La société de gestion italienne Anima Holding et l’établissement italien Banca Popolare di Puglia e Basilicata ont signé un partenariat stratégique dans la gestion d’actifs, rapporte Bluerating. L’accord, d’une durée de huit années, donnera à Anima un accès préférentiel au réseau de distribution de la banque transalpine. Cette dernière, qui compte 137 agences principalement dans le Sud de l’Italie et a collecté indirectement 2,5 milliards d’euros en 2013, devient le quatrième partenaire stratégique d’Anima.

Rodolfo De Benedetti entre au capital de Decalia Asset Management, la nouvelle boutique de gestion d’actifs créée par Alfredo Piacentini, ex-fondateur et associé de Banque Syz, rapporte le site italien Finance community. L’intéressé a été membre du conseil d’administration de la banque suisse plus de 10 ans. Il détiendra une participation dans la nouvelle boutique et aura un siège au conseil d’administration. Decalia AM réunit aussi Isabella Pedrazzini (ex-Lombard Odier & Cie), Gabriel Gubener (ex-Atlas Capital) et Yves Rochat (ex-Syz), indique le site italien. Basée à Genève, la société gère 850 millions d’euros.

ECM Asset Management, société de gestion détenue par Wells Fargo Asset Management, lance un fonds de dette d’infrastructures européennes, ECM European Infrastructure Debt Fund.Pour ce produit, ECM a noué un partenariat avec un acteur européen censé lui donner accès à un grand nombre de transactions en Europe et au Royaume-Uni, indique un communiqué. Les pays dans lesquels le fonds investira en Europe continentale sont principalement l’Allemagne, la France, la Belgique, les Pays-Bas, l’Italie, et l’Espagne. Les secteurs privilégiés sont les énergies renouvelables, les infrastructures sociales, le transport, l’énergie, le pétrole et le gaz, les télécommunications et les utilities. Le fonds sera essentiellement investi dans de la dette à taux variable, même s’il pourra aller jusqu’à 20 % du portefeuille dans du taux fixe.

Les sociétés de gestion européennes ont l’intention de renforcer leurs équipes commerciales institutionnelles ou du moins de les maintenir en l’état, montre un sondage de Cerulli sur l’organisation commerciale et marketing des gestionnaires en Europe. Aucune d’entre elles ne prévoit de réduire ses effectifs dans ce domaine.Plus précisément, 33 % des sociétés de gestion ont déclaré qu’elles allaient accroître le nombre de commerciaux ciblant le marché institutionnel britannique. Et 22 % vont recruter davantage de collaborateurs pour aborder cette clientèle en France, en Allemagne, au Benelux et dans les pays du Nord de l’Europe.L’étude de Cerulli montre aussi que 100 % des sociétés de gestion interrogées ont ciblé les investisseurs institutionnels en Allemagne en 2014. Et 83 % ont visé cette catégorie au Royaume-Uni et en Suisse.Dans le même temps, 78 % et 72 % des gestionnaires sondés ont cherché à séduire les investisseurs institutionnels au Benelux et dans les pays d’Europe du Nord, respectivement. Et 67 % ont ciblé la France et l’Italie, tandis que 33 % ont tenté de courtiser les investisseurs espagnols.Cerulli souligne qu’à l’échelle européenne, le canal institutionnel est dans la plupart des cas servi par une équipe locale. « Les institutionnels peuvent être regroupés par région, mais seulement jusqu’à un certain point. La taille du marché en termes d’encours et d’acteurs est le facteur déterminant, plutôt que la langue ou la culture. Les fonds obligatoires nordiques, les fonds sectoriels néerlandais et les fonds d’entreprises britanniques obtiennent les allocations d’effectifs les plus fortes. Le véritable transfrontière est un rêve lointain », commente le consultant.

La société de gestion basée en Israël Diamond Capital vient d’agrandir sa gamme Ucits avec le lancement d’une stratégie sur les actions américaines, Redwood US Strategies, révèle Citywire Global. Il s’agit d’un fonds actions focalisé sur le risque qui utilise un modèle quantitatif pour bâtir un portefeuille avec une volatilité moindre que celle de l’indice S&P 500. Un fonds similaire sur les actions européennes devrait suivre.

