Le gestionnaire new-yorkais Van Eck Global a annoncé le lancement le 14 avril du Market Vectors Russia Small-Cap ETF (acronyme sur NYSE Arca: RSXJ), qui est selon lui le premier ETF permettant aux investisseurs américains d’investir directement dans un produit pur de petites capitalisations russes alors que les fonds disponibles jusqu'à présent sont focalisés sur les grandes capitalisations.Le Market Vectors Russia Small Cap ETF réplique l'évolution du Market Vectors Russia Small-Cap Index (MVRSXJTR) qui se composait au 13 avril de 35 sociétés dont la capitalisation boursière moyenne se situe à 2,3 milliards de dollars. Sur ce total, les services aux collectivités représentent 18 %, les matériaux, 19 %, et l'énergie, 17 %.Le nouveau fonds est chargé à 0,67 %.

Filiale de BNY Mellon Asset Management, le new-yorkais The Dreyfus Corporation (400 milliards de dollars), a annoncé le lancement du fonds-pays Dreyfus India Fund qui investit en actions et obligations indiennes. Ce produit sera «sous-conseillé» par Hamon U.S. Investment Advisors Limited, une société de Hong-Kong spécialiste des actions asiatiques qui est contrôlée par Hamon Investment Group Ptd dont BNY Mellon détient 19,9 %.

Jeffrey Kautz a abandonné la gestion du Perkins US Strategic Value fund, selon Citywire. Thomas Perkins, qui co-gérait déjà le fonds, va continuer à s’en occuper aux côtés de Todd Perkins. Jeffrey Kautz reste directeur des investissements de Perkins, qui fait partie de Janus.

According to the 17th annual edition of the Luxembourg Fund Encyclopedia from Lipper, assets under management in funds domiciled in Luxembourg increased by 11% in 2010, to finish the year at USD2.9552trn, or EUR2.202trn, with assets in euros beating the all-time record set at the end of 2007. Of this total, specialised investment funds (FIS) as of the end of December represented USD289.3bn (+30%).The number of funds was up 5% to 12,708, of which 2,837 (compared with 2,058) were FIS funds.J.P. Morgan Bank has remained the largest fund administrator in Luxembourg (USD404.6bn), followed by State Street, which has risen to second place due to acquisitions (USD291.6bn) and RBC Dexia (USD247.8bn). BNP Paribas is in fifth place, with USD160bn.Lipper observes that Franklin Templeton Investment Funds is the largest self-managed sicav, with USD122.4bn in assets and 68 subfunds, followed by Fidelity Funds (USD85.7bn). The fund with the largest number of sub-funds is BNP Paribas L1 (154), followed by Fidelity Funds (129) and db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank) with 122 sub-funds.In terms of custody, J.P. Morgan Bank is also top as of the end of 2010, with USD532.6bn, followed by State Street (USD361.64bn), BNP Paribas (USD258.2bn), and RBC Dexia (USD251.9bn).Among auditors, PriceWaterhouseCoopers leads by far, with 5,359 funds, followed by KPMG (2,531), while in legal consulting, the two largest law firms are Arendt & Medernach (3,274 funds), and Elvinger, Hoss & Prussen (3,046 funds).

Pour l’année 2011, la Caisse régionale du Crédit Agricole de Haute Loire a un programme d’investissement de 12 millions d’euros qu’elle n’a pas encore commencé à investir. Audrey Désormières, trésorière à la caisse régionale, explique : « Depuis le début de l’année, nous avons procédé à des arbitrages sur notre portefeuille sans faire d’allocations nouvelles car nous nous avons cédé nos fonds Japon dès le début de la crise avant d’avoir des moins values importantes ». Pourtant, la Caisse régionale compte bien investir et sa stratégie s’oriente sur les actifs risqués notamment vers les grandes capitalisations sur les marchés occidentaux et sans doute, sur des fonds actions constitués de paniers de matières premières. Ces investissements dépendront très fortement de la règlementation de Bâle III qui a déjà une influence directe sur le portefeuille obligataire de la caisse. « Nous avons déjà cédé 20 millions de monétaire pour investir dans des obligations d’Etat, précise Audrey Désormières. Cette décision liée aux problèmes de liquidité est directement la conséquence de Bâle III ». Stratégie qui force pourtant la caisse à revoir son rendement à la baisse. Concernant le portefeuille de placement, la caisse est dans l’expectative comme le confirme Audrey Désormières: « Pour l’instant les OPCVM sont exclus de la règlementation mais il semblerait que des pourparlers soient en cours pour faire rentrer les SICAV monétaires dans le ratio. Dans ce cas, même si on n’en avait pas prévu pour cette année, on allouera quelques millions sur du monétaire ».

