De sources concordantes, rapporte L’Agefi, la Deutsche Bank va limiter à 200.000 euros les bonus versés cette année. Les collaborateurs recevront jusqu'à 100.000 euros en numéraire et 100.000 euros en titres qu’ils ne pourront pas revendre avant le mois d’août. Tout bonus supplémentaire sera différé pendant trois ans, ajoute le quotidien.

Conformément à sa politique de recentrage sur ses marchés clés, Coutts intensifie son effort en direction du Moyen-Orient avec l’engagement de trois collaborateurs seniors, basés à Genève, rapporte L’Agefi suisse. La banque genevoise compte par ailleurs recruter une vingtaine de collaborateurs supplémentaires sur la région cette année. Ancien managing director de Bank Sarasin Alpen à Dubai, Akram Khattab est nommé Executive Director Relationship Management. Ses marchés de prédilection sont Dubai et les Emirats du nord. Ali-Reza Vahabzadeh devient Vice President Relationship Management. Il arrive en provenance de Citi Private Bank à Abu Dhabi et a travaillé précédemment au sein du team Ultra High Net Worth Middle East de Citi à Genève. Il se focalisera sur Abu Dhabi et le Qatar. Enfin, Arjun Mittal est nommé directeur régional NRI, responsable des marchés. Il est lui aussi un ex-Bank Sarasin Alpen à Dubai.

Le 20 janvier, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) a octroyé à La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Banque un contingent supplémentaire d’actions chinoises «A» pour 100 millions de dollars américains.La gestion de ce quota additionnel est confiée à Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (Edram) qui, avec son fonds Edmond de Rothschild Mainland China, gère 560 millions de dollars, soit 5% du montant total des encours des fonds QFII gérés par des entités étrangères (9,3 milliards de dollars à fin octobre).Au 31 décembre 2011, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management gère 12,4 milliards d’euros au travers de mandats de gestion et de 28 fonds ouverts enregistrés à la commercialisation dans 15 pays. Fin 2010, Edram affichait environ 14 milliards d’euros d’encours (lire Newsmanagers du 20 janvier 2011).

Cristiano Migliorini, senior quantiative specialiste à Genève, va gérer avec trois de ses collègues à Londres le nouveau fonds Dividende+ qui se focalisera sur les grandes capitalisations européennes servant des dividendes élevés de manière régulière, avec une couverture avec des options pour chacune de ces valeurs de manière à réduire le beta et la volatilité du portefeuille, rapporte Investment Europe. L’objectif de performance est de 10 % par an.