Avec des encours s’établissant à 215 milliards d’euros - hors partenariats stratégiques-, l’Allemagne s’affirme comme la championne d’Europe dans le domaine de l’architecture ouverte. Tel est le constat de l'étude publiée cette semaine par Indefi Market Resarch, qui analyse l’opportunité concurrentielle des sociétés de gestion d’actifs d’investir sur des marchés spécifique. Par ailleurs, le marché allemand se caractérise par la prédominance du segment « retail / funds sellers » (distribution de fonds), qui représente près des deux-tiers des encours. Cette caractéristique explique en grande partie «l’impact déterminant des bouleversements réglementaires en cours sur les évolutions de marché», souligne la société de conseil présidée par Richard Bruyère, qui, de fait, anticipe des changements majeurs outre-Rhin sur la nature de l’opportunité de marché pour les sociétés de gestion. Les segments « coeur » du marché de l’architecture ouverte (banques privées, réseaux bancaires, CGPI), s’essoufflent et leur business model est remis en cause. Concomitamment, d’autres segments clients connaissent un développement soutenu, qui «constituent les nouveaux piliers de l’architecture ouverte», résume l'étude. «Les dynamiques du marché de la distribution de fonds en Allemagne se sont inversées ces dernières années», confirme Richard Bruyère. De fait, ajoute-t-il, «les canaux de distribution traditionnels apparaissent moins attrayants et les nouveaux piliers de l’architecture ouverte sont désormais de nouveaux segments clients qui ont émergé depuis la crise, à l’instar des gérants de portefeuilles indépendants, des compagnies d’assurance, et probablement aussi les distributeurs en ligne».

Selon Das Investment, Lupus Alpha a recruté une équipe de quatre personnes spécialisées dans les CLO (collateralized loan obligations). Il s’agit de Norbert Adam, Klaus Ripper, Michael Hombach et Stamatia Hagenstein, qui proviennent de Mainfirst Asset Management. Le quatuor travaille ensemble depuis plus de 10 ans. En 2015, Lupus Alpha compte lancer plusieurs produits CLO, ajoute Das Investment.

Le groupe suisse Reyl lance une activité d’Asset services et ouvre un bureau à Malte pour le dépôt de fonds de placement, rapporte L’Agefi suisse. Le groupe poursuit ainsi sa diversification engagée en 2002, avec cette fois l’objectif de capitaliser sur les infrastructures existantes. Le groupe offre dorénavant des services de global custody et de dépositaire de fonds, ainsi que du trading – le tout destiné aux acteurs de taille moyenne du marché institutionnel. Avec environ 170 collaborateurs, Reyl vient de dépasser la barre symbolique des dix milliards d’actifs sous gestion, à 10,7 milliards fin septembre, contre 9,1 milliards en début d’année.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } The US asset management firm Columbia Management, an affiliate of the Ameriprise Financial group, which has USD358bn in assets under management, has announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Blackstone Alternative Asset Mangement to research and development of investment solutions that leverage Columbia’s asset management capabilities and Blackstone’s hedge fund solutions business, a statement says. “Collaboration with Blackstone will enhance Columbia’s already deep product line-up and should allow us to reach even more investors and distribution partners, both domestically and internationally, with a broad set of alternative investment capabilities,” says William Landes, deputy head of Global Investment Solutions at Columbia.

