L’Agence Nationale pour les Chèques-Vacances (ANCV) qui avait lancé un appel d’offres sur l’obligataire le 6 novembre 2012, vient de sélectionner quatre asset managers pour gérer 5 FCP dédiés. Axa IM et Natixis AM vont gérer chacun un FCP obligataire ISR zone euro 3 à 5 ans, Allianz Global Investors et Natixis AM vont gérer chacun un FCP obligataire ISR zone euro, avec un horizon de 1 à 3 ans, et enfin OFI se voit confier la gestion d’un FCP monétaire ISR zone euro (6-18 mois). Ces 5 fonds devraient représenter à terme (en 2014) 650 millions d’euros d’encours, soit 50% de l’actif global de l’ANCV. Rappelons que l’ANCV travaillait depuis 4 ans avec 3 sociétés externes pour la gestion de 3 FCP dédiés : BNP Paribas AM (FCP ANCV Performance ISR zone euro 3-5 ans), Natixis AM (FCP Martre Placement zone euro 1-3 ans) et Groupama AM (FCP ANCV Engagement ISR zone euro monétaire).
Selon un sondage réalisé par CSA pour le quotidien et l’Institut Montaigne, 57% des Français interrogés sont en faveur d’un abandon définitif de l’écotaxe, alors qu’ils ne sont que 33% à préconiser un maintien du projet dans une version amendée après concertation avec les acteurs économiques et politiques. Une seule catégorie socio-professionnelle considère que l’exécutif est dans le vrai, à 54 %, celle des cadres et des professions libérales A l’opposé, près de 3 employés sur quatre (73 %) et deux ouvriers sur trois (66 %) lui conseillent d’abandonner la partie. Les Français en activité estiment presque aussi massivement (61 %) qu’il vaut mieux renoncer.
Le déficit public de l’Australie devrait s’élever à 50 milliards de dollars australiens (35,3 milliards d’euros) pour l’exercice budgétaire en cours, soit un niveau 50% plus élevé qu’indiqué lors de la dernière campagne législative, rapporte l’Australian Financial Review sans indiquer ses sources. Ces nouvelles prévisions devraient être dévoilées vers la mi-décembre, précise le journal.
L’euro a perdu jusqu'à deux centimes face au dollar après l’annonce surprise d’une réduction de 0,25 point du taux refi de la BCE . Après être passée brièvement sous les 1,33, la monnaie unique a repris une partie de ses pertes et traitait vers 17h30 juste sous les 1,34.
Le produit intérieur brut (PIB) a augmenté de 2,8% en rythme annualisé sur la période juillet-septembre, sa meilleure performance depuis le troisième trimestre 2012, après 2,5% au deuxième trimestre de cette année, a annoncé le département du Commerce. Les économistes interrogés par Reuters prévoyaient en moyenne un taux de croissance annualisé de 2,0%. Les stocks des entreprises ont contribué à la croissance à hauteur de 0,83 point de pourcentage.
Mark Little, associate director of the discretionary sales team at Henderson Global Investors, will be leaving the firm at the end of the year, Investment week reports. His clients will be taken over by Matthew Frost and William Hamilton, with the assistance of Simon Hillenbrand. Little had previously been at New Star, a firm which was acquired by Henderson.
Old Mutual Global Investors has posted net subscriptions of GBP300m in third quarter, due to strong inflows to Old Mutual UK Alpha funds, managed by the fund star Richard Buxton, Fund Web reports. The firm now has GBP15.2bn in assets under management, an increase of 10% compared with the beginning of the year.
Max Nardulli, head of international sales and distribution at Cheyne Capital, one of the oldest hedge funds in London, has left the firm after four years, Financial News has learned. He had been responsible for sales of the Cheyne product range abroad.
For an undisclosed sum, private equity investor 3i has sold its majority stake in the private client investment group Bestinvest, whose assets total GBP5bn, to funds from Permira. The transaction is expected to be completed in first quarter 2014.Peter Hall, CEO of Bestinvest, says that Permira is willing to support the growth strategy of management, and that the introduction of RDR regulation offers Bestinvest excellent opportunities for both organic and external growth.
The British Royal London group has reported growth in its assets under management of 48% in the first nine months of the year, compared with the end of December 2012, to GBP73.5bn, according to figures released by the firm. This development is related largely to the acquisition in August this year of The Cooperative Asset Management, which represents assets under management of GBP20.4bn. Inflows at Royal London Asset Management, for their part, totalled GBP1.45bn in nine months. Retirement activities also contributed, with growth of 28% in nine months, to GBP2.2bn.
Skanska Property Poland, the Polish affiliate of the Skanska group, has sold the office property Atrium 1 in Warsaw for about EUR94m to the German firm Deka Immobilien.The property, with 18,000 square metres, which is slated for completion in spring 2014, is already 75% leased, to Zachodni WBK bank, among others. It will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund Deka-ImmobilienGlobal, for which it represents the first investment in Poland, although over the long term most of the portfolio is expected to be placed in properties outside Europe.
