Deutsche Bank and Omega Advisors have teamed up to launch a long/short equity hedge fund that complies with the UCITS directive for its db alternatives platform, Citywire reoprts. The product, entitled DB Platinum Omega, will be managed by the billionaire Leon Cooperman.

A group of US hedge funds are threatening to sue the Irish government if it goes through with plans to make them pay up to 100% of losses on Bank of Ireland subordinated bonds held by the funds. The bonds held by the hedge funds, including Appaloosa Management, total about USD300m, the Financial Times reports.

The asset management firm Kames Capital, formerly known as Aegon Asset Management, will soon be opening an office in Hong Kong, Asian Investor reports. With this in mind, Kames has appointed James Cooper as head of development for Asian activities. Kames is initially planning to develop its presence serving Asian clients in its strong areas, such as bonds, real estate and multi-asset class products. Cooper, who had previously worked at a consulting firm, will construct an Asian team in the next 12 to 18 months, including the installation of local managers. Kames Capital, whose assets under management totalled GBP47bn as of the end of September, has nearly 250 employees.

November was the eighth consecutive month of net outflows for Spanish securities funds, with EUR850m in outflows, compared with EUR891m in October, EUR681m in September, and EUR699m in August, according to initial estimates from the Inverco association of asset management firms.Total assets fell 3.3% in November compared with October to a total of EUR125.156bn. This time, only about 20% of the decline is due to net redemptinos, whie the remaining 80% are related to negative market effects.Of the twelve largest asset management firms by volumes of assets under management, only Bestinver Gestión and Popular Gestión show net subscriptions, of EUR236m for the former and EUR6.5m for the latter.However, the two leaders in the sector, Santander Asset Management and BBVA Asset Management, have seen net outflows of EUR346.83m and EUR182.5m, respectively. InverCaixa Gestión has seen net redemptions of EUR84.49m, and Bansabadell Inversión has experienced net outflows of EUR73.19m.

Aviva Investors France is not giving way to panic; quite the opposite. Despite a difficult economic and political environment, the asset management firm of the Aviva group does not subscribe to a scenario of a double-dip recession, nor does it predict that the euro zone will implode. It has even chosen to invest in risky assets, more particularly equities. Compared with a balanced portfolio composed of 50% equities and 50% bonds and money markets, with a preference for the European market and overweight positions on the banking and industrial sectors, “the equity markets, which have integrated an extremely pessimistic scenario, are inexpensive. There are very good points of entry, particularly on the European market, which is completely undervalued. That’s the market we are preferring currently,” says Pascal Heurtault. In terms of credit, Heurtault steers clear of German government bonds and is neutral on Spanish and Italian bonds. He prefers corporate issues, particularly from the banking sector. “We are lucky to belong to a major insurance company, which has made us safe from major redemptions,” says Heurtault. Aviva Investors France can therefore confront and consider long-term investments. “Our parent company is confident in our management teams, which have been in place for many years. We know that we have to accept some temporary declines, as this is a difficult period, but it will allow us to prepare for future gains,” says the chief investment officer at Aviva Investors France.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) on 1 December announced the appointment of Bertrand Valet in Paris as managing director in charge of relations with investment funds in France. In the business banking activity at BofAML, Valet will assist in the development of French investment fund clients and international funds which invest in France. Valet will be based in Paris, after a 5-year career in Dubai, 12 years in London, and 18 months in San Francisco. In Dubai, Valet had since 2008 been head of development for sovereign fund and investment fund clients of BofAML in the Middle East/North Africa region.

Frédéric Laurent, chairman of the board at Federal Finance, will this Friday announce to clients and partners of Federal Finance that the firm has appointed Gérald Claudel as head of external development and key accounts. Claudel will begin in his new role from 2 January 2012. He will also be in charge of deploying the firm’s international distribution policy. Claudel joined Federal Finance in 2004, as head of institutional diversified management. He was primarily in charge of asset allocation and institutional mandates.