State Street Global Advisors has appointed David Saulnier as chief risk officer. Saulnier, age 47, previously served as chief risk officer for State Street’s investment servicing business in the Americas. He will assume his new role at SSgA effective immediately.Saulnier joined State Street in 2008 from Pioneer Investment Management USA, where for seven years he was director and head of risk management for all US operations, trading and portfolio management.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has launched a new Global Sports & Entertainment (GSE) division, whose objective will be to meet the needs of former sporting stars and rising talents as well as their advisers in the fields of sports and leisure. A first group of financial advisers has been created, with solid experience, having already worked with high-level athletes and representatives of the leisure, industry, artists, writers, etc. Financial advisers have undergone special training to achieve the qualification of Sports & Entertainment Director. They can also offer their clients custom services, such as liability-driven investment, advising about philanthropy, governance services, and financial planning, as well as private equity investment solutions.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } The French asset management firm Amplégest has announced the arrival of Stéphane Cuau and Boris Lacordaire to manage the Amplégest Long/Short fund. The fund, launched on 18 November, with assets of EUR15m, invests in Euroepan equities. It is managed with a long/short strategy with a long bias of about 30%. From 2004 to 2014, Cuau was co-manager of the Moneta Long/Short fund at Moneta AM. Lacordaire, for his part, from 2007 to 2012 managed a proprietary long/short portfolio at Crédit Agricole CIB.

ECM Asset Management, the multi-asset class traditional and alternative credit management specialist owned by Wells Fargo Asset Management, announces the launch of an infrastructure debt fund, the ECM European Infrastructure Debt fund. In order to secure a strong deal flow, ECM has entered into a strategic partnership with a leading European player allowing unique access to a large number of diverse transactions in Europe and UK on a first right of refusal basis. The fund’s strategy is to acquire infrastructure debt assets on a ‘buy-and-hold’ basis creating a highly diversified portfolio of high value/low risk assets. The countries that the Fund will invest in will be the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain and other selected countries in the EU. The sectors that will be invested in include renewable energy, social infrastructure, transport, power, oil & gas, telecoms and utilities and the asset class invested in will be limited/non-recourse debt and utility debt. The asset type invested in will be floating rate with flexibility to invest in fixed rate debt (up to 20%).

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } As of the end of 2013, the number of structures which offer family office services in Italy increased to 120, compared with 117 the previous year, Funds People Italia reports, citing a Magstat study of private banking in Italy. Its entities have assets of EUR56m under management for more than 13,000 clients.

Investment professionals are failing to deliver alpha and investors are failing to achieve their long-term goals, according to new research published today by the Center for Applied Research, the independent think-tank of State Street. The research, titled “The Folklore of Finance: How Beliefs and Behaviors Sabotage Success in the Investment Management Industry” explores the concept of investment success and the impact of common beliefs and biases within the investment management industry. While more than 60 percent of the industry’s capital is spent on the pursuit of alpha, a growing skepticism has emerged. Only 53 percent of individual investors and 42 percent of investment professionals believe that alpha production is primarily driven by skill. In addition, when questioned about whether they were prepared to meet their investment goals, only 12 percent of individual investors could say with confidence that they were. “The models for success in the investment management industry are broken,” said Kelly McKenna, global head of the Center for Applied Research, State Street. “Investment professionals pay significantly more attention to activities that they believe will contribute value to alpha. While some of these are helpful, many are of limited value. True success includes not only achieving alpha, it also requires helping investors achieve their long-term goals, sustainably, over time.” Influencing this are the shared beliefs, rooted in human bias, that govern both investment professionals’ and investors’ behaviors. The report investigates those beliefs, which can be broken down into three major categories, two of which can be described as conscious and one that is unconscious and hidden. Individual investors and investment professionals are overly reliant on past performance when making investment decisions despite the fact that past performance is not an indication of future results. They also consistently fail to focus on long-term goals when evaluating short-term performance. Nearly 60% of investment professionals use a timeframe of just one to three years to assess performance. In addition, more than 60% of individual investors say they would consider moving to a more conservative investment strategy if their portfolio declined by 20% in a year, of those 90% would make the change in less than three months. Only 22% of institutional investors define success based on achieving long-term investment goals and instead, the vast majority (63%) measure success against benchmarks. Additionally, less than 30% of individual investors define success as achieving their long- term goals and instead cite implausible or irrelevant success metrics like making gains and having no losses, outperforming the market and achieving short-term investment goals. The majority of portfolio managers surveyed exhibit an unconscious ‘self-attribution’ bias. Without realizing it, they credit themselves for their success, but blame external factors for their failures. Similarly, individual investors demonstrate significant overconfidence in their own abilities. Seventy-seven percent of asset managers and 47% of intermediaries cited “experience and analytical process” as the top reason they outperform, but when asked to explain underperformance, were more likely to blame market conditions, clients’ expectations or the senior management of companies they invested in. Nearly two-thirds of individual investors believe their current level of financial sophistication is advanced; however, when asked to complete a financial literacy test, the global financial literacy average score was just 61%. Despite this, 93% of individual investors believe they should make investment decisions themselves and two-thirds think their best investment was entirely their own decision. “While conscious and unconscious biases are one of the primary reasons investment professionals and individual investors are failing to achieve true success, an awareness of those biases is part of the solution,” said Suzanne Duncan, global head of research, Center for Applied Research, State Street. “It’s time to rewrite the story. By reconditioning the industry’s behavior, there’s an opportunity to reinforce the values necessary to achieve true success.”

