p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } From 1 February, Swisscanto will release a high yield fund in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, which will be available in Swiss francs as well as shares hedged for currency risks in euros and US dollars. The fund, the Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High Yield, is aimed at retail as well as institutional investors, and focuses on bonds with short residual durations, and regular and high interest payments, which make it possible to achieve the investment objectives even in phases of rising interest rates.The central asset management firm for the Swiss cantonal banks is also offering a flexible fund denominated in Swiss francs in Germany and Austria, the Swisscanto (LU) Porfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50, for this investment limits for various asset classes are determined by the risk budget, and only the equities portion has predefined limits (0-50%).CharacteristicsName: Swisscanto (LU) Bond Invest Global High YieldISIN codes: (B shares: retail; J shares: institutional):H CHF-B: ISIN LU0556184884H EUR-B: ISIN LU0556185345H USD-B: ISIN LU0582725312H CHF-J: ISIN LU0582724935H EUR-J: ISIN LU0582725072H USD-J: ISIN LU0582725403Front-end fee: 5% maximumManagement commission:B shares: 1.3%J shares: 0.8%Name: Swisscanto (LU) Portfolio Fund Dynamic Yield 0-50ISIN codes (B shares: retail, J shares: institutional):CHF-B: ISIN LU0562145853CHF-J: ISIN LU0562149921Front-end fee: 5% maximumManagement commission:B shares: 1,1%J shares: 0.65%

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } TMW Pramerica Property Investment has announced that as of 26 January, the net asset value per share for its open-ended real estate fund TMW Immobilien Weltfonds has been increased by 21 cents. This is the result of a sale above book value of a property in Canada (see Newsmanagers of 27 January 2011), resulting in an increase of slightly over 45 cents, and a depreciation in value for the Colonos Plaza in Argentina, which has cost the fund 25 cents per share.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The index provider Standard & Poor’s on 28 January announced that 95 new ETFs based on its market indices were launched last year, an increase of 46% compared with the previous year. S&P comments that of the record total of new funds released last year, 57 ETFs were offered outside the United States.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In 2010, investors bought 361 tonnes of gold via ETFs which are monitored by the World Gold Council (WGC), bringing total stock to 2,167 tonnes as of the end of the year, a new record. The value of this stock represented USD98bn. The WGC observes that this is the second-highest increase ever, after the 617 tonnes in net subscriptions in 2009.The two largest funds are the SPDR Gold Shares (State Street), listed in New York, which attracted 147.1 tonnes of gold investment last year, and now has a total of 1,280.7 tonnes, and the ETF Securities Physical Gold Shares, with 165.1 tonnes, and 56.6 tonnes in new subscriptions. The ZKB Gold ETF (Cantonal Bank of Zurich) and the iShares Gold Trust (BlackRock) posted respective net subscriptions of 42.5 and 37.8 tonnes.

Man Group will on Monday launch a new exchange-traded fund designed to outperform stock markets by trading on broker’s tips using computer algorithms.The Man GLG Europe Plus Source ETF will be the company’s first ETF and the third hedge fund-linked ETF launch ever.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to statistics from the Spanish Inverco association of asset management firms, foreign providers were the big winners on the Spanish market in 2010. Their assets increased by more than half last year, Expansión reports, from EUR30bn to EUR48bn. At the same time, assets at Spanish firms were down 15% to EUR138bn. The three largest foreign asset management firms in Spain by asset volume as of the end of December were JPMorgan AM, with nearly EUR5.74bn, Amundi, with over EUR3.85bn, and BNP Paribas, with EUR3.06bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In 2010, assets at M&G Spain doubled to EUR1.25bn, and the British management firm laid out a plan to accelerate growth in Spain and Latin America, which is served from the Madrid office, Expansión reports. This commercial success has led M&G to recruit Cristina García de Sola (ex BlackRock Spain) as head of development. In addition, the firm will be moving to larger offices. The four M&G funds which are selling best in Spain are the M&G American Fund, Global Basics, Global Dividend and Recovery funds.

UniCredit is discussing a tie up of its Pioneer Global Asset Management unit with Intesa Sanpaolo’s Eurizon Capital SGR, said two people with knowledge of the talks, according to Bloomberg. The talks have the backing of government officials who would prefer to keep the asset management firm in Italian hands,