Le départ de François Carlotti de Métropole Gestion le 31 décembre dernier alors qu’il était arrivé en tant que directeur du développement un an auparavant et l’arrêt de l’activité de multigestion ainsi que le départ de son directeur François Merle auront laissé de nombreuses rumeurs se développer... Notamment celle selon laquelle Métropole Gestion entendait se recentrer sur sa clientèle «historique», les investisseurs institutionnels. «Tout cela est très beau», s’amuse François-Marie Wojcik, le président emblématique de la société de gestion interrogé par Newsmanagers, «sauf que c’est faux… Et c’est même rigoureusement le contraire qui se dessine !"Reprenant point par point ce que l’on avait donc pu entendre ici ou là, le responsable de la société de gestion a tout d’abord reconnu que la crise était exceptionnelle par son ampleur, évoquant une période de glaciation des marchés à laquelle s’ajoutaient de nouvelles contraintes réglementaires - Solvency 2 ou Bâle 3 - impactant directement la gestion des investisseurs institutionnels. «C’est cette nouvelle situation qui a conduit Métropole Gestion à mettre un terme à son activité multigestionnaire dédiée principalement aux institutionnels, désormais peu enclins à investir dans ce type de produits», a expliqué le dirigeant. «Ensuite», ajoute-t-il, «nous avons opéré un recentrage sur nos spécialités, à savoir la gestion value au sein de la zone euro et l’Europe, la gestion en matière d’obligations convertibles ainsi que les mandats diversifiés et l’investissement socialement responsable». Dans le même temps, la maison a réalisé un resserrement des équipes. «L’idée pour nous», précise François-Marie Wojcik, «était clairement de raccourcir les circuits de décision de notre maison». Résultat, le co-fondateur de Métropole et Isabel Levy, directeur de la gestion de la société, assument la direction de l’entreprise. Pour sa part, Eric Boutchnei – un autre «historique» – se consacre pleinement à la stratégie de l’établissement, en lien direct avec François-Marie Wojcik.Dans un second cercle, la direction a procédé à la mise en ligne de cinq responsables dits de la génération suivante dont trois dédiés à l’activité commerciale : Markus Hampel en Allemagne, Alexandre Gardel dédié aux investisseurs institutionnels en France et Romuald de Lencquesaing détaché auprès des sélectionneurs de gérants, des banques privées en France, en Suisse et au Luxembourg et auprès des consultants britanniques. Dans ce cadre, le départ de François Carlotti est le fait d’une divergence de vue sur le développement de Métropole Gestion hors de France, «et non en raison d’un arrêt de l’activité de la maison auprès des conseillers en gestion de patrimoine». «Nous menons un développement tout azimuts, y compris vers ces professionnels en France dès lors qu’ils ont une taille suffisante», insiste François-Marie Wojcik, qui rappelle également les référencements de sa société en Allemagne auprès de trois des cinq grandes institutions financières, la présence de sa maison en Suisse, au Grand Duché et dans les pays francophones et ses succès outre-Manche auprès des consultants. «Sans oublier que dans les autres pays», remarque-t-il également, «nous pouvons avoir recours à des Third party marketers». Dans les faits, les investisseurs institutionnels constituent bien la clientèle principale de Métropole Gestion. Mais partout en Europe, les banques privées, les family office et les groupements de CGPI sont dans le viseur de la maison. «Les institutionnels comptent pour 80 % de l’encours de la société qui est de 2 milliards d’euros», rappelle François-Marie Wocjik. «Les multigérants y représentent 7 % et les banques privées, asset managers, family offices et groupements de CGPI, le solde. Désormais, il s’agit clairement pour nous de faire progresser cette part en volume». Et le co-fondateur de rappeler que pour ce faire, sa maison compte sept commerciaux, ce qui n’avait jamais été le cas auparavant. «La marge de progression est importante», avance le gérant, «la société ayant réalisé l’année dernière 400 millions de souscriptions nettes, essentiellement via la direction générale». Quoi qu’il en soit, depuis le début de l’année, les marchés peuvent être un allié précieux pour le développement des affaires de la maison. Avec sa gestion value typée, Métropole Gestion qui a souffert lors du second semestre 2011 a vu ses fonds se reprendre nettement : en un peu plus d’un mois, deux d’entre eux, Métropole Sélection – le fonds «best of» de la gamme - et Métropole Avenir Europe ont progressé de plus de 12 % pour le premier et de près de 16 % pour le second.

La société de hedge funds Atwater Capital, basée à New York et fondée par d’anciens d’Atticus Capital, ferme boutique deux ans après son lancement, n’ayant pas atteint la taille critique, rapporte Financial News. La société gérait 163,6 millions de dollars fin décembre.

Les hedge funds asiatiques ont terminé l’année 2011 sur des performances peu reluisantes, rapporte Asian Investor. Selon les statistiques de HFR, l’indice HFRX Asia Japon y compris a reculé de 5,2% sur l’ensemble de l’année. Mais hors Japon, l’indice Asia emerging Markets ex-Japan accuse un recul de 17,75%. Après inclusion des marchés asiatiques développés, l’indice asiatiques plus large affiche une baisse de «seulement» 13,81%. Autrement dit, les hedge funds n’ont pas réussi à battre les indices, à l’exxception toutefois de l’indice HFR Japan qui accuse une baisse de 6,8% contre 17,3% pour le Nikkei 225. Au quatrième trimestre, les hedge funds asiatiques ont subi une décollecte de 1,04 milliard de dollars mais sur l’ensemble de l’année, ils enregistrent une collecte nette de 6,6 milliards de dollars, ce qui a porté le total des actifs sous gestion à 82,1 milliards de dollars. Les deux tiers des fonds investis dans les hedge funds asiatiques ont été alloués à des stratégies equity hedge. Le nombre de hedge funds asiatiques a augmenté de 4% l’an dernier à 1.100 fonds.