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } The Italian asset management firm Anima Holding and the Italian bank Banca Popolare di Puglia e Basilicata have signed a strategic partnership agreement in asset management, Bluerating reports. The agreement, for a duration of eight years, will provide Anima with preferential access to the distribution network of the Italian bank. The bank, which has 137 branches, largely in the south of Italy, has posted indirect inflows of EUR2.5bn in 2013, becomes the fourth strategic partner of Anima.

S&P Dow Jones Indices has created the S&P 500 Low Volatility Enhanced Index adding to its growing range of factor-based indices. The index aims to balance low volatility, yield and liquidity, and has been designed to be an investable index. The index has been licensed to Deutsche Bank. The S&P 500 Low Volatility Enhanced Index is comprised of 50 constituents from the S&P 500. The constituents that have a dividend yield less than the S&P 500 are removed from the selection list. The remaining stocks are then ranked by their beta, which measures the sensitivity of the stocks’ returns relative to the S&P 500. The 50 stocks with the lowest beta are selected for the Index.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } According to Das Investment, Lupus Alpha has recruited a team of four specialists in collateralized loan obligations (CLO). Norbert Adam, Klaus Ripper, Michael Hombach and Stamatia Hagenstein will join the firm from Mainfirst Asset Management. The four have been working together for more than 10 years. In 2015, Lupus Alpha plans to launch several CLO products, Das Investment adds.

