On Friday, the Spanish Treasury submitted a draft royal decree for approval by the Council of State, which would modify law 35 of 2003 concerning collective investment institutions, and transposing the UCITS IV directive into Spanish law, Funds People reports.

The French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), has announced that in a decision dated 10 May 2012, it has authorised a new market practice in relartion to bond liquidity futures. The decision lays out a framework for liquidity futures, including: independent requirements which providers must observe; conditions for their interventions in markets for securities from issuers; transparency requirements to maintain, including a requirement to make monthly declarations to the AMF. The AMF decision has triggered a series of consultations, and follows a request submitted by Paris Europlace as part of work to identify ways to bring more liquidity to the secondary bond markets. Some market actors had sought to establish bond liquidity futures, inspired by the ones which already exist on equity markets, which would be handed to an intermediate to manage with the goal of enabling actors to intervene freely on the secondary markets for their securities. The declaration form for bonds under a liqudity future, is available on the AMF website, under Issuers > Forms > Bond liquidity futures declaration form. It is to be submitted to the AMF in electronic form, to the following address: ReportingCLOblig@amf-france.org.

After a good year in 2011 for the Avenir Finance group, particularly for its asset management unit Avenir Finance IM, which currently has assets of EUR650m, Cyril Lureau, deputy CEO of Avernir Finance, discusses the group's various projects, in France and internationally, with Newsmanagers. Avenir Finance, which is already present in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco, is now setting out to conquer new and promising markets.

Since the IPO on 18 May, Facebook shares have fallen 29%, and shares in GSV Capital and Firsthand Technology Value, “business development companies” (publicly-traded private equity funds) which invested in Facebook ahead of the IPO, have lost 37% and 32% respectively, even though the investment represents only 7% and 3.8%, respectively, of their assets, the Wall Street Journal reports. At USD18.29, shares in Firsthand on Friday were trading at less than the cash holdings of the firm, which total USD19.33 per share. This means that by buying shares in Firsthand, investors are paying USD1 for USD1.04 in cash, and get all the companies in the portfolio for free.

iShares, the publicly-traded fund platform from BlackRock, has created a range of eight ETFs replicating iShares Barclays Treasury Bond indices from eight euro zone countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, France, Italy and the Netherlands), Cinco Días reports.The iShares Barclays Spain Treasury Bond fund includes 29 of the largest issues, representing 4.78% of the total, in the form of a bond with a coupon of 4.4% which will mature on 31 January 2015.

NYSE Euronext on 8 June announced that it has admitted the WPSH EUR fund (LU0237484448) from WP Stewart Holdings Fund to trading on the Euronext Funds Service (EFS). The product, whose underlying index is the S&P 500 Dividend Included, has a TER of 0.83%. It becomes the 182nd fund to be listed on EFS.

At a time when institutional investors are using ETFs to an increasing extent, German retail investors remain sceptical, and, according to a survey by Feri Eurorating Services, only 50% already have any such products in their portfolios, Das Investment reports. About 33% of those surveyed are planning to increase their allocation to ETFs, while 3% are planning to reduce it.Currently, 28.4% of respondents have allocated up to 10% of their portfolios to ETFs, while 22% say that they have invested more than 10%, and 0.3% say they have allocated all of their financial savings to exchange-traded funds.Two thirds of respondents prefer physical replciation ETFs, while 7.8% are supporters of synthetic replication. The remaining 30% say that they have not yet decided what their preference is between the two types of replication.

Sébastien Roques, who had been in charge of advising German clients of the Pictet family office in Geneva on their asset allocations, in early June joined Consilisto Berenberg Privat-Treuhand GmbH, the family office affiliate of the German Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, Das Investment reports.

On 5 June, Pictet Asset Management (PAM) opened a fund sales office in Amsterdam, led by Barbara Kos, who had previously been director fo sales at Delta Lloyd Asset Management, and before that, worked at Fidelity and ABN Amro.

