account feedback from two rounds of consultation (a July 2012 consultative paper and a February 2013 near-final proposal) as well as a quantitative impact study that helped inform the policy deliberations.The requirement to collect and post initial margin on non-centrally cleared trades will be phased in over a four-year period, beginning in December 2015 with the largest, most active and most systemically important derivatives market participants.
The Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has fined Everbright Securities RMB523m, or USD85.5m, for insider trading on 16 August (Newsmanagers of 30 August). The CSRC has also temporarily barred the firm from proprietary trading services, except for bond transactions. Four heads at the firm, including former chairman Xu Haoming and head of investmetn Yang Jianbp have also been fined a combined total of RMB2.4m, and are now barred from practising in the financial sector.
Ashmore Investment Management, one of the specialist managers of emerging market debt and equity securities, on September 2 announced the launch of the Ashmore SICAV Turkish Equity Fund.The fund is an open-ended vehicle primarily investing predominantly in Turkish equity and equity related instruments issued by corporates and quasi-sovereigns. Ashmore’s globally managed funds have been major investors in Turkish equities since 1987. The asset manager further strengthened its Turkish connections when it launched Ashmore Portföy, Turkey in 2008, one of Ashmore’s first domestic asset management ventures.The SICAV Turkish Equity Fund is an open-ended daily dealing UCITS IV Luxembourg registered fund. The fund will be registered for sale in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the UK and is available in share class denominations in US Dollars, Euros, UK Sterling and other currencies.Ashmore has assets under management of USD77.4billion as of 30 June 2013.
From 2 September, the DWS Japan Opportunities fund (DE0008490954) has become known as the Deutsche Nomura Japan Growth. The change is a sign of the deepened coopertion between Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) and Nomua Asset Management.The fund actually will now be managed by the team at Nomura Asset Management led by Shinsuke Yauchi and Ken Nagano. This will allow the fund to benefit from the local expertise of Nomura AM, one of the largest strategic partners of the German group. Asoka Wöhrmann, co-CIO, says that there is not yet any product of this type in Europe.The team at Nomura Asset Management benefits from the work of more than 20 buy-side analysts, and the fund will be managed with a growth method, with a portfolio of 40 to 60 positions out of a universe of 450 securities.
Michael O. Bentlage, managing partner responsible for the asset servicing unit, has announced that the Frankfurt-based private bank Hauck & Aufhäuser Privatbankiers (H&A) will be taking over the depository banking activities previously provided by SEB for seven Ampega funds. H&A will also be taking over six Ampega funds launched in May and July this year.Bentlage announced at this time that H&A is planning to develop a depository banking activity and has already entered talks on the subject with several firms.
Baring Asset Management has hired Laura Luo as head of Hong Kong China equities, starting on 12th September. She replaces Agnes Deng who has left the firm and will report to Wilfred Sit, chief investment officer, Asia. Laura Luo joins from Schroder Investment Management where she worked for over 12 years. Since 2002 she has been lead manager on several Hong Kong China equity funds, responsible for assets under management of over USD2bn. This includes the Schroder International Selection Fund: China Opportunities, which she has managed since it launched in 2006.Based in Hong Kong, Laura Luo will be responsible for managing the Hong Kong China equities team as well as being lead manager on the Baring Hong Kong China Fund and segregated portfolios.Winston Ke, who has materially contributed to the portfolio management of the China A-share product since its inception, will become lead manager on the Baring China A-Share Fund and all China A-Share segregated portfolios, effective immediately. He will report to Laura Luo.Winston Ke joined Baring Asset Management in April 2010 from First State Cinda Asset Management in Shenzhen, China, where he covered China A-Share markets.
BNY Mellon Asset Management on 2 September announced the appoinment of Justine Mizrahi, 38, as its new head of the institutional distribution department for French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland, based in Geneva, and Nicolas Kopitsis, 36, s its new head of wholesale distribution for Switzerland and Austria. Mizrahi is the new head of distribution for products from all investment departments of BNY Mellon Asset Management aimed at financial intermediaries and institutional investors in French-speaking Switzerland. She joined the Cash Investment Strategies (CIS) department at BNY Mellon in 2010 as a bond portfolio specialist. Mizrahi, previously at BlackRock, had been head of sales for cash and short-term bond products for France, Italy and Spain. She also worked at Schroders and Axa Private. In his role as head of the intermediated distribution channel, Kopitsis is a newcomer at BNY Mellon. In his previous role, he served as head of wholesale distribution in Switzerland and Liechtenstein at Lombard Odier Asset Management. He had previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, as head of the Swiss market for institutional investors and as a portfolio manager at Credit Suisse.
One of the Singapore sovereign wealth funds, Temasek, announced before the weekend that it had selected locations for its offices in London and New York, with the objective of being operational before the end of the year, according to a statement.The New York office will be located at 375 Park Avenue, in the business district of Manhattan. The London office will be at 23 King Street, in St James’s, near a highly valued hedge fund area.The offices come in addtion to the SWF’s network of foreign locations, with nine offices in Asia and two in Latin America.
On 2 September, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the organisation responsible for developing UK corporate governance and stewardship codes and accounting, auditing and actuarial work standards, appointed Marian Williams as codes & standards director, in which position she will assist Melanie McLaren, executive director, codes & standards, and Angus Bogle, director of investor engagement, as deputy to Mridul Hegde, executive director, strategy.Williams had previously been director of the insurance financial services unit at PwC. Bogle, who had been co-head of equity at Fildelity Worldwide Investments from November 2007 to December 2011, will be responsible for creating an enhanced engagement programme for the FRC and “the investor community.” He will also work with the codes & standards team to ensure that governance and reporting meet the expectations of investors.
Legal & General Investment Management has announced the appointment of Justin Onuekwusi as a portfolio manager specialised in retail multi-asset class profiled funds, Investment Europe reports. Onuekwusi previously worked at Aviva Investors, where he was lead manager for several profiled multi-asset class funds. At Legal & General, he will be lead manager fo the Legal & General Multi-Index range, launched on 21 August 2013.
Claus Hein, former head of ETF sales for the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia at Lyxor, will be joining Deutsche Bank, Financial News has learnt. He will be responsible for synthetic distribution in the United Kingdom. This will include ETFs.
Daniel Godfrey, CEO of the Investment Management Association (IMA), on 2 September announced that it has created two seats on its executive board for directors of regulatory affairs. They go to Julie Patterson, currently director fo authorised funds & tax, for “retail & funds,” and to Richard Metcalfe, deputy head of EMEA at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), for the “institutional & capital markets” portion.The IMA will also create an office of the director for risk, compliance and legal affairs, which will be occupied by Guy Sears, currently director, institutional.The recruitment of a COO as an addition to the executive committee is also in progress.
Dan Higgins, former chief investment offier at Fauchier Partners, will this week launch his own asset management boutique, Marylebone Partners, Financial News reports.