The Cogefi group has recruited Marie Damourette as head of wealth engineering. Damourette’s primary mission will be to assist private clients of the group in optimising protection, development and transmission of their wealth, via personalised legal and tax advising, a statement says. Damourette had previously been head of a private management service in a notarial study. She has also served as a wealth engineer at Patrimoine Management et Associés and Cortal Consors Select.

The Atrium Select platform, a new affiliate of the Crystal Group, was founded in association with a real estate professoinal, Philippe Khemili. The Crystal Group is hoping to centralise direct real estate supply for all entities of the group with the creation of Atrium Select, with the goal of becoming a significant presence in this market segment. Atrium Select, based in Montpelier, has six employees. It is led by Bruno Narchal, while Philippe Khemili is chief operating officer. In addition to tax minimisation programmes, Atrium Select targets its product range to an overall wealth management approach (constitution and valuation of wealth, creation of complementary revenue streams, organisation of inheritance). The platform also acts within specific service mandates for the full range of clients of the Crystal Group. Atrium Select works with a selection of quality promoters to offer a restricted selection of programmes, reserved for particular networks, in metropolitan France and DOM-TOM, where there is real demand for rentals, and these respond to an international probematic for clients of Crystal Finance. The sale of properties offered is also undertaken by Crystal Finance advisors, along with IFA partners of the Union Financière George V and other partnerships. The objective for the group is to make three hundred sales by the end of 2012.

The US asset management firm Eaton Vance has posted a net outflow for the third quarter of its fiscal year, ending on 31 October, of USD2.7bn. This is the first time in 22 quarters that Eaton Vance has finished a quarter with net redemptions. For the fiscal year to the end of October as a whole, Eaton Vance shows a net inflow of USD3.9bn.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s office has accused Michael Balboa of ordering two of his colleagues to artificially inflate the value of a Nigerian government warrant, the Wall Street Journal reports. At the time (January-October 2008), Balboa was managing director of the London-based Millennium Global Investments.

The Japanese asset management firm Nikko Asset Management has called off plans for an initial public offering on the Tokyo stock exchange on 15 December, due to the high volatility of the markets, Agefi reports. According to the near-exclusive shareholder in Nikko Asset Management, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, the firm will wait for a more favourable environment.

On 29 November, the Chinese securities commission (CSRC) issued an operating license to the 69th Chinese fund management company, Essence FMC.The firm, which has also been issued a license to manage “segregated” accounts, has capital of CNY200m. It is 49% controlled by Essence Securities, 36% by Minmetals Investment, and 15% by China Guangdong Nuclear GFC.The CEO of the firm is Wang Lianzhi, vice chairman of Essence Securities, Z-Ben Advisors reports.

Credit Suisse has appointed Giorgio Riccucci as its new head of private banking for Italy, Bluerating reports. He will replace Franco Müller on 1 January 2012. Riccucci had previously been at UBS Italia.

Pioneer, the asset management firm of the Italian UniCredit group, on Wednesday unveiled the outlines of its five-year plan. The strategy, developed over the summer and finalised in the past few weeks, is focused on three major areas, explains Sandro Pierri, head of the firm for western Europe and international activities. The first area, already presented by CEO Roger Yates in September, is to create a major emerging markets management centre in London. This will include the existing capacities of the group in this area (equities and bonds) and will also be enriched with some recruitments, including two people who have recently joined the group. This unit will represent about EUR7bn in assets. The second area will be to expand Pioneer’s distribution capacities in Asia and Latin America. This development will be realised entirely organically, says Pierri, who rules out any acquisitions. However, he has not spelled out a list of the countries concerned. “We will develop in a country only when we estimate that we have a product range which is suitable for local clients,” he says. The firm is now present in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, China, and India, in Asia; and in Chile and Argentina in Latin America. In the third area, Pioneer is planning to “build a more solid operational infrastructure,” meaning that the firm will close come activities which are too “marginal” such as in Russia. In terms of objectives, Pierri says only that Pioneer, which had EUR162bn in assets under management as of the end of October, is aiming for double-digit growth in profits in the next four years. He adds that the plan will be completely self-financed. The five-year plan follows several months of uncertainty for Pioneer, which had undergone a strategic review in the course of which several options, including a sale of the business, were studied. That phase was completed in April this year, when UniCredit decided that the asset management firm would concentrate on organic growth.