The asset management firm Mutuactivos (EUR2.4bn), an affiliate of the insurer Mutua Madrileña, has recently obtained a license from the CNMV to offer investment services outside Spain in the European Economic Area, Funds People reports. The permit will allow the asset manager to sell its products abroad without having to open a local affiliate in each country; Mutuactivos may also offer its products to international investors, if it launches funds domiciled in Luxembourg or Ireland.Currently, Mutuactivos manages 41 funds, and 67% of its assets are in bonds. In the past few months, the Spanish asset management firm has awarded mandates to foreign asset management firms, including a mandate for the Mutuafondo Corporate ex Financials, managed by Morgan Stanley IM, and a convertible bond product managed by JPMorgan AM.

Reyl & Cie France, the French asset management firm from the Geneva-based firm Reyl, has recruited Virginie Robert as senior portfolio manager. The former head of private asset management activities from Raymond James Asset Management will contribute to the development of an investment advising product range for entrepreneurs and high net worth clients seeking investments in non-public companies, a statement released on Friday says. Before arriving at Raymond James AM, where she managed a US equity fund, in 2008, Robert worked at Monpensier Finance, Lazard Frères Gestion and the Paribas group.

Goldman Sachs is on the verge of selling its hedge fund administration activities to State Street, according to reports from the Financial Times. That would create a firm with assets of nearly USD700bn in assets under administration.

A steep fall in the value of shares in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc last month (48%) brought profits for David Einhorn, the famous hedge fund manager. It was also good news for the AdvisorShares Active Bear ETF (USD280m), managed by John DelVecchio in Dallas, and Brad Lamensdorf in Connecticut, The Wall Street Journal reports. The fund, the only one of its kind, is catalogued by Morningstar as the only actively-manged, short-only ETF in the world. In other words, the ETF makes only negative bets, but does not use leverage, and the composition of its portfolio is published on a daily basis.

Mark Mobius, portfolio manager and executive director of the Templeton Emerging Market Group (Franklin Resources), in a presentation in Paris has emphasized all the advantages of emerging market equities: growth far higher than that from developed countries, ample currency reserves (which are gradually used to make acquisitions of assets in Europe), lower debt than in industrialised countries, inflation which has fallen steeply, and moderate valuations, at multiples of under 10.The star manager from Franklin Templeton, who as a general rule invests on a five-year horizon (his turnover rate is generally below 20%), claims two themes should be preferred: one the one hand, demography and consumer spending, and on the other hand, commodities, whose prices are mostly on an upward trend. Over the past 20 years, this applies to the CRB index as well as to copper, platinum, palladium, mickel, sugar, soy, corn, rice, wheat, gold and oil.The Emerging Market Group at Franklin Resources has assets of USD45bn in shares in companies which make at least 50% of their earnings in emerging markets. It also extends to local companies and to a small number of Western groups, including some locally listed affiliates of firms from industrialised countries.

Nearly two thirds of insurers are planning to make new invesrtments in private equity by the end of this year, according to a study undertaken by Preqin, covering a sample of 55 insurers who are already present in the asset class. At the same time, 22% of insurers are not committed to a sate, while 16% are not planning further allocations to the asset class until 2014. Despite forthcoming regulatory changes included in the Colvency 2 directive, most insurers (79%) have not modified their exposure to private equity. According to one US insurer, US regulations :have not affected our level of investment in private equity, but has affected some strategies and complicates our work.” The study also finds that nearly one third of insurers (30%) are currently below their allocation objectives for the asset class, and 88% of them are planning to maintain or increase their exposure to private equity over the longer term. 51% of insurers find that Europe, which is facing a crisis whose end is still not in sight, represents an attractive region for private equity investment, followed by the United States (45%) and Asia (16%). Preqin reports that 60% of companies have allocations to the asset class over USD250m.

With the financial crisis, many actors, many of them adept on fund platforms, have had to fundamentally revise their strategies. Barclays was offering 350 funds three years ago in its long-only product ranges. Now, the bank offers only 110, Investment Europe reports. “Our strategy puts the priority on quality rather than quantity. In other words, less is more” says Jaime Arguello, head of multi-management at Barclays. In the alternative sector, the Barclays platform includes 35 single manager hedge funds, 12 UCITS funds, and two funds of funds. Assets in Barclays multi-manager funds total about GBP7bn. “There are now more than just equity funds, which makes the selection of funds a primordial activity. The concept of open architecture is based on the idea that a fund manager can’t perform well in all areas. It is important for us to be able to offer our clients the best specialists in each sector.”