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Les Echos reports that EuroPerformance from Six Telekurs has observed in its 2010 report on collective management that, unlike in 2009, the performance of the markets in 2010 did not compensate for the largest client redemptions since the onset of the crisis, which totalled EUR57.3bn. As a result, the year brought a decline in the bottom line for French-registered OPCVM funds, which lost 3.3% of their volume, or EUR28.7bn, for a total of EUR837.4bn. This is far below their pre-crisis peak, at EUR1.03trn as of June 2007. Equities mutual funds gained 11%, to EUR208.8bn, but money market OPCVM funds have lost nearly 15% to EUR325.9bn.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 1 February, Jürgen Scharfenorth will take up his new position as head of relationship management for Germany at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, where he will report to Michelle Grundmann, managing director.Scharenforth was previously managing director, sales & global relationship management for Germany and Austria at Société Générale Securities Services Deutschland, CEO of Société Générale Securities Services, Deutsche KAG, and CEO of Société Générale Securities services Euro-VL Deutschland.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } London-based MackayWilliams LLP and Berlin’s Metrinomics GmbH, which previously published Fund Market Focus, have created a fund market analysis joint venture, Fund Buyer Focus Ltd. The goal of the collaboration is to combine research into European external fund buyers which has been undertaken since 2001 by Metrinomics with the analysis and perspective capacities of MackayWilliams.The project will allow Metrinomics to concentrate its primary activites on research, particularly in telecommunications. MackayWilliams, for its part, will develop the coverage and depth of its monthly publication Fund Radar, independently of Fund Buyer Focus.Fund Buyer Focus will continue the Fund Market Focus surveys of samples of over 900 respondents from a universe of over 4,000 professional fund actors in Europe. Combining these results with analysis of various markets, the new firm will be able to provide interesting advice about the dynamics of fund markets in terms of both supply and demand, nationally as well as internationally. Clients will then have access to a unique source of indicators to measure the success of distribution and sales strategies.The team at Fund Buyer Focus includes five specialists. It will be led jointly by Hans Schmolke, CEO of Metrinomics, and Rodney Williams, CEO of MackayWilliams, who will personally be involved in the development of products, sales and marketing.MackayWilliams was founded in 2010 by Diana McKay and Rodney Williams, who founded Feri Fund Markets Information (Feri FMI) with Feri Trust, a firm which was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2007.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Werner Hedrich, who for the past six years has been head of fund research for the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), has been promoted to CEO for Germany and Austria at Morningstar. He will report to Bevin Desmond, international business president, who directs the group’s international operations from Chicago.

After a brief period at Sal. Oppenheim, the former head of Franklin Templeton Investments has taken charge of development at Métropole Gestion. This will clearly mean focusing on Europe, with Germany and Italy promising markets, but the firm is not planning to neglect France, where it is courting independent financial advisers and private banks, but is not forgetting institutional investors, its historic client base.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has received 100 letters in its public consultation over Title IV of the Dodd-Frank law, La Tribune reports. The final text of the bill is expected to be passed in spring, and to come into force on 21 July 2011.The consultation dealt with conditions for registration with the SEC for investment advisers, and the details of exemptions for come of these operators. Efama sent a letter as part of the consultation, representing the European asset management industry.Among the issues dealt with in the letter are European funds which receive retail investments. Under the terms of the bill, a management firm may lose eligibility for exemption if an investor located in the United States subscribes to one of these funds, even if the investor did not actively do so, which is widely possible and is often not controlled for by management firms, the newspaper reports.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to a case filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on 28 January in a Connecticut federal court, Francisco Illaramendi, who controls a majority stake in the unregistered investment advisory firm Michael Kenwood Group (Stamford, Connecticut), illegally transferred at least USD53m belonging to investors to bank accounts in his own name, and then invested the money in private equity, the Wall Street Journal reports. The largest investor victim is reported to have been the pension fund of a foreign company.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Gerard Aquilina is resigning from his position as vice chairman of Barclays Wealth, Wealthbriefing reports. It is a voluntary departure, according to a Barclays spokesperson cited by Wealthbriefing, motivated by plans on Aquilina’s part to work in the emerging markets sector.Aquilina joined Barclays Wealth in September 2006. He was previously at HSBC Private Bank in New York, where he was chief executive for the North American continent.