The collective investment organism (OPC) industry in Luxembourg has posted a positive variation in the month of October, to a total of EUR39.86bn, according to statistics from the financial sector surveillance commission (CSSF). This increase is due to the positive impact of markets for EUR47.56bn (+2.34%), partly offset by a net outflow of EUR7.70bn (0.38%). All categories of equity OPC have posted net redemptions, excepting the category of OPC investing in European equities.As of 31 October 2011, the overall net assets in OPC and specialist investment funds totalled EUR2.07194trn, compared with EUR2.032077trn as of 30 September 2011, an increase of 1.96% in one month. Over the past twelve months, the volume of net assets has fallen 1.69%.

Interrogé par Instit Invest, Jean Pierre Hutin, Président de la caisse de retraite IRP Auto: « Nous gérons 1,2 milliards d’euros et ces placements peuvent se faire jusqu'à 30 ans. Concernant la prévoyance, nous avons environ 80/85% d’obligations, entre 15 et 20% d’actions et un peu de monétaire pour la trésorerie ». Cependant, IRP Auto va essayer d’orienter 5% de ses actifs pour le financement des PME, un paramètre qui n’est pas prévu par le règlement financier. C’est pour la caisse, une façon de contrebalancer un accès au crédit qui va devenir plus difficile avec la mise en ??uvre de la règlementation de Bâle III. « Nous avons quelques propositions sur les Mid cap ou le private equity car notre objectif est d’intervenir directement sur le haut de bilan des entreprises », poursuit Jean Pierre Hutin. La caisse de retraite IRP Auto détient encore des obligations sur l’Italie et l’Espagne mais comme le souligne Jean Pierre Hutin : « Ce sont surtout des obligations corporates qui ne sont pas encore arrivées à maturité mais elles ont été traitées et sont à un taux fixe satisfaisant ».

Investec Asset Management va prochainement lancer un fonds marchés émergents multi classes d’actifs, l’Investec GSF Emerging Markets Multi-Asset Fund. Ce produit, géré par Philip Saunders, responsable des investissements globaux multi-actifs, et John Stopfort, co-responsable de l’obligataire, réunira les compétences de la société de gestion en matière d’actions et de dette émergentes. Géré avec une allocation d’actifs flexible, il pourra être investi en actions, en obligations libellées en devises locales et en devises dites fortes, mais aussi dans les matières premières et les pays frontières. Investec AM gère 83 milliards de dollars, dont la moitié en marchés émergents. Ses capacités Global Multi-Asset représentent 13 milliards de dollars, dont les deux tiers en marchés émergents.

Début 2012, Alcentra Limited, l’une des boutiques de BNY Mellon Asset Management, compte lancer le Alcentra European Floating Rate Income Fund qui sera enregistré à Guernesey. Ce sera un fonds fermé coté sur le marché principal du London Stock Exchange.Le portefeuille sera principalement investi en dette senior garantie et en obligations à taux variable senior garanties émises par des sociétés européennes. L’objectif consiste à générer un dividende trimestriel sur la base de 5,5 % par an pour la première année suivant l’investissement de l’ensemble de la collecte (Alcentra vise 150 millions de livres). Il est prévu qu’une proportion «significative» du portefeuille sera acquise à un prix inférieure au pair, ce qui permettra de générer des plus-values. Le fonds n’utilisera pas d’effet de levier.Alcentra, qui compte investir au minimum 10 millions d’euros avec ses filiales dans ce nouveau fonds, précise que des parts en livres sterling et en euros seront disponibles dès le lancement, si les investisseurs en manifestent le désir. Le portefeuille se composera d’une soixantaine de lignes couvrant 15 secteurs, avec un plafond de 5 % pour un seul émetteur.La commission de gestion est fixée à 0,7 %.