M&G Investments has appointed Michelle Scrimgeour as group risk director. She has 25 years experience of the fund management industry, all of which she gained with the group now known as BlackRock. Her most recent position was as co-head of fixed income business management and a member of the executive committee leading the USD1 trillion BGI/BlackRock Fixed Income division.Michelle Scrimgeour, who joins the company on 11 June, replaces Les Scrine, who has retired from M&G after almost 30 years of service. She will report to Michael McLintock and join the M&G Board.

As part of a redeployment of its equity portfolio (GBP{54bn in assets under management), which has already resulted in more than 20 job cuts, Swip is expected to favour quantitative portfolio construction, Money Marketing reports. “A certain number of British equity funds are in the process of transitioning to a quantitative portfolio construction methodology. The transition is being driven by the international equity team,” a Swip spokesperson says.

In an environment in which “not everything is necessarily negative in the euro zone, although uncertainty remains high, it may not be incongruous to seek growth shares in the euro zone,” Nicolas Walewski, founder and fund manager at Alken, claimed recently on a visit to Paris. Walewski cites the Italian banking sector. “The question is how to play the reduction in risk premiums. For Italy, it is largely the perception of risk which poses a problem. If this perception of risk decreases, the cost of the risk will be re-evaluated. From my point of view, the structural problems are not insurmountable. Unlike what we may observe elsewhere in Europe, the Italian banking sector is still excessively fragmented, which results in highly mediocre profitability. Some mid-sized banks are not even earning commissions. Many mid-sized banks are earning profits of 5% to 6%. They are getting 0.3 times owners’ equity,” he explained. This situation persists, although BNP Paribas made an “excellent deal” with its acquisition of BNL. But, with the crisis, “for six months there have been changes to the scenarios. Private equity funds in particular have identified enormous potential gains in productivity. Exposure to the Italian banking sector is thus highly attractive,” he concludes. Assets under management at Alken as of the end of April totalled EUR3bn, virtually unchanged compared with the end of December 2011. “Flows have been positive since the beginning of this year, and we are not seeing any redemptions either, but for all of our funds overall, net inflows are highly limited. This stability in asset levels has at least one advantage: it facilitates our management,” says Isabel Ortega, partner and director of sales at Alken.

F&C Investments (F&C) the London-listed GBP101 billion asset management group has recruited Mandy Mannix as head of institutional sales. Mandy Mannix is set to join F&C on the 1st July 2012 from CQS where she is currently global head of sales & marketing. She will report to Richard Wilson, head of investment & institutional business and will be responsible for the distribution of F&C’s investment capabilities and product offerings.

Equity investments managed by major asset managers on behalf of European instutitonals have fallen 16.9% in the past 12 months, as exposure to equity markets is down GBP280bn, according to estimates by IPE. According to the IPE Top 400 Asset Managers 2012 report, European institutional asset managers had EUR5.1trn in assets under management as of the end of 2011, compared with EUR5.7trn one year earlier. Investments in fixed income have remained stable (EUR2.31trn), but investments in equities and other asset classes are responsible for a decline of about EUR600bn year on year. Despite continuing concerns over public debt issues in the euro zone, European institutional investors are exposed to government bonds from developed countries, with a total of EUR537bn invested in the region. Bonds as a proportion of total assets remain at about 45%, compared with 40% in 2010. Among the major European institutional asset managers, BlackRock leads with EUR581bn in assets under management as of the end of 2011, followed by Legal & General Investment Management and APG. There are three French groups in the top 10, including Amundi in fourth place (EUR210.72bn), BNP Paribas Investment Partners (EUR166.67bn), and Natixis Global Asset Management (EUR163.99bn).