The “holy trinity” of equities, bonds, and real estate still reigns at Aberdeen, but equities are no longer the unquestioned head of the trinity, as they had been in the past. Before the stock market crash that ushered in the century, equities represented more than three quarters of the total portfolio. Their percentage has now fallen below 50% of the total. According to statistics as of 31 December 2010, assets in equities totalled GBP80.5bn, out of total overall assets of over GBP183.3bn.“The stock market crisis of 2001-2002 made us understand that we needed to move in the direction of diversification,” said Anne Richards, chief investment officer at Aberdeen Asset Management, and also head of alternative management, on a visit to Paris on 27 January.Assets in equities will be maintained, but the Scottish group is not planning any great drives in this asset class. Aberdeen did not hesistate to soft-close the Aberdeen Global – Emerging Markets Equity Fund and Aberdeen Global – Emerging Markets Smaller Companies fund last year, in order to continue to effectively manage existing assets. However, says Richards, “2011 may be an excellent year for equities, even if a good deal of volatility can still be expected.”But Richards, in her capacity as head of alternative management, is planning to consolidate the new capacities acquired last year from the Royal Bank of Scotland, including funds of hedge funds and multi-management. “The integration process is going well, particularly because the managers at Coutts AM were already familiar with the working culture of our teams, and their management process was very close to our own, with our bottom-up approach and our long-term vision,” Richards explains, adding that the evaluation of capacities will take a little more time. “It is a lengthy job, but aside from the additional assets, these activities complement our range of alternative strategies.” With the addition of the GBP13.5bn in assets brought in by the RBS deal, total assets under alternative management are nearly GBP30bn, about one third of it in long-only multi-management.In terms of bonds, Aberdeen is in the process of recovering from its low point in 2008. The past two years have been good, particularly 2009, and to a lesser extent 2010, but the task of reconstruction is not finished yet, Richards admits, though she points out that outflows have slowed encouragingly. In an environment in which investors are looking for returns, Aberdeen, which recently launched a best ideas fund, is working on new products, including a global high yield bond fund. In real estate, Aberdeen has dedicated a particular effort to the French market, with the recent arrival of a specialist, and is also at work on a project, already reported by Newsmanagers, to launch an OPCI (real estate) fund, if possible this year. The firm is also considering a global real estate product, at the request of clients.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } For the fiscal year ending on 30 November, the asset management firm AGF Management has posted an increase in net profits of 19.5%, to CAD116.8m, due to an increase in earnings from management activities and reduced operating provisions for its division AGF Trust. Assets as of 30 November were down 3.6% to CAD43bn, of which CAD22.3bn (-2.1%) were in mutual funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to statistics from the CSSF, the Luxembourg regulatory authority, net assets in OPC collective funds represents EUR2.19899trn as of 31 December 2010, largely in Sicav vehicles (EUR1.540trn) and FCP funds (EUR652.16bn).The number of products at the end last year totalled 3,667, of which 1,701 were Sicavs, and 1,944 were FCPs.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Luxembourg Sicav G-Fund from Groupama, announced in first quarter 2010 (see Newsmanagers of 10/03/2010), started up with EUR200m in seed money from its parent company, La Tribune reports. The insurer has opted for a self-managed Sicav, a less costly format which does not require the creation of a local asset management firm. The Sicav is co-managed in Luxembourg by Véronique Gillet of the management firm Adeis, who was selected through a RFP.In terms of product offerings, three sub-funds are already on sale, out fo the 15 sub-funds which the fund may eventually include: one fund of Euro zone credit (EUR80m), one of European convertibles (EUR80m) and one of absolute return fixed income (EUR40m).

Des difficultés techniques ont perturbé la séance de vendredi dernier sur le Nasdaq, semant la confusion chez les investisseurs. Les cotations des principaux indices de l’opérateur boursier, le Nasdaq composite et le Nasdaq 100, n'étaient plus visibles pendant près d’une heure.

Le fonds souverain singapourien entend bien conserver à long terme ses participations au capital de Citigroup et d’UBS. Il ne les cèdera que s’il reçoit une offre très attrayante. Le fonds est le principal actionnaire des deux banques. C’est ce qu’a confié depuis Davos un haut responsable de GIC, Tony Tan. Ce dernier a indiqué que la baisse significative des valorisations avait créé des opportunités d’achat aux Etats-Unis et en Europe.

Ossiam doit officialiser aujourd’hui l’arrivée d’Isabelle Bourcier, l’ex-responsable mondiale de l’activité ETF de Lyxor, comme annoncé par L’Agefi le 14 décembre. Elle prend les fonctions de directrice du développement de la filiale à 51% de Natixis AM, qui doit bientôt lancer son offre d’ETF. Elle avait la responsabilité de cette activité au sein de la filiale de la Société Générale depuis son lancement en 2000.

La société d’investissement Carlyle a annoncé vendredi l’acquisition d’Integrated Dental Holdings (IDH), un fournisseur de dentisterie britannique NHS (affiliée à l’assurance maladie), auprès de Bank of America Merrill Lynch Capital Partners. IDH sera fusionné avec sa rivale Associated Dental Practices, une société entre les mains de Palamon Capital Partners. Carlyle, dont le nouvel investissement pour cette transaction vient de Carlyle Europe Partner III, détiendra la majorité de l’ensemble fusionné.

Les gestionnaires sont de plus en plus nombreux à s’exposer aux obligations à haut rendement. La duration des portefeuilles est en baisse

Les villes de Chongqing et Shanghai imposent une taxe immobilière depuis vendredi, alors que le ratio de fonds propres des banques sera porté à 14 %

La société danoise, qui gérait 8,8 milliards d’euros d’actifs hors mandats à fin 2010, mise notamment sur son alliance avec l’américain Brandes

Les gestions se sont encore renforcées sur cette classe d’actifs au détriment du cash et renouent avec les niveaux de décembre 2009

L'enquête prévoit en moyenne une détente d'ici à 3 mois de 10 pb environ des rendements obligataires à 10 ans européens et britanniques

Après une brève consolidation, l’indice devrait franchir les plus hauts de 2010 et viser les 3.500 points