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06/03/2013

Falling interest rates aggravate shortfalls for major pension funds

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } Since 2008, falling discount rates have, despite four years of good performance for investments, provoked a rise of about USD84bn in the coverage shortfalls for the 19 US pension funds with liabilities of over USD20bn, according to a study by Russell Investments. The funds taken by themselves represent nearly 40% of assets and liabilities for all US publicly-traded companies. They finished 2012 with a net shortfall of USD220bn, compared with USD182bn one year earlier.
06/03/2013

Azimut launches advising unit

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Italian asset management firm Azimut has unveiled a new unit, Azimut Global Advisory, which will focus on paid financial advising, Bluerating reports. The project, based on open architecture, will be led by the brothers Alberto and Alessandro Parentini.
06/03/2013

Royal London AM inflows up 66% in 2012

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) on 5 March announced inflows of EUR2.3bn in 2012, up 66% year on year. Inflows to bond funds represented 88% of this total, the asset management firm says in a statement. As of the end of December, assets under management at RLAM totalled GBP47.6bn, up 8% compared with the end of December 2011.
06/03/2013

Lansdowne Partners head to leave

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Sir Paul Ruddock, head and co-founder of the alternative management firm Lansdowne Partners, will resign from his position in June next year. The British financier would like to leave the asset management sector in order to dedicate himself to philanthropic activities. Assets under management at Lansdowne, which is now seeking a successor for Sir Paul, total about GBP12.4bn, after peaking at GBP16.8bn about two years ago. Its flagship fund, the Developed Markets fund, last year earned returns of 18%, and has gained 7.6% since the beginning of this year.
06/03/2013

Equity investors more confident than their FI counterparts

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } Investors in equities are much more confident about the outlooks for the markets in 2013 than their colleagues specialised in bond investments, according to an annual survey undertaken by Aviva Investors of a sample of asset managers with GBP2.5trn in assets under management based in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe.Nearly 70% of equity professionals have more confidence in the markets than a year ago, perhaps because returns on equities beat projections throughout the past year. For bond managers, only one in four professionals is more confident than at the same time last year. Pessimism about the euro zone remains high, but more so among bond investors, 90% of whom predict that uncertainty will persist, compared with only 71% of equity investors.Equity investors are predicting a rise in merger and acquisition deals in 2013, compared with only 17% one year ago. They are also highly optimistic about the financial sector, though 44% of them were underweight last year.
06/03/2013

UBS appoints head of wealth management for Gulf

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } To replace Rolf Schilde as head of wealth management for the Persian Gulf, based in Dubai, UBS has recruited Dominique Leimer, who most recently had been one of the directors of the private equity investor Black Pearl Capital in Geneva, finews reports. Leimer, who has already been in Dubai for seven years at Credit Suisse and Julius Baer, will report to Ali Janoudi, the new head of UBS for Wealth Management Dubai International Center (DIFC).
06/03/2013

UBS to launch ETF in Hong Kong

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } UBS is planning to list several ETFs in Hong Kong in the second half of this year, following the launch of an activity dedicated to ETFs in the region and the recruitment of a sales team in Hong Kong, Financial News reports. The products will be registered locally, and the bank is planning to list some of them in Singapore as well.
06/03/2013

Chinese family offices growing

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With strong growth in their wealth, Chinese high net worth investors are increasingly considering setting up family offices, often in Hong Kong or Singapore, Asian Investor reports. The number of Chinese high net worth individuals whose investable assets exceed USD1m rose 5% in 2011 to 562,000, according to statistics from Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management in their Asia-Wealth Report 2012.
06/03/2013

BlackRock offers EM long/short strategy

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } At the end of 2012, BlackRock launched an absolute return fund which deploys a long/short strategy on emerging market equities, the Emerging Markets Absolute Return sub-fund of its BlackRock Strategic Funds Sicav. The Luxembourg-registered product uses top-down and bottom-up approaches to achieve a net exposure to -10% to +20% to the market, with 20 to 35 positions, as well for long and for short.CharacteristicsName: BlackRock Strategic Funds Emerging Markets Absolute ReturnISIN code: LU0852332542Management commission: 1%Performance commission: 20%Hurdle rate: Libor 3-month
06/03/2013