The CNMV has issued a sales license for Spain for the Euro High Yield Short Term (LU0517222054, capitalisation shares, LU0517221833, distribution shares) sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Petercam L Bonds, from the Belgian management firm Petercam. The product charges 0.7%, and was launched nine months ago (see newsmanagers of 14 September 2010). Assets now total nearly EUR50m.

LaSalle Investment Management (USD43bn in assets) on 18 April announced that it has teamed up with the broker BGC Partners (BGC) to offer clients a structure dedicated to real estate derivatives. In partnership with BGC, LaSalle will set up systems which will allow managers to identify new investment opportunities, and then to carry out a straight through processing, and to receive ongoing assistance. Managers at LaSalle will be able to weight portfolios in terms of geographical region, type of risk, or type of assets, while protecting the investor against potential falls on the markets.Alan Tripp, CEO of LaSalle Investment Management in the UK, says that LaSalle initially will concentrate on the British real estate derivatives market, which is one of the largest. “But we have set up internal processes which will then guarantee the necessary flexibility to increase our geographical coverage over time,” he adds.

Jupiter Fund Management achieved net inflows of GBP333 million across its products during the period, with continued inflows into mutual funds partially offset by segregated outflows. Mutual funds contributed first quarter net inflows of GBP397 million, driven by the fund of fund range and continued growth from the international channels, particularly into the Jupiter Global Convertibles and Jupiter Strategic Total Return SICAV products. During the quarter, segregated mandate net outflows of GBP71 million primarily resulted from a single client redeeming part of their portfolio. This decision was taken on fund reconstruction rather than performance grounds.AUM increased 2 per cent. from GBP24.1 billion as at 31 December 2010 to GBP24.5 billion as at 31 March 2011. Separately, on 18 March, Jupiter announced its intention to make an GBP80 million partial repayment of the bank loan facility during 2011. This repayment was made on 31 March 2011.

State Street Corporation has announced that it has been selected by Martin Currie Investment Management Limited to provide a range of fund accounting, securities custody and settlement and transfer services, as well as outsourcing of middle office services worldwide for all funds managed by Martin Currie.

UK-based Schroders on 18 April announced that in May and June it is planning to sell shares in an investment trust specialised in commodities, Schroders Opus Commodity Fund Ltd, which will be managed by Schroders NewFinance Capital, a multi-management affiliate specialised in absolute returns. The closed-end fund will be domiciled in Guernsey, and will offer subscribers access to a wide range of strategies from active managers, plus a portfolio of commodities futures managed directly by Schroders NewFinance Capital.The objective will be to outperform the DJ-UBS Commodity Total Return Index by 6 to 9 percentage points after fees, over a complete cycle. The fund will aim for 100% exposure to the benchmark index, with a tracking error of 5%.Management commission will be 0.60%. Schroders will then charge a 10% commission on performance exceeding the index, with high watermark.The manager of the fund will be David Mooney, assisted by Cédric Bellanger, three analysts, and a team of several data management, qualitative research and operational due diligence specialists. As of the end of March, the team was responsible for assets totalling over USD2.3bn.

David Jane is preparing to launch the TM Darwin Multi Asset Fund, the first offering from his new management boutique, Darwin Investment Managers, Investment Week reports. The fund will be modelled on the M&G Cautious Multi Asset fund, which Jane created when he was head of equity investments at M&G.

GLG Partners will close its market neutral fund to new investors when it grows beyond USD1bn – expected to be in the next few weeks – Steve Roth, the fund’s manager, has told the Financial Times. The size of the fund may have a negative impact on performance above this level.

Fundweb reports that First State Investments is preparing to launch a range of bond funds aimed at British investors. The product line would be released by the end of 2011. Recruitments will accompany the launch, Fundweb states.

As its P-ETC Physical Gold fund has already topped USD1bn in assets under management, Source announced on 18 April that it is launching three exchange-traded products (ETP) backed by physical stocks of three other precious metals stored in the J.P. Morgan vaults in London.The funds are the P-ETC Source Physical Silver (IE00B43VDT70), P-ETC Source Physical Platinum (IE00B40QP990) and P-ETC Source Physical Palladium (IE00B4LJS984).The new P-ETC funds charge 0.39%, and are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

HSBC Global Asset Management has recently launched four new ETFs on the London Stock Exchange, which provide acess to Asian markets. They are the ETF HSBC MSCI Korea, HSBC MSCI Indonesia, HSBC MSCI Malaysia, and HSBC MSCI Taiwan. Management fees total 0.6%, Money Marketing states.

