Mardi, le munichois KanAm a indiqué que les porteurs du KanAm US-grundinvest (DE0006791817) vont recevoir le rapport sur la liquidation qui est devenue effective au 31 mars. Il s’agit historiquement du tout premier fonds immobilier allemand offert au public à être liquidé. La décision de liquidation avait été prise fin septembre 2010 (lire Newsmanagers du 1er octobre 2010).KanAm insiste sur le fait que ce fonds, le seul produit allemand de cette catégorie à être libellé en dollars, a réalisé durant ses neuf ans d’existence (le fonds avait été lancé le 20 mai 2003) une performance de 48,8 %. Sur six ans, la durée moyenne de détention, le rendement a été de 23,5 %. Et, sur la dernière année, la performance est ressortie à 23,9 %, grâce des remboursements d’impôts supérieurs aux attentes.Depuis le 1er avril 2012, la procédure de liquidation du fonds et la distribution des actifs aux porteurs sont assumés par la banque dépositaire, le hambourgeois M. M. Warburg & Co KGaA.

30 % des « asset managers » vont disparaître dans les dix ans qui viennent, indique un sondage de KPMG réalisé auprès de 25 Chief executive officers (CEO) du secteur de la gestion d’actifs qui sera publié fin juillet et dont Nicholas Griffin, partner, a présenté mardi quelques résultats lors du Fund Forum International à Monaco. Et par asset managers, le responsable de KPMG a précisé qu’il entendait à la fois les sociétés de gestion et les personnes qui travaillent dans le secteur.Cela est la conséquence des surcapacités dont fait l’objet le secteur et de la compression des marges, a-t-il expliqué en marge de la conférence à Newsmanagers. «Cela va principalement toucher les sociétés de gestion qui sont surdimensionnées et celles qui affichent un ratio coût/revenus de 80-90 %, une population assez nombreuse», détaille Nicholas Griffin. Par ailleurs, le responsable de KPMG prévient que les fonds souverains vont devenir des gestionnaires d’actifs à part entière. Il ne serait pas étonné que dès l’an prochain un fonds souverain achète une société de gestion…

Uffi Real Estate Asset Management (Uffi Ream) a annoncé le 26 juin avoir signé un accord de partenariat avec Corpus Sireo, un gérant de fonds de premier plan en Allemagne, pour assurer, avec une équipe dédiée, l’Asset Management délégué du portefeuille français d’une Sicav-FIS luxembourgeoise investie en Europe.Uffi Ream gérera pour le compte de ce fonds un ensemble de six immeubles de bureaux valorisé environ 250 millions d’euros. A ce titre, Uffi Ream pilotera la valorisation de ces actifs et la commercialisation locative. Avec ce nouveau mandat de gestion, «Uffi Ream démontre sa capacité de développement au-delà de son métier historique des SCPI, dans la gestion de fonds immobiliers pour investisseurs institutionnels français et étrangers», selon un communiqué. Les actifs gérés d’Uffi Ream s'élèvent à 1,5 milliard d’euros.