Hedge fund managers, a growing number of whom are hoping to launch UCITS hedge funds (known as “Newcits”), will need to remain highly attentive to constantly-changing regulations, Cerulli Associates claims in a survey dedicated to complex products published on 8 February.Managers will need to be prepared to abandon outright, naked short-selling, which is all but unanimously considered to be a counterproductive technique. Criticisms also focus on the use of derivatives, particularly synthetic ETFs, in UCITS hedge funds. Cerulli observes that the most recent statistics on ETFs for 2011 show an aversion to synthetic ETFs, not only due to performance issued but primarily due to regulatory concerns.Cerulli finds that rather than standing out with complex products with a large alpha component, hedge fund managers would do better to concentrate on simplicity and easy-to-understand strategies, in the lines of those which regulators and distributors would like to see.Growth will come largely from hedge fund providers, rather than from traditional actors, who are currently responsible for most products on offer. Richard Day, COO of ML Capital, claims that the segment needs a more diversified product range as well as a wider variety of experienced managers. From his point of view, demand is mostly for managed futures and systemic and discretionary macro strategies.

The healthcare sector will attract a growing share of transactions, as it is considered a refuge for investors, both short and long term, according to a study by PwC of merger and acquisition activiti4es in the healthcare sector (“Global Healthcare Deals Quarterly”). The market has shown a solid balance sheet and support from investment funds, despite a grim economic environment in 2012.PwC has identified three key factors in the growth of trading volumes. First of all, a general resilience of operations, favourable demographic indicators, and a strong infrastructure component are all reassuring indicators for investors facing a high-risk macroeconomic environment.In the Health/Pharma sector, difficulties encountered in the search for and development of new products have led to a reorientation of capital, reducing investments in medication-type products or medical equipment, in favour of investments in new medical technologies and medical services.Lastly, the development of innovative models for the diffusion of medical services make it possible to provide a higher quality, more competitive and more effective range of healthcare services in countries such as Australia, India and the Middle East, which will be likely to attract new capital.

Out of a sample of 1,300 international large cap funds with a track record of at least 10 years on sale in Europe, 736 products have posted gains in the period from October 2001 to October 2011, and 90 have remained consistently in positive territory, according to a Morningstar study on behalf of Gamax Management.A finer analysis of results reveals that defensively-managed funds, with a beta of less than 1, on average generated higher returns than passively-managed funds (beta=1), and higher returns than aggressively-managed funds (beta higher than 1).

Since JP Morgan, and now State Street, have dropped out of the running, it is increasingly likely that Deutsche Bank will have to sell off its activities in the areas of asset management (EUR400bn) separately, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper expects to see Ameriprise Financial pull out of the running soon, as it finds the price too high. But a sale in parts would be a more complex undertaking, and would increase the risk of seeing key personnel and top investment teams leave the firm.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), one of the largest US pension funds, has asked Facebook in a letter to include a woman on its all-male board of directors, claiming that diversity improves corporate governance and performance, the Financial Times reports. The fund, which has USD145bn in assets under management, has also called for an increase in the size of the board of directors and a separation of the roles of chairman and CEO.

Heritage International Fund Managers (HIFM) has recruited several people for its teams. David Dorey joins the asset management firm as head of Private Equity. James Christie and Andrew Cooper have been appointed as senior fund administration managers. Susie Peer joins the team as fund administration manager, Investment Europe reports. HIFM has total assets under management and administration of over USD50bn.

The hedge fund firm Atwater Capital, based in New York and founded by former managers from Atticus Capital, is closing down two years after its launch, having failed to achieve critical mass, Financial News reports. The fund had USD163.6m in assets under management at the end of December.

On 20 January, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild Banque with an additional Chinese “A” shares quota of USD100m.The management of the additional quota will be entrusted to Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EDRAM), which, with the Edmond de Rothschild Mainland China fund, manages USD560m in assets, 5% of total assets in QFII funds managed by foreign entities (USD9.3bn as of the end of October).As of 31 December 2011, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management had EUR12.4bn in assets under management in mandates and 28 open-ended funds registered for sale in 15 countries. As of the end of 2010, Edram had about EUR14bn in assets (see Newsmanagers of 20 January 2011).