The short-term bond fund AXA IM Euro Fixed Income Moderato, from AXA Investment Managers, released in November 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 29/11/2010), is now available in Germany. Permission to sell the fund in Germany was received on 25 March 2011, a statement says. The OPCVM fund, managed by the money market management team at Axa IM in Paris, aims for annualised net returns equal to the Eonia plys 25 basis points for shares in the I class, reserved for institutional investors.

Taking into account environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria concretely helps to considerably reduce tail risks, a study by risklab, an affiliate of Allianz Global Investors (AGI) specialised in investment strategy and risk management, entitled “ESG Portfolio Risk Reloaded,” has shown.Stefan Hörter, director of risklab, says that an application of ESG criteria to a portfolio of emerging markets equities reduces th risk of maximal losses to 38.8% per year, rather than 64.5% for the MSCI Emerging Market Index, with a conditional value at risk (CVaR) of 95%; it reduces the risk to 4.9% per year instead of 8.1% for a portfolio based on the Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Corporate Index, in the area of corporate bonds. For equities of the MSCI World equity index, the tail risk of 38.1% per year with ESG criteria taken into account falls to 25.7%.risklab finds that the use of ESG management thus improves the risk/reward profile of a portfolio. As an example, the AGI affiliate considered a portfolio composed of 50% each equities and international bonds over a 20-year period. Optimised ESG portfolios composed of equities from industrialised or emerging countries or corporate bonds either limit maximal risk of loss at even performance by about a third, to 10.9%, or increase annual returns to 7%, while retaining the non-ESG risk profile.

After 21 years of work in the company, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu is leaving Invesco, where he has been CEO for Europe for 15 years. In a letter to his “European colleagues” at the US management firm, he has announced his departure. «I have agreed with Marty Flanagan [chairman and CEO of Invesco] that I will be pulling back from the day-to-day management of the business by the end of April, and will be leaving the company at the end of June to allow me to help James [Robertson] through the transition period», Jean-Baptiste de Franssu writes. James Robertson is leading the combined UK, Continental European and Middle Eastern business. The departure appears to be linked to a reorganisation at Invesco, which aims to strengthen the firm’s presence in continental Europe. «As many of you know and in order to increase our chances of winning significant market share, we have undertaken since November last year and at my request, a review of our presence in Europe. Its purpose is to ensure that we are in a position to fully leverage the strengths of our global company to continuously bring the best of Invesco to our clients», de Franssu says in his letter. In a separate letter, Marty Flanagan also discusses Invesco’s strategy in continental Europe at length. He says that the departure of de Franssu in June will give time to ensure a smooth transition of his responsibilities. He adds that Robertson will continue to lead a combined UK, Continental European and Middle Eastern business. . The management firm had no other comment when contacted by Newsmanagers. De Franssu will also remain as president of Efama until the end of his term, which will coincide with the date of his final departure from Invesco, Peter de Proft, CEO of the European association, has confirmed to Newsmanagers. A successor will be elected on 17 June in Lucerne.

On 18 April, Deutsche Bank and LGT announced that they had completed negotiations toward a sale of the Liechtenstein financial group, an affiliate of BHF-Bank, which the German bank acquired in its bailout of Sal. Oppenheim in autumn 2009.The statement says that the two partners had reached an agreement on the details of the transaction, but the plans were called off when the supervisory authorities were consulted. “In order not to unduly prolong the current climate of uncertainty for partners and clients,” the managing board at Deutsche Bank has decided to call off the disposal process. Deutsche Bank will now focus on building its private wealth management (PWM) and asset management activities.This may mean that Deutsche Bank will at least initially hold onto the fund management firm Frankfurt Trust (EUR7.62bn in assets in open-ended securities funds, and EUR4.69bn in institutional funds).

AXA Real Estate Investment Managers (EUR39.9 billion of assets under management as of December 2010) has raised on behalf of its pan-European debt fund, Commercial Real Estate Senior 1 an additional EUR180 million from a number of European insurance companies at second close. CRE1 is advised by AXA Real Estate’s regulated entity, AXA REIM SGP. CRE1 has now attracted total equity of EUR530 million, following the EUR350 million raised in January 2011. The Fund has already exceeded the minimum fundraising target and expects a final close before the summer 2011 with a number of potential investors from Europe currently at advanced stages of due diligence. AXA Real Estate’s debt programme now reaches EUR2.7 billion.Since January 2011, AXA Real Estate on behalf of its clients has invested through eight different loans with a total value of EUR375 million. These are backed by various types of real estate assets including office, retail, and hotels that are located in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The average all-in spread over swap rate stands at 275bps, above the 250bps Fund target. All these loans are senior exposures, secured by stable prime properties with an average LTV of below 60%, characterized with strong cash flow streams. AXA Real Estate has now invested on behalf of its clients 25% of the equity it raised at the first closing of CRE1 and is currently working on a number of potential investments with a total value of over EUR500 million.