When selecting stocks, equity fund managers are increasingly looking for quality, ie, sustainable growth based on solid competitive advantage that converts into high return on invested capital, Fitch Ratings says in a commentary published on 8 June. Over the six months since the publication of Fitch’s special report ‘Stock Picking in Equity Funds’, European growth stocks as defined by MSCI have outperformed European value stocks by 8%, which brings the three-year outperformance to 28%. Interestingly, while most investors do not expect positive returns from equity investments, European growth stocks have managed to deliver positive returns (+3%) over the past two years, unlike the broad MSCI Europe index and the value index (down 12%). «This performance difference is explained by the structural trends at play. Fitch previously identified four critical factors that have a direct implication for stock-picking: low growth prospects, the sovereign crisis, globalisation and disruptive innovation,» says Aymeric Poizot, Managing Director in Fitch’s Fund and Asset Manager Rating Group. «In this context, quality growth remains a scarce asset, while value managers are threatened by ‘value traps’, ie, stocks stuck at a discounted price.» As a consequence, stock picking processes are changing, with a greater emphasis on strategic analysis to identify companies with high return on capital and strong competitive positioning. Valuation criteria, which were the dominant factors between 2001 and 2008, now come second, to identify entry and exit points and adjust positions accordingly.

The General Assembly of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) has elected Vincenzo Morelli, partner emeritus and senior advisor to global investment firm TPG, as its chairman for the year to June 2013.For the past three years since its inception, Mr. Morelli has been chairman of the European Private Equity Roundtable (EPER).

Assets under management in Jersey rose by 0.9% in first quarter, to a total of GBP21bn, according to statistics from the Jersey financial services commission. Net on-book assets under administration increased in the same period by 3.5%, or GBP6.8bn, to GBP189.4bn. The number of regulated funds rose 1.4% in first quarrter, to 1,412, their highest level since 2009. Meanwhile, the number of unregulated funds rose 8.4% to 166.

The GLG European Equity Alternative fund, which deploys a market neutral long/short strategy on European equity markets, has seen strong interest from investors. The UCITS-compliant version of the flagship GLG Euorpean Long Short index was launched in July 2011. The fund, which in August 2011 had USD80m in assets, as of the end of May 2012 had assets of USD735m, compared with USD150m at the endof December 2011. The fund, which earned returns of 7% in 2011, this year has posted returns of 7.30% as of 31 May 2012. As Olivier Dubost, managing director in charge of distribution for Man and GLG funds in France, explains: “The GLG European Equity Alternative fund is a European market neutral type long/short equity fund characterised by a low level of volatility (4.5% in 2012 and 6.7% since its launch in 2011). It remains the preferred means of access to our European long/short equity platform, composed of 30 professionals, led by Pierre Lagrange, and responds to sustained demand from institutional clients in Europe in particular.”

Depuis son introduction en Bourse le 18 mai, l’action Facebook achuté de 29 %, mais celles de GSV Capital et de Firsthand Technology Value, des «business development companies» (fonds cotés de private equity) qui avaient investi dans Facebook avant l’introduction, ont perdu respectivement 37 % et 32 %, bien que cette ligne ne représente que 7 % et 3,8 % de leur encours, constate The Wall Street Journal. A 18,29 dollars, l’action Firsthand cotait vendredi moins que le cash dont dispose la société et qui représentait 19,33 dollars. Cela signifie qu’en achetant une action Firsthand, les investisseurs paient 1 dollar pour 1,04 dollar de cash et ont toutes les sociétés du portefeuille gratuitement.

Reyl & Cie France, la société de gestion française de l’établissement genevois Reyl, vient de recruter Virginie Robert en tant que gérante de portefeuille senior. Cette ancienne responsable des activités de gestion privée de Raymond James Asset Management va contribuer au développement d’une offre de conseil en investissement pour des entrepreneurs et clients fortunés à la recherche d’investissement en fonds propres et quasi-fonds propres sur des sociétés non cotées, indique un communiqué diffusé vendredi. Interrogé par Newsmanagers, un porte-parole précise qu’il n’est pas prévu de créer de fonds sur le non coté pour le moment. Avant d’arriver chez Raymond James AM en 2008, où elle gérait aussi un fonds de valeurs américaines, Virginie Robert a travaillé chez Montpensier Finance, Lazard Frères Gestion et au sein du groupe Paribas.Ce recrutement porte à 14 personnes le nombre de collaborateurs qui travaillent au sein de Reyl France.