Asian hedge funds finished the year 2011 with less than shining results, Asian Investor reports. According to statistics from HFR, the HFRX Asia index including Japan lost 5.2% for the year as a whole. But excluding Japan, the Asia Emerging Markets ex-Japan index has lost 17.75%. When developed Asian markets are included, the larger Asian index has lost “only” 13.81%. In other words, hedge funds did not manage to outperform the indices, with the exception of the HFR Japan index, which is down 6.8%, compared with 17.3% for the Nikkei 225. IN fourth quarter, Asian hedge funds saw outflows of USD1.04bn, but for the year as a whole, they have seen net inflows of USD6.6bn, bringing total assets under management to USD82.1bn. Two thirds of funds invested in Asian hedge funds were allocated to equity hedge strategies. The number of Asian hedge funds rose 4% last year to 1,100 funds.

The Danish asset management firm BankInvest, a specialist in emerging markets, has announced the promotion of Kasper Elmgreen as head of the international equities unit, Citywire reports. Elmgreen had previously been deputy head of the unit which he will now lead.

As Newsmanagers reported a few days ago, Thierry Pauwels, head of equity investments at OFI AM, has left the firm. He will be replaced by Ralph Bruneau, who served from 1990 until 2010 as head of equity at BGP and then at BFT. Bruneau has also served as deputy CEO of BFT Gestion. In addition to the departure of Pauwels, Pierre-Alexis Dumont, equity manager, has left OFI AM. The asset management firm will publish its new equity organisation in the next few weeks, a statement says. OFI AM manages EUR47.3bn in assets, of which EUR6.62bn are invested in equity products.

The additional retirement establishment for public sector employees (ERAFP) has launched a request for proposals for two management mandates for convertible bonds. The first allocation will be for management of a portfolio of financial instruments composed of convertible bonds and tradeable corporate bonds admitted to trading on a regulated market in the European region. This mandate will be for EUR80m. The second allocation will be for management of a portfolio of financial instruments composed of convertible bonds and tradeable bonds admitted to trading on a regulated market in the global region. This mandate will be for EUR130m. The initial duration of the market is four years, with a potential renewal of the market by ERAFP for two successive terms of two years each. ERAFP says that the new mandates must comply with the regime’s SRI framework, in a manner adapted to each.

“The objective for this fund is not to outperform any benchmark, but simply to make money, and at the worst, to limit losses to a minimum suitable for a sensitive investor,” says Michel Patri, manager of the new Luxembourg-registered fund AllianceBernstein Flexible Equity Portfolio, which has an absolute return approach with a net long bias. The strategy has been running for two years now, and AllianceBernstein has seeded the new fund.The product, created on 31 January, has received a license from the French regulator, AMF. It is particularly well-suited to retail clients who are disoriented after years of crisis. The fund will also be sold in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.In practice, the new “opportunistic and agile” product is a European UCITS-compliant long/short equity fund whose management team may vary net market exposure from 0% to 100% (currently 40%), depending on a quantitative “disciplined” model which adatps to the market environment. Risks are hedged with the use of derivatives, possibly in the form of a synthetic short which AllianceBernstein’s size makes it possible to obtain at a competitive price from counterparties.The formula has been working reasonably well, as since launch (25 January 2010), net performance as of 31 January 2012 is 1.47%, with returns of 0.45% on 3-month Bunds, and volatility of 5.47%.CharacteristicsName: AllianceBernstein European Flexible Equity PortfolioISIN codes:A share class: LU0590155247I share class: LU0590155320Front-end fee: 6.25% (A shares)Management commission:1.50% (A share class)0.70% (I share class)Performance commission: 10% of performance exceeding the Bund 3-month, with high watermark

Colin Harte, co-manager of the Barings Global Bond Trust, has left the firm after 12 years of service, Investment Week reports. The move comes as the firm is closing the Absolute Return Bond Trust, also managed by Harte. The Global Bond Trust will now be managed by Dagmar Dvorak and Harjet Heer.

In line with its policy of refocusing on key markets, Coutts is stepping up its efforts in the direction of the Middle East, for which region it has recruited three senior partners, based in Geneva, Agefi Switzerland reports. The Geneva-based bank is also planning to recruit 20 more partners in the region this year.The former managing director of Bank Sarasin Alpen in Dubai, Akram Khattab, is appointed as Executive Director Relationship Managemnt. His preferred markets are Dubai and the northern Emirates. Ali-reza Vahabzadeh becomes Vice President Relationship Management. He joins from Citi Private Bank in Abu Dhabi, and previously worked in the Ultra High Net Worth Middle East team at Citi in Geneva. He will focus on Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Lastly, Arjun Mittal is appointed as regional director of NRI, in charge of markets. He is also formerly of Bank Sarasin Alpen in Dubai.