Les systèmes comptables traditionnels des sociétés de gestion engendrent des risques, font grimper les coûts de fonctionnement et retardent le lancement de nouveaux produits, selon un livre blanc sur les systèmes comptables des sociétés de gestion (1) publié par le fournisseur de de logiciels et de services pour le secteur financier Simcorp et réalisé par le cabinet Woodbine Associates. Le livre blanc étudie en quoi les faiblesses des plates-formes comptables obsolètes compromettent la compétitivité des sociétés de gestion, entraînant des erreurs humaines, des problèmes de violation de conformité, une incapacité à détecter les cas de fraude et des approximations dans l’évaluation des portefeuilles. Pointant la faillite de Lehman Brothers et de Bear Stearns, le livre blanc affirme que les systèmes comptables traditionnels sont mal équipés pour repérer les opérations risquées et les erreurs d’évaluation. Résultat, les gestionnaires d’investissements ne sont pas toujours en mesure d’ajuster rapidement et précisément leurs positions en réaction à la volatilité des marchés. Le document souligne également l’envolée des coûts engendrée par l’incapacité des systèmes comptables traditionnels à évoluer au rythme des objectifs des gestionnaires de portefeuilles. D’après Matt Samelson, directeur de Woodbine Associates et co-auteur du livre blanc, « ces gestionnaires ne toléreront pas d’attendre 4 à 6 semaines pour que le back-office prenne en charge un nouveau type de fond ou de titre, pas plus que les dirigeants de l’entreprise n’accepteront de retarder leur entrée sur de nouveaux marchés parce que les systèmes en place sont incapables de s’adapter au plan comptable, aux instruments financiers, à la devise et à la réglementation des pays concernés. De plus, les investisseurs sont devenus aujourd’hui extrêmement vigilants quant au risque opérationnel et aux coûts des processus métier et des technologies utilisées qui peuvent se solder par une perte catastrophique. C’est à leurs yeux particulièrement le cas lorsqu’il faut appliquer des procédures ou des solutions manuelles. Et les événements récents n’ont fait qu’accentuer cette vigilance. » (1)« Accounting Solutions: Backbone of Investment Management » Le livre blanc est disponible en téléchargement depuis le site http://www.simcorp.com/Home/Campaignsites/Investment- Accounting-white-paper.aspx.

La banque privée de Lloyds Banking Group annonce la nomination d’Anthony Valgimigli au poste de responsable pour la région du Proche-Orient. Il sera placé sous la responsabilité de Martin Fricker, directeur de la clientèle haut de gamme (high net worth). Anthony Valgimigli rejoint la société en provenance de Barclays, où il était responsable de clientèle pour le Proche-Orient, précise Finews.ch..

Enrique Pardo, qui avait rejoint la division gestion alternative d’Allfunds Bank en 2008, a été nommé directeur de la recherche à la tête du pôle analyse des investissements, rapporte Funds People. L’intéressé sera responsable d’une équipe mondiale d’analyse basée à Madrid et à Londres.Allfunds, filiale commune du Santander et d’Intesa Sanpaolo, a l’intention de recruter de nouveaux collaborateurs dans la capitale britannique pour se rapprocher des gestionnaires internationaux de premier plan.

Investment Europe rapporte que le britannique Threadneedle a obtenu l’agrément de commercialisation en Finlande pour 27 compartiments de sa sicav luxembourgeoise. Parallèlement, le gestionnaire a ouvert un site Internet local fournissant l’accès aux valeurs liquidatives, aux DICI et à d’autres documents juridiques.

La société de gestion alternative Segantii, basée à Hong Kong, a fermé son hedge fund asiatique aux nouveaux investisseurs, rapporte l’agence Reuters. Les actifs sous gestion du fonds s'élèvent à 620 millions de dollars.Ce hedge fund, l’un des rares fonds dédiés à l’Asie dont les actifs sous gestion dépassent la barre des 500 millions de dollars, a dégagé une performance de 41% en 2011 et de 3,1% sur les cinq premiers mois de l’année. L’indice de référence asiatique Eurekahedge a reculé de 8,2% en 2011 et a progressé de 1,3% depuis le début de l’année.Le fonds, lancé en 2007, a déjà été fermé aux nouveaux investisseurs entre septembre 2009 et fin 2010.

The Boots pension fund has selected the real estate multi-management team at Schroders to manage a portfolio of GBP135m. The objective is to diversify the portfolio of the Boots Pension Scheme, which is highly exposed to the British real estate market, by investing in a selection of core, added value and opportunity-driven real estate funds.The real estate multi-management team at Schroders was formed in 1997, and currently has assets of about GBP2.5bn. Schroders had about GBP10.2bn in assets under management in the real estate sector as of 31 March.