Following warnings from regulators that synthetic ETFs may represent a threat to the stability of financial markets, ETF providers are on the counter-attack, Financial Times Fund Management reports. Alain Dubois, chairman of Lyxor Asset Management, says that most ETFs are simple products regulated by the UCITS directive, which are more transparent than most other funds. He claims that use of derivatives in UCITS funds is already very well regulated.

Jeffrey Kautz has ceased to manage the Perkins US Strategic Value fund, Citywire reports. Thomas Perkins, who was previously co-manager of the fund, will now manage it with Todd Perkins. Kautz will remain as chief investment officer at Perkins, which is owned by Janus.

New York-based asset management firm Van Eck Global on 14 April announced the launch of the Market Vectors Russia Small-Cap ETF (NYSE Arca acronym: RSXJ), which it claims is the first ETF to allow US investors direct investment in a Russian small caps product, whereas available funds have previously focused on large caps.The Market Vectors Russia Small Cap ETF fund replicates the evolution of the Market Vectors Russia Small-Cap Index (MVRSXJTR), which as of 13 April consisted of 35 companies with an average market capitalisation of USD2.3bn. Of this total, utilities represent 18%; materials, 19%, and energy, 17%.The new fund charges fees of 0.67%.

The New York-based Dreyfus Corporation (USD400bn), an affiliate of BNY Mellon Asset Management, has announced the launch of the Dreyfus India Fund, a country fund which invests in Indian equities and bonds. The product will be sub-advised by Hamon U.S. Investment Advisors Limited, a Hong Kong firm specialised in Asian equities, which is controlled by Hamon Investment Group Ptd, in which BNY Mellon owns 19.9%.

As of 31 March, assets under management at Invesco Ltd totalled USD641.9bn, compared with USD641.1bn as of the end of February, and USD616.6bn as of 31 December 2010. Assets excluding ETFs and passive products totalled USD550.2bn, compared with USD552.4bn one month earlier, and USD535.7bn as of the end of last year.Legg Mason, for its part, has announced assets of USD677.6bn as of the end of first quarter, compared with USD671.8bn as of 31 December 2010; one year earlier, assets totalled USD684.5bn. Assets in long-term products totalled USD546.2bn three months previously.

Richmond Park Capital Holdings Limited, the parent company of Richmond Park Partners LLP, on 11 April 2011 completed its acquisition of the French asset management firm Olympia Group, previously controlled by Sagard Private Equity Partners and its other shareholders. The transaction was approved by the French and British regulatory authorities, the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) and FSA (Financial Services Authority). The acquisition will result in the full payment of all of the Olympia Group’s debts, a press statement says.

Russell Investments has announced the recruitment of Brian Burke as risk management officer, and Lance Babbit as senior portfolio manager. The two men will join the team dedicated to hedge funds, a statement says. Burke was previously executive director and head of the analysis team at Measurisk. Babbit was head of North America portfolio hedge fund of funds in the Alpha Strategies team at Credit Suisse.

Vanguard Investments Australia, an Australian affiliate of the US firm Vanguard, which already had AUD82bn in assets under management as of the end of 2010, will be launching locally-registered ETFs by the end of May of Australian small caps, large caps and high dividend shares, in order to increase retail market share, Asian investor reports.Robin Bowerman, principal and head of market development at Vanguard Investments Australia, says that the group has no plans to launch niche products, but that he hopes the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) will soon authorise listing of bond ETFs.

L’institut retient pour la France une croissance du PIB en volume de 1,9 % en 2011 puis de 1,8 % en 2012, tandis que Bercy prévoit encore 2% et 2,25%. Selon Coe-Rexecode, la progression du PIB mondial passerait de 4,8% en 2010 à 4,2% en 2011 et 2012. Les économies émergentes verraient leur rythme de croissance ralentir de 7,6% en 2010 à 6,6% en 2011 puis à 6,3% en 2012.

Annoncé en février dernier, le rachat du gestionnaire indépendant Olympia Capital Management par Richmond Park Capital Holdings Limited, la maison mère de Richmond Park Partners, a été finalisé le 11 avril. Parmi les cédants figure notamment Sagard Private Equity Partners. Approuvée par l’AMF et la FSA, cette acquisition se traduit par le désendettement total du groupe Olympia.