Asset managers plan to either increase or maintain the number of salespeople for sales teams to target European institutional clients, finds a new Cerulli report entitled European Marketing and Sales Organizations 2014. Not one manager surveyed by Cerulli plans to decrease headcount. More specifically, a total of 33% of managers say they will increase the number of salespeople to target the United Kingdom institutional market. And 22% will hire more people to target this channel in France, Germany, Benelux, and the Nordics. Cerulli research also finds that fully 100% of managers in its proprietary survey targeted institutional investors in Germany in 2014. And 83% also aimed for these clients in both the United Kingdom and Switzerland. At the same time 78% and 72% of managers surveyed also pitched to institutional investors in Benelux and the Nordics respectively. And 67% also targeted France and Italy, while 33% tried to woo Spanish investors.The institutional channel is most likely to have a dedicated country-level sales team to support it, according to Cerulli. “Institutional can be grouped by region, but only to a degree. Market size by assets and players is the determining factor, rather than a common language or culture. Compulsory Nordic schemes, Dutch industry schemes, and UK company schemes get the biggest allocations of staff. Real cross-border is a distant dream“.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } Rodolfo de Benedetti has taken a share in Decalia Asset Management, the new asset management boutique founded by Alfredo Piacentini, former founder and partner at Banque Syz, the Italian website Finance Community reports. De Benedetti was a member of the board of directors at the Swiss bank for more than 10 years. He will hold a stake in the new firm, and will have a seat on the board of directors. Decalia AM is also home to Isabella Pedrazzini (ex-Lombard Odier & Cie), Gabriel Gubener (ex-Atlas Capital) and Yves Rochat (ex-Syz), the Italian website reports. The firm is based in Geneva and has EUR850m in assets.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } Lazard Asset Management is increasing its global multi asset capabilities with the recruitment of Rupert Hope as director and portfolio manager. He will be based in New York, and will be help grow the firm’s Emerging Market and Global Multi Asset solution platform, according to a statement. Hope has more than 20 years of experience in the asset mangaement sector. Before joining Lazard AM, he was managing director and co-head of Global Equity Distribution at Renaissance Capital, where he built a global emerging markets equity research platform. Before that, he worked at Deutsche Bank as managing director in charge of management of various teams dedicated to emerging market equities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } The number of multi-millionaires has set a new record in 2014, with 211,275 individuals identified worldwide as of the end of June, including 6,635 in Switzerland, according to a study released on 19 November by the Wealth X company, based in Singapore, in partnership with UBS. Their total global wealth totals nearly USD30trn. By annual comparison, the community of high net worth individuals has risen by 6%, while their wealth has increased by 7%. In the next five years, the group is expected to grow to 250,000. Europe no longer dominates the rankings, but is also hitting a peak. Betwen July 2013 and June 2014, the European continent gained an additional 3,755 multi-millionaires, for a total of 61,820. Their cumulative wealth has risen 8.9% in twelve months to USD8.355trn. North America has returned to the top of the rankings in 2014, with 74,864 high net worth individuals, and more than USD10trn in assets. The United States remains the country with the most large fortunes, with over 69,560. China, by comparison, takes second place, with 11,070 ultra-high net worth individuals, out of a total of more than 46,600 in Asia. In the European market, the top three, in order, are Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } Germany is the champion of Europe for open architecture, according to the consulting firm Indefi Market Research. Assets in open architecture total EUR215bn, excluding strategic partnerships. According to Indefi, the German market is characterised by the predominace of the retail/fund sellers” segment (fund distribution), which represents nearly two thirds of assets in open architecture. Richard Bruyère, chairman of Indefi Market Research, says that “the market dynamics of fund distribution in Germany have been reversed in the past few years. Traditional distribution channels appear less attractive. The new pillars of open architecture are now the new client segments which have emerged since the crisis, such as independent portfolio managers, insurance companies, and probably also online distributors.” In this context, major changes are to be expected.

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; } The US ETF specialist WisdomTree has announced the launch of two new UCITS ETFS listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), bringing the number of tracker funds listed on the LSE in the past four weeks to six. These include two funds focused on emerging markets: the WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity Income Ucits ETF (DEM) and WisdomTree Emerging Markets SmallCap Dividend Ucits EFT (DGSE).

La Securities and Exchange Commission américaine a approuvé mercredi à l’unanimité une nouvelle règles qui oblige les marchés réglementés, les plates-formes de trading alternatives et les dark pools à présenter des mesures pour assurer la continuité de leur service en cas de problème, tel qu’un bug technique. La précédente règle se fondait sur le volontariat. La SEC tire les leçons de la gestion catastrophique par le Nasdaq de l’introduction en Bourse de Facebook.

ECM Asset Management, filiale spécialisée dans la gestion d’actifs de Wells Fargo, a annoncé hier le lancement d’un fonds spécialisé sur la dette de projets d’infrastructures en Europe, avec un objectif de collecte de 750 millions d’euros auprès d’investisseurs institutionnels. Le fonds, d’une durée de vie de 15 ans, investira en Grande-Bretagne, en Allemagne, en France, en Belgique, aux Pays-Bas, en Italie et en Espagne.

A dix jours du référendum sur ses réserves en or, le franc suisse a chuté à 0,009 point seulement du plancher de 1,20 contre euro fixé par la BNS.

La société de gestion pourrait débourser 300.000 euros en raison de défaillances dans la prévention d'un conflit d'intérêts mettant en cause l'un de ses gérants.

Les minutes de la dernière réunion montrent un accroissement des divergences au sein de ses membres sur l'évolution des prix à moyen terme.

Alors que la Fed laissait présager fin octobre un état d’esprit nettement positif, les minutes montrent que les débats ont été nombreux.