La Française AM a remporté il y a quelques semaines deux appels d’offres auprès de deux grands investisseurs institutionnels français. D’une valeur de cinquante millions d’euros chacun, les mandats sont la réplication de deux fonds ouverts de la Française AM : LFP Europe Impact Emergents qui investit sur les entreprises européennes dont l’activité est exposée au dynamisme des pays émergents (6,46 % en 2012 au 31 mai), et LFP Leader Emergents qui lui investit dans des sociétés sociétés émergentes d’envergure internationale (9,24 % en 2012 au 31 mai). Interrogé à ce titre par Newsmanagers lors d’un déjeuner-débat, Patrick Rivière, directeur général de la société de gestion, a insisté sur le fait que la demande des investisseurs institutionnels évolue, et que la recherche de la maximisation du rendement était devenu un objectif majeur. Dans ce cadre, les deux mandats en question s’appuient sur des fonds sortis respectivement il y a sept ans et deux ans et dont la caractéristique est de n’avoir ni contrainte géographique, ni biais de style. «Nous sommes à l’heure de la mondialisation et il faut investir sur des zones de croissance», a ajouté Emmanuel Morano, responsable de la gestion Actions, qui a étayé ses propos en donnant le poids de l’exposition sectorielle aux marchés émergents au sein de l’indice MSCI Europe. De 25 % sur l’ensemble, il atteint 34 % dans le secteur de la santé (consommation), 39 % dans le secteur de l’alimentaire (consommation) ou 49,4 % dans le domaine des ressources naturelles (industrie). Dans le même temps, le poids des sociétés émergentes dans les 40 premiers pourcentiles de chiffre d’affaires dans le secteur de l'énergie, des télécommunications ou des matériaux, par exemple, s'élèvent respectivement à 38,2 %, 35,7 % et 30,1 %."Il est clair que d’un côté la zone émergente représente un enjeu important pour les entreprises européennes et que, d’un autre, un grand nombre d’entreprises émergentes apparaissent désormais sur la scène concurrentielle mondiale», a conclu Emmanuel Morano.

Le fonds GLG European Equity Alternative, qui met en œuvre une stratégie long/short market neutral sur les actions européennes, a rencontré un vif intérêt auprès des investisseurs. Version coordonnée du flagship GLG European Long Short lancée en juillet 2011, ce fonds, doté en août 2011 de 80 millions de dollars, affichait à fin mai 2012 un encours de 735 millions contre 150 millions à fin décembre 2011. Le fonds, qui a dégagé une performance de 7% en 2011, affiche cette année un rendement de 7,30% au 31 mai 2012.Comme l’explique Olivier Dubost, managing director en charge de la distribution des fonds Man et GLG en France, «le fonds GLG European Equity Alternative est un fonds long/short actions Europe de type market neutral caractérisé par un faible niveau de volatilité (4,5% en 2012 et 6,7% depuis son lancement en 2011). Il demeure l’accès privilégié à notre plate-forme long short actions européennes composée d’un trentaine de professionnels dirigée par Pierre Lagrange et répond à une demande soutenue de la part de la clientèle institutionnelle en Europe en particulier».

Les actifs sous gestion à Jersey se sont accrus de 0,9% au premier trimestre pour atteindre 21 milliards de livres, selon des statistiques communiqués par la commission des services financiers de Jersey.L’actif net comptable des fonds sous administration a augmenté durant la même période de 3,5%, soit 6,8 milliards de livres, à 189,4 milliards de livres. Le nombre de fonds réglementés affiche une hausse de 1,4% au premier trimestre à 1.412 unités, le plus haut niveau observé depuis 2009. Parallèlement, le nombre de fonds non réglementés a augmenté de 8,4% à 166.