Lyxor registers MTS Spain govies ETF in Spain

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } According to reports in Funds People, Lyxor Asset Management is said to have already submitted an application for a license to sell the Lyxor ETF MTS Spain Government Bond All-Maturity in Spain, following its recent introduction on Euronext Paris. The product, investing in Spanish government debt, is aimed at investors betting on convergence of the spread in returns between Spanish public debt and German bunds. It is the second ETF which the French asset management firm has listed in Spain since the beginning of the year; the first was the Lyxor ETF MSCI ACWI Gold.
06/03/2013

Union acquires hotel in Barcelona

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The German firm Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has acquired the four-star Barceló Raval hotel in Barcelona (186 rooms), which is leased for a renewable 20-year term to the third-largest Spanish hotel chain, Barceló, for EUR37m. The property will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Europa.The hotel portfolio of UIRE, which already includes the Barceló hotel in Hamburg, covers 22 properties, and has a volume of EUR1.7bn, of which EUR400m have been invested in the past three years.
06/03/2013

Nord LB AM launches fund for ecclesiastical institutions

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } In conjunction with the evangelical credit cooperative (EKK), Nord LB Asset Management on 1 March launched a fund aimed at institutional investors in the religious world, the KVV-Fonds – EKK, for which the minimal subscription is set at EUR100,000.Most of the portfolio will be composed of bonds denominated in euros from the largest issuers, while allocation to equities is limited to 20%. The investment team may also invest in open-ended real estate funds and in UCITS-compliant absolute return funds.CharacteristicsName: KVV-Fonds – EKKISIN code: DE000A1J3WM7Management commission: 0.35%
06/03/2013

Allianz restricts access to onshore RMB fund

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Allianz Global Investors has decided to restrict investors’ access to its Allianz Renminbi Fixed Income Onshore fund, shortly after its launch, due to the growing interest of investors in this strategy, Citywire reports. The Luxembourg-domiciled fund was launched on 31 January this year. It was presented as the first fund of its type to offer access to the onshore renminbi market, and a way to invest directly in Chinese government bonds. At the end of February, assets in the fund totalled nearly EUR34m. According to a spokesperson for Allianz GI, “demand was such that the fund was soft closed in early February, only a few days after its launch on 31 January, as the assets had reached the quota authorised by Chinese regulators.” The Onshore RMB fund is the sister produt of two other funds, Allianz Renminbi Fixed Income (Offshore) and Allianz Renminbi Currency. The Offshore fund, launched in June 2011, was closed in August 2011, after inflows of EUR450m in two months’ time. It was reopened in August 2012.
06/03/2013

Vanguard limits access to two funds and slashes TER for eight ETFs

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Subscriptions to the diversified fund Vanguard Wellington TM Fund (USD68bn) and the municipal bond fund Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (USD39bn) have been closed to new clients since 28 February, including financial advisers and institutional investors. Vanguard is seeking to slow the pace of subscriptions, which continue to be possible for these two categories of clients so long as they have already purchased shares in the fund. For the moment, retail investors can continue to subscribe for new shares, and open new accounts for the two products.Vanguard has also announced a new round of cuts to the total expense ratios (TER) for its ETF products. Eight funds are included, in addition to the emerging market fund Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets Index ETF (VWO), for which the cut was previously announced (see Newsmanagers of 4 March).This time, the eight funds concerned are as follows, according to Mutual Fund Wire and Index Universe:Reductions of 0.03 percentage points:FTSE All-World ex-US, to 0.15%FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap, to 0.25%Global ex-US Real Estate, to 0.32%High Dividend Yield, to 0.10%Reductions of 0.02 percentage pointsMSCI Europe, to 0.12%MSCI Pacific, to 0.12%Total International Stock, to 0.16%Total World Stock, to 0.19%
06/03/2013

William Blair releases EM small cap fund

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US firm William Blair has launched an emerging market small cap fund to exploit growth shares from emerging countries.The William Blair Emerging Market Small Cap Fund, which comes as an addition to the Sicav range, will invest in 80 to 120 companies whose market capitalisation is below USD5bn. The fund may invest both in emerging and in frontier markets.The fund will be co-managed by Todd McClone and Jeff Urbina.
06/03/2013

Speculation on soft commodities: Oxfam highlights Belgium

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Oxfam is studying KBC and Dexia, as well as French banks and investors with a presence in Belgium such as BNP Paribas, ING Bank and Axa, to examine the extent to which these institutions are speculating on food commodity markets, Financial Times Fund Management reports. Its objective is to discourage them from this practice, on the grounds that it drives up the prices of these food resources worldwide. The study is expected to conclude in April.
06/03/2013