Investment Europe reports that the British asset management firm Threadneedle has been granted a sales license in Finland for 27 sub-funds of its Luxembourg Sicav. Meanwhile, the asset management firm has also launched a local website, providing access to NAVs, KIIDs, and other legal documents.

The index provider S&P Indices on 26 June announced the launch of the S&P Sri Lanka 20 index, which was developed in partnership with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). The index includes the 20 largest caps on the CSE market. The 20 shares in the index are as follows: John Keells Holdings PLC Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC Bukit Darah Co. Ltd. Hatton National Bank PLC Carson Cumberbatch& Co PLC Sampath Bank PLC Ceylon Tobacco Co. Ltd.. DFCC Bank Aitken Spence & Co PLC National Development Bank PLC CT Holdings PLC Distilleries Co of Sri Lanka PLC Hayleys PLC Chevron Lubricants Lanka PLC Dialog Axiata PLC Cargills Ceylon PLC Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings PLC Nestle Lanka Asian Hotels & Properties Sri Lanka Telecom PLC

Enrique Pardo, who joined the alternative management division of Allfunds Bank in 2008, has been appointed as director of research at the head of the investment analysis unit, Funds People reports. Pardo will be responsible for a global analysis team based in Madrid and London.Allfunds, a joint venture of Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo, is planning to recruit more employees in the British capital to increase its presence among the top international asset management firms.

The joint venture Ping An Russell Investments is preparing to launch its first multi-management fund aimed at high net worth clients on the Chinese market in third quarter. The new strategy will be available both to local hedge fund managers and to investors in US dollars, via an equivalent QFII fund (qualified foreign institutional investors). Ping An Russell Investments will be launching the new fund, entitled MoM, in collaboration with the Bank of Communications International Trust.

39% of European institutional investors are planning to increase the proportion of assets they delegate to external asset management firms, by an average of 5%, in the next 12 months, a Caceis Investor Services and PwC survey undertaken between February and April, of a sample of professionals representing total assets of USD4.5trn, presented Tuesday at the Fund Forum International (“Taking the Reins: A Roadmap for Navigating the Institutional Investors’ Universe,”) has found.Of the survey, 32% are planning to increase the number of asset management firms to which they delegate assets.Currently, institutionals ousource an average of 59% of their assets to external managers, while the practice is much more sidespread at pension funds (69%) than at insurance companies (10%).They outsource an average of EUR553m to each asset management firm. This amount is lower for those who tend to invest in funds (EUR240m) than for those who prefer mandates (EUR809m). At the same time, 52% of investors surveyed use fewer than 10 external asset management firms, in all investor categories combined.When they select external managers, institutional investors, who account for 69% of assets under management in the asset management sector, or EUR12trn, are most swayed by the transparency of the product, followed by performance and expertise, François Marion, CEO of Caceis Investor Servies, said at a presentation of the study. Their level of satisfaction depends on operational strength, independence of verifications of controls and procedures, and the quality of service, the survey continues. As a result, says Marion, the study suggests that investors are not focused solely on performance. However, poor performance is the most popular reason for investors to decide to replace an asset management firm. The other two reasons are high fees and poor quality reporting. These are three areas where asset management firms need to seek to improve.

30% of asset managers will disappear in the next ten years, a survey by KPMG of 25 CEOs in the asset management industry to be published in July, from which Nicolas Griffin, partner, presented a few findings at the Fund Forum International on Tuesday in Monaco, has found. The head of KPMG says that by asset managers, he means both asset management firms, and people working in the industry.This is a result of overcapacity in the sector, and compressing margins, he explained to Newsmanagers at the conference. “That will primarily affect asset management firms which are too large, and those which have a cost/income ratio of 80-90%, a relatively large population,” says Griffin.The KPMG head also predicts that sovereign funds will become full-blown asset managers. He would not be surprised if sovereign funds started buying up asset management firms as soon as next year.