In a difficult environment for fundraising, Duke Street has called off the fundraising process for its seventh vehicle. The fund had aimed for assets of EUR850m, with a first closing at about EUR250m initially planned for first half 2012, a source familiar with the matter has told Agefi. The fundraising may be restarted in 2013, the source says. Although the sixth vehicle, raised in 2007 with a total of EUR963m, is now more than 85% invested, the British private equity firm is planning to adapt to the new situation. It is now planning to solicit investors, mostly European institutionals, on a case-by-case basis for each investment.

Hedge funds finished the month of January with gains of 2.63%, after a calamitous year in 2011, according to statistics from HFR. This is the best performance the sector has turned in for one year.Equity Hedge strategies performed best, with gains of 3.84% for the month, followed by Event Driven and Relative Value Arbitrage, with gains of 2.4% and 2.3%, respectively.After a year of losses in 2011, hedge funds investing in emerging markets began the year with gains of 5.3%, the best monthly result since May 2009. Hedge funds exposed to Russia/Eastern Europe and Latin Amerioca earned returns of 9.2% and 6.9%, respectively.

Christiano Migliorini, senior quantitative specialist in Geneva, will manage the new Dividend+ fund with three of his colleagues in London. The fund will focus on European large caps which regularly pay high dividends, with hedging via option writing for each share in order to reduce beta and the volatility of the portfolio, Investment Europe reports. The performance objective is 10% per year.

Evan Reedman, director of lifecycle strategies at Queensland Investment Corp, is joining Credit Suisse in Melbourne to serve in the newly-created position of head of consultant relationships for Asia-Pacific, Asian Investor reports. He will report to Will Britten, head of asset management, Australia.

Since Tuesday, ComStage ETF (Commerzbank group) has added the ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRN fund to trading on the XTF segment of the Xetra electronic trading platform.The ETF (the 924th to be listed in Frankfurt) replicates the MSCI emerging markets index with a leverage of 2, on a daily basis (MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily Net Index). It is the first emerging markets equity product offering leverage to be admitted to trading in Germany.CharacteristicsName: ComStage ETF MSCI Emerging Markets Leveraged 2x Daily TRNISIN code: LU0675401409TER: 0.75%

Axa Investment Managers has received a license from BaFin to release in Germany as well the SolEx share class, which is intended to limit the volatility of a traditional investment in equities (see Newsmanagers of 3 February).As in France, the shares will be available for all products of the Axa World Funds range, starting with the UCITS-compliant fund Axa World Funds Framlington Eurozone, launched on 22 November and managed by Gilles Guibout. Permanent investments in out of the money put options protect the investments against severe losses.The SolEx strategy will be operated by the Investment Solutions team at Axa IM, which since 1997 has been specialised in asset-liability management (ALM) for institutional investors. Arithmetically, the team manages EUR88bn in derivatives.

After several months of steep declines, culminating in 7,734 trades in December, the average daily number of on-book trades of ETF shares stabilised in January at 7,731 for the European markets of NYSE Euronext. This total is 2.6% higher than the corresponding month of last year.The contraction in daily trading volumes has also slowed considerably, at EUR265.5m, compared with EUR268.7m the previous month. However, compared with January 2011, this trading volume is down 43.2%.Block trading, for its part, has increased to EUR1.1bn in January, from EUR930.5m in December, and EUR974.9m in November.Lastly, the average spread in January came to 39.5 basis points, compared with 36.6 in December and 40 in November.

According to a survey by SimCorp of 100 heads at 50 North American investment companies, more than 40% of businesses surveyed are sceptical of the coherence and quality of the data coming from their various systems, including those used for order management, accounting, performance monitoring and risk management.67.4% of respondents estimate that a lot of work is needed to consolidate data coming from multiple systems and sources of information at their business. 22% say that they need several days to produce a report which calculates exposure or performance of the business for the portfolio as a whole, including derivative products. Nearly 8% even say that they need weeks to do so.