UCITS-compliant hedge fund returns down in February

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to statistics from the Swiss firm Alix Capital, UCITS-compliant hedge funds in February posted average returns of 0.14%, compared with 1.03% in January, or 1.17% since the beginning of the year. UCITS-compliant funds of hedge funds had 0.23%, compared with 1.31% the previous month, for a total of 1.54% for the first two months.Three strategies showed losses in February: CTA (-0.80%), commodities (-0.40%), and event-driven (-0.04%). The strongest gains were for FX (+0.56%) and long/short equity (+0.40%)As of the end of February, total assets in UCITS-compliant hedge funds totalled EUR143bn, for the 870 funds of the UCITS Alternative Index, compared with EUR141bn for 880 products as of the end of January.
06/03/2013

Allianz GI distances itself from equities and bonds

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Elizabeth Corley, CEO of Allianz Global Investors, is pessimistic about equities and bonds, Financial Times Fund Management reports this week. The affiliate of the German firm is encouraging invetors to focus on other aset classes, such as convertible bonds, index products, commodities and infrastructure. AGI has also created a renewables team, and is planning to launch a fund dedicated to this theme covering Europe, and potentially other developed countries. Corley also thinks that Asian high yield bonds denominated in local currencies offer “real opportunities.”
06/03/2013

World's 20 largest hedge funds making less than before

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The 20 largest hedge funds in the world made USD32.4bn for their investiors last year, less than one fifth of the USD172bn the industry made overall, the Financial Times reports, citing figures from LCH Investments (Edmond de Rothschild group). In the past, the 20 largest hedge funds made nearly half of all the profits in the industry.
06/03/2013

Morningstar hedge fund index up 1.9% in January

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Morningstar hedge fund index, the Morningstar MSCI Composite Hedge Fund Index, gained 1.9% in the month of January, and has gained 6.3% in the past twelve months. Virtually all components of the index remained positively oriented in January, exepting short bias and systematic trading strategies. Among the notable results of the month, the Morningstar MSCI Small Cap Hedge Fund Index posted gains of 3.9%, and the Morningstar MSCI Emerging Markets Hedge Fund Index has gained 3%.
06/03/2013

Temasek buys Repsol's own shares

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The CNMV on 4 March published a notification from the oil firm Repsol stating that the Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek (EUR115bn in assets) has acquired the remainder of the Spanish group’s holding in its own shares, equivalent to 5.04% of capital, for EUR1.036bn (64.7 million shares, at EUR16.01 each). Temasek now has a 6.3% stake in Repsol.
06/03/2013

AUM at BPER group up 5.4%

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } Assets under management at the Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild group (BPER group) last year rose 5.4% to CHF101.6bn. Net inflows totalled CHF2.5bn, a press release says.Net profits, however, rell to CHF66.4m, compared with CHF125.1m in 2011. This decline is largely due “to a decline in returns on savings, reduced client activity, an unfavourable evolution of the asset mix, and a reduced contribution from fund activities, which weighed heavily on our revenues.” The group was also obliged to bear one-time restructuring costs, as well as significant investment to establish a platform in Hong Kong and to modernise IT systems.The group emphasizes that it has pledged to deploy a strategic plan that will be focused on a number of priority actions, “such as capitalisation around a strong Edmond de Rotschild brand, and confirmation of engagement in the private banking and asset management professions, in Europe and internationally, voluntaristicly and pragmatically.”
06/03/2013

M&G Investments opens an office in Geneva

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } M&G Investments, which has been present on the Swiss market for seven years, has opened an office in Geneva, and is adding to its local team with the recruitment of a new employee, Agefi Switzerland reports. M&G Investments is hoping to meet growing demand on the part of its clients in French-speaking Switzerland. Valentine Bugeja has been appointed as head of sales for development of the family office and independent financial adviser segments in French-speaking Switzerland. She began in her new role in February 2013.
06/03/2013

New head for dark pool at UBS

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Richard Semark is expected to become head of the UBS MTF platform, one of the largest dark pools in Europe, the Financial Times reports. Semark succeeds Robert Barnes, who is reported to be preparing to leave his position after more than 18 years at the group. UBS has declined to comment on the reports.
06/03/2013