In the past few years, aversion to the equity markets has given rise to an increasing appetite for bond funds in Europe, according to a Lipper study. But that hasn’t worked to everyone’s advantage. An examination of inflows in 2011 finds that a small percentage of funds accounted for a large percentage of inflows. According to Lipper, slightly over 5% of bond funds took on nearly 50% of bond inflows in 2011.This may encourage some managers to launch new strategies to attempt to capture a part of the inflows to the best-selling funds. The number of funds in Europe, however, remains very high, with an increase of about 1,000 in the number of funds in barely a year.

A survey of 21 institutional investors and 25 corporate CFOs (issuers), mostly European, undertaken by the Edhec-Risk Institute and sponsored by Rothschild & Cie, finds that investors consider inflation-linked corporate bonds the ideal instrument to hedge their liabilities, now that government debt is no longer considered an asset safe from the risk of default, in liability-driven investment by pension funds.For businesses, respondents say that inflation-linked bond issues tend ultimately to limit risks for businesses and to increase its share price.

Uffi Real Estate Asset Management (UFFI Ream) on 26 June announced that it has signed a partenrship agreement with Corpus Sireo, a top fund manager in Germany, to provide outsourced asset management with a dedicated team for the French portfolio of a Luxembourg Sicav-FIS investing in Europe. Uffi Ream will manage six office properties for the fund, which are valued at about EUR250m. As a part of these duties, Uffi ream will be responsible for valuation and rental of the properties. With this new management mandate, “Uffi Ream shows its capacity for development beyond its historical profession as a SCPI, in the management of real estate funds for French and foreign institutional managers,” a statement says. Assets under management at Uffi Ream total EUR1.5bn.

In response to criticisms of ETFs, and at the demand of many investors, BlackRock has decided to limit the room to manoeuvre it grants to its portfolio managers, and will now put a ceiling of 50% of the portfolio on the use of securities lending for products sold under the iShares brand, a spokesperson for the US asset management firm has told Reuters, Handelsblatt reports. In the past, the percentage of assets involved in these transactions has been higher than this limit.

The State Street Investor Confidence index for institutional investors in the month of June 2012 is up 7 point, from 86.5 in May to 93.5 in June, its highest level of the year. This rise is attributable to US and European investors. Appetite for risk on the part of institutional investors in North America rose 5.7 points from a corrected level of 88.1 in May, at 93.8 in June. The confidence of institutional investors in Europe is up 4.5 points at 102.5, compared with a corrected level of 98.0 the previous month. The confidence of investors in Asia has improved slightly. The regional index is up by one point to 90.4 in June, compared with a revised level of 89.4 in May.

Asset management firms now account for only 22% of global financial assets, which have increased in volume in four years, compared with 25% four years ago, according to the most recent edition of the annual McKinsey study of asset management, Les Echos reports. However, there is no more profitable area in financial services. Returns on owners’ equity totalled 13.5% in 2011 in asset management, compared with 8.1% in insurance and 5.1% in banking. In the next three, four or five years, McKinsey predicts annual growth of 3%, while the other two sectors will shrink.

Frédéric Potelle will succeed Michel Juvet, who became a partner in January this year, as head of research at Bordier & Cie, Agefi Switzerland reports. Potelle, who has been employed at the Geneva-based bank since 2008, was previously an analyst coering the industrial, construction, utilities and energy sectors. After beginning his career as a project manager in nuclear engineering, he then became vice president of Areva, in charge of financial communications and investor relations, before moving into financial analysis. Gianluca Tarolli is joining Bordier & Cie as a market economist. He was previously an investment strategist at Heritage Bank from 2009, and an equity strategist in the investment strategy team at Lombard Odier, after serving at Darier Hentsch and J.P. Morgan.