Un groupe de hedge funds américains menace le gouvernement irlandais de porter plainte, au cas où ce dernier mettrait à exécution son projet d’imputer des pertes pouvant aller jusqu'à 100% sur les obligations subordonnées de Bank of Ireland que les fonds détiennent. Les obligations détenues par les fonds alternatifs, dont Appaloosa Management, représentent autour de 300 millions de dollars, indique le Fianncial Times.

La société se prépare au lancement de son troisième fonds. Avec un objectif de levée entre 300 et 350 millions d’euros, le futur FCPR sera lui aussi dédié à l’investissement dans des entreprises françaises des segments small et lower mid caps, principalement en mezzanine. Capzanine a par ailleurs annoncé la nomination de Laurent Bénard comme associé.

Après 18.100 milliards déjà votés, la nouvelle rallonge sera d’au moins 2.000 milliards de yens mais pas financée par de nouvelles émissions

Selon la BCE, les sociétés de moins de 250 salariés des pays périphériques se plaignent le plus d'une dégradation de l'accès au crédit

Elle pourrait atteindre 10 milliards la semaine prochaine sur la base des opérations similaires menées en 2009 et 2010

Le quotidien, citant les données du promoteur Deovolente Realty, indique que le volume des transactions à Shanghai exprimé en surfaces cumulées a chuté de 53% d’une année sur l’autre le mois dernier, à 450.000 mètres carrés. Le prix moyen a accusé un repli de 6,6% à 20.988 yuans le mètre carré, l’équivalent de près de 2.500 euros. Le volume des reventes aurait chuté de moitié à Pékin le mois dernier à un plus bas depuis trois ans.

Le ministre allemand des Finances suggère que les Etats isolent une partie de leur dette souveraine, au-delà de 60% du PIB, dans des fonds nationaux dédiés.

Les règles d'aide aux banques ont été prorogées par Bruxelles. Le prix de base de la garantie est abaissé de 50 à 20 points de base

Le ministre des Finances allemand, Wolfgang Schäuble, propose de placer la dette dépassant 60 % du PIB dans des véhicules nationaux

Le gouvernement irlandais pourrait bien devoir subir des poursuites en justice de la part d’un groupe de gestionnaires alternatifs américains s’il décidait de mettre en œuvre son projet de leur imposer une perte jugée injuste. Cette perte pourrait représenter jusqu’à 100% de leur mise sur un portefeuille de 300 millions d’euros de dette subordonnée qu’ils détiennent chez Bank of Ireland,dont l’état est actionnaire à hauteur de 15%. Les investisseurs, parmi lesquels figure Appaloosa Management, estiment que le projet répond à des considérations politiques. Dublin ferait preuve de «cynisme» en privilégiant les actionnaires.

Le président de la Banque centrale européenne Mario Draghi a fait comprendre jeudi qu’il était prêt à prendre des mesures supplémentaires pour soutenir l'économie de la zone euro, ajoutant que les risques baissiers avaient augmenté et que la BCE était consciente des difficultés croissantes des banques. Alors que la pression s’accroît sur les dirigeants de la zone euro pour progresser sur une réponse à la crise de la dette d’ici au sommet européen du 9 décembre, Mario Draghi, qui s’exprimait devant le Parlement européen, a appelé à un «approfondissement» de l’intégration budgétaire et fiscale. «Nous pourrions nous demander si un nouvel accord budgétaire serait suffisant pour stabiliser les marchés et si une vision crédible de long terme peut être utile à court terme. Notre réponse, c’est qu’il s’agit sans nul doute de l'élément le plus important pour commencer à rétablir la confiance.»