FBI helps SEC to combat high-frequency trading abuses

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { } The FBI has teamed up with a new unit at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Quantitative Analytics Unit, which examines hedge funds and other companies that use transaction strategies with algorithms, the Financial Times reports. The structure seeks to identify abuses which may result from the emergence of high-frequency trading companies and the use of dark pools.
06/03/2013

FSA finds internal failings over Libor

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) on March 5th published its Internal Audit Report on the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) covering the period January 2007 to May 2009. The report identifies that the FSA, at all levels of management, was aware of severe dislocation in the LIBOR market in the period. This report concludes that the FSA’s focus on dealing with the financial crisis, together with the fact that contributing to and administering LIBOR were not ‘regulated activities’ (which they will be from April 1st, 2013), led to the FSA being too narrowly focused in its handling of LIBOR related information. Second, taking the information cumulatively, the likelihood that lowballing was occurring should have been considered. And, third, the information received should have been better managed.The report identifies important areas where the FSA should have performed better, and makes valuable recommendations for the future, but does not suggest major regulatory failure on the scale identified in the Northern Rock (March 2008) or RBS (December 2011) reports. Finally, the internal audit draws out six lessons to be learnt for the future regulatory authorities, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), to consider. They refer to activities outside the regulatory perimeter, the clear division of responsibilities bertween the authorities, the appropriate embedment of the lessons of the report in the cultures of the regulatory authorities, the use and record of information and intelligence by these authorities, the way information circulates and escalates and, lastly the integration of the lessons from the report in the development of the record management policies.
06/03/2013

Cazenove launches multi-asset class fund

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Cazenove Capital has launched a multi-asset class fund to meet demand from clients, Fundweb reports.The Cazenove Multi-Asset Fund was launched on 28 February. It provides access, via an offshore vehicle, to the strategy used in the Diversity Fund, whose assets under management total GBP1.1bn.According to a Cazenove spokesperson, “the new fund is not identical to the Diversity fund, but it is managed by the same people, and uses a multi-asset class approach.”
06/03/2013

Personnel change at Singapore sovereign fund

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Singapore sovereign fund GIC, whose assets under management total about USD230bn, has announced the appointment of Jeffrey Jaensubjakij as head of asset management activities at GIC Asset Management. He succeeds Lim Chow Kiat, who last month was appointed as chief investment officer for the group. Jaensubhakij will leave his current position in Europe, and will transfer from London to Singapore. He will begin in his new role on 1 April.
06/03/2013

Slight dip in City bonuses in 2012

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The average amount paid in bonuses in the finance sector in the United Kingdom fell 2% last year compared with the previous year, the most recent eFinancialCareers survey has revealed, at a time when the City is preparing to fight limits on bonuses for bankers planned by the European Union in court. The decline, which remains moderate, compared with a 36% decline on Wall Street, is due more to staff cuts than to cuts to bonuses, the finance job offer website remarks. The 2% figure conceals significant disparities, however. Front office employees still receive bonuses nearly four times larger than their back-office colleagues, and their bonuses rose by 15% this year. Middle office saw the largest reduction to their bonuses: -25% compared with the previous year. Buy side professionals, meanwhile, do better than their sell-side colleagues: their average bonuses in 2012 rose 13% compared with the previous year. The number who received no bonus rose from 10% in 2011 to 13% in 2012. While average bonuses paid in 2012 fell, satisfaction with bonuses increased slightly: of 606 finance professionals surveyed, 4 out of 10 (40%) say they are satisfied with their bonsues, compared with 36% in 2011. A slightly larger number of respondents has declared that the bonuses they received “met their expectations” in 2012, more than in 2011 (38% compared with 36%). However, a significant percentage remain disssatisfied: nearly half (45%) are disappointed, and a similar percentage (44%) say that their bonuses to not meet their expectations.
06/03/2013

Un "sage" allemand conseille une baisse des taux de la BCE

Peter Bofinger, l’un des «sages» allemands, estime que la Banque centrale européenne doit réduire son taux de refinancement d’un demi-point. «Il faudrait que la BCE ramène son principal taux directeur de 0,75% à 0,25%», déclare ce conseiller économique du gouvernement allemand dans un entretien publié mercredi par le journal autrichien Kurier. «Lorsque les banques empruntent, la BCE perçoit un intérêt de 0,75%. Lorsque les banques déposent, elle ne verse aucun intérêt. A l’heure actuelle, la BCE tire de l’argent de banques affaiblies, ce qui n’a aucun sens.»

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