On Tuesday, the Munich-based asset management firm KanAm announced that shareholders in its US-grundinvest fund (DE0006791817) will be receiving a report on the liquidation of the fund, which was completed on 31 March. Historically, the product was the first German open-ended real estate fund to be liquidated. The decision to liquidate the fund was taken in late September 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 1 October 2010).KanAm insists that the fund, the only German product in the category to be denominated in US dollars, in its nine years of existence (the fund was launched on 20 May 2003), has earned returns of 48.8%. Over six years, the average investment duration, returns were 23.5%. And in the past year, performance was 23.9%, due to higher-than-expected tax refunds.Since 1 April 2012, the procedure to liquidate the fund and distribute its assets to shareholders has been transferred to the depository bank, the Hamburg-based M. M. Warburg & Co KGaA.

Agefi reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may file a civil suit against Philip Falcone, director of Harbinger Capital Partners, as soon as this week, according to multiple sources. The SEC suspects Falcone of using client money to pay taxes, of favouring certain clients, particularly Goldman Sachs, and also of manipulating the share price of MAAX Holdings.

Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS) has been mandated by Hansainvest Lux S.A. to produce key investor information documents (KIID), according to a statement from SGSS released on 26 June. Hansainvest has chosen to adopt the entirety of the modular KIID range offered by SGSS, which includes: -creation of content, such as explanations of investment policy in everyday language, -calculation of various indicators, such as risk indicators, presentation of past performance, or calculation of management fees, -creation and layout of KIID documents: the documents are prepared by experienced teams, including asset servicing, legal, graphics, translation, quality control and distribution via a robust IT platform which is able ot manage very large volumes. Hansainvest Lux S.A., an affiliate of the Signal Iduna group, manages about EUR10bn in assets.

NYSE Euronext on 26 June announced that it has added two Luxembourg-registered ETFs from Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale group) to trading on Euronext Paris. The European markets of the NYSE Euronext group now list a total of 590 ETFs 686 times, replicating more than 450 different indices. The first of the two new Lyxor funds replicates the new Euro iStoxx 50 Equal Risk index, which has the same composition as the Euro Stoxx 50 Index. The new concept applies an equal risk contribution strategy to the underlying index to allocate the risk contribution of the components equally. In order to do so, at the monthly rebalancing a covariance matrix is calculated for the 50 components of the Euro Stoxx 50 Index, using the single components’ closing prices over the trading days of the past year.CharacteristicsName: Lyxor ERCISIN code: LU0776635921Underlying index: Euro iStoxx 50 Equal RiskTotal expense ratio: 0.25%Name: Lyxor WLDRISIN code: LU0776636812Underlying index: MSCI World Risk WeightedTotal expense ratio: 0.45%

SG Private Banking is increasing its coverage of Russian clients in Asia, with the recruitment of its first Russian-speaking speciaist in Singapore, Asian Investor reports. Garry Frenklah joined SG Private Banking as a senior director, in charge of development of Russian and international clients in the region. Frenklah previously worked at Royal Bank of Scotland, as managing director.

The Basel Committee on 26 June launched a consultation on collection of information and risk reporting. The financial crisis has shown that many banks, including systemic banks, were incapable of rapidly and exhaustively finding their total exposure to risk, the Basel Committee says in a statement. “These proposals are an important step to improve the risk management capacities of banks,” says Stefan Ingves, chairman of the Basel Committee, and also governor of the central bank of Sweden. The consultation will be open until 28 September. The Basel Committee has also published a final revision of rules on information that banks must supply about the detailed composition of their capital.

First Trust Advisors will soon be launching its first actively-managed ETF, Mutual Fund Wire has announced. The First Trust North American Energy Infrastructure Fund will invest in energy infrastrucure, and will be managed by Energy Income Partners on behalf of the US asset management firm.

AllianceBernstein on 26 June announced the launch of an income strategy, the Lifetime Income Strategy, by the United Technologies Corporation (UTC), which is available through the group’s retirement programme. The new vehicle is designed to bring simplicity to a horizon fund, and security for lifetime income, similar to a defined-benefit programme.