Sparinvest has launched a new sub fund in Sparinvest SICAV-SIF, Nordic High Yield Value Bonds.This new strategy has already attracted a EUR 60-million mandate from a major international institutional client but the SIF structure permits other institutional investors with a minimum investment of EUR 15m to buy in and obtain a portfolio of Nordic High Yield securities selected using Sparinvest’s value bonds process.The Nordic region is defined as Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and their associated territories. The Nordic High Yield Value Bonds will invest in fixed income and money market instruments issued by corporations either domiciled in or having a major part of their business in the Nordic region, as well as companies domiciled in but having a major part of their business outside the Nordic region.The launch portfolio will contain a diverse blend of over 50 securities.
According to sources familiar with the matter cited by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Stability Oversight Board (FSOB) has undertaken an analysis of the risks run by the asset management selector, and particularly the largest actors in this area, BlackRock and Fidelity Investments. The objective is to determine whether institutions of this type could be considered “systemically important”, but the Board is not close to have reached a verdict on this point.
The Dutch regulator, the Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM), has awarded Double Diviend, an investment consulting firm based in Amsterdam, an extension on its license, which allows it to manage investments, Fonds Nieuws reports.Double Dividend offers a socially responsible investment portfolio in equities, bonds and alternative assets, either directly or via the best funds from external managers, with a maximal commission of 1%, including VAT.In April, the firm also launched a sustainable development equity fund, which has EUR8m in assets, the Double Dividend Equity Fund, managed by Ward Kastrop.
Das Investment reports that Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM), has mandated Aladdin Enterprise Investment System under a contract to update its entire IT system for investment processes, from securities analysis through to execution and settlement, including portfolio and risk management.
The German financial services provider MLP (EUR22bn in assets) on 6 November announced that, due to a downturn in activities in retirement insurance and health insurance, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for 2013 will be lower than the projected EUR65m. For 2012, they totalled EUR74.1m, compared with EUR17.3m in 2011.The corridor of EUR65-78m for EBIT in 2014 and 2015 has not been modified.In January-September, EBIT fell to EUR12.3m, from EUR26.4m in the corresponding period of 2012.
ING Investment Management has published stable assets for third quarter, at EUR176.1bn, compared with EUR176bn the previous quarter, but down by EUR3.8bn in one year, according to quarterly results for the ING group. Asset management in third quarter suffered net redemptions in Europe and Asia of EUR0.4bn in total. In detail, assets under retail management totalled EUR46.4bn, compared with EUR45.3bn in the previous quarter, and EUR43.2bn one year ago. Assets under management for institutional clients total EUR56.5bn, compared with EUR56.3bn in second quarter 2013, and EUR61.2bn one year ago.
Oliver Bolitho, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management in Asia-Pacific, will be retiring at the end of the year, after 15 years at the firm, according to an internal memo seen by Financial News. After his resignation, he will become an advising director.
Lazard Asset Management has launched a strategy dedicated to emerging market equities, the Lazard Emerging Markets Core Equity Portfolio, which aims to earn returns with reduced volatility. The strategy comes in addition to the emerging market equity range, which includes relative value, relative growth, debt and multi-asset strategies. The portfolio is managed by Stephen Russell, Thomas Boyle and Paul Rogers, who have been working on emerging market strategies for more than 10 years. The team use a flexible approach, which allows for firms with different capital structures to be systematically evaluated. The portfolio is managed on the basis of an existing strategy launched in 2009. As of 30 September, assets under management at Lazard Asset Management and affiliated companies totalled USD176bn.
UniCredit will launch a real estate fund, which will be managed by Torre SGR, a firm which is 62.5% controlled by Fortress and 37.5% by Pioneer Investments, the asset management firm of the banking group, Investment Europe reports. The fund has initial capital of EUR100m, and will invest primarily in private real estate and commercial and luxury properties in Milan and Rome.
A few days after the announcement of the launch of the PowerShares China A Share Portfolio (ticker: CHNA, see Newsmanagers of 14 October) by Invesco PowerShres, two other providers, DeAWM and KraneShares, have launched their own ETFs of Chinese A-class shares listed in continental China, in Shanghai and Shenzhen, on the US market.Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) with Harvest Global Investors is offering the db x-trackers Harvets CSI 300 China A Shares Fund (ASHR), listed on NYSE (see Newsmanagers of 5 November), which charges 1.08%, listed on NYSE Arca. The fund replciates the China Securities Index 300.On the same platform, KraneShares, in partnership with the Chinese Bosera Asset Management, has launched the KraneShares Bosera MSCI China A Share ETF (KBA), which replicates the MSCI China A index, and which charges 1.10%.
Cogefi Gestion has recruited Côme Simon de Tinguy as representative for external distribution. The new recruit, who will aim to strengthen the development of the professional client base, will be more specifically resopnsible for sales of the fund range to private bankers, multi-managers, family offices and online brokers. De Tinguy had since 2008 been head of sales to portfolio management firms at Financière de Champlain.
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing has announced that it won a global custody mandate for USD6.5bn from the New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS). The investor services unit at BNY Mellon will provide custody, accounting, currency, cash management and risk services.NHRS has about 85,000 members, and works for 475 employers, the State of New Hampshire, municipal governments, school districts, counties, etc.
M&G Investments in early October recruited Nicola Mutinelli for its Italian team as sales manager, Milano Finanza reports. He will report to Matteo Astolfi, director. He had previously worked at Anima SGR as relationship manager. At the same time, Lorna Neri has been promoted to business development manager. As of 30 June, M&G had assets in Italy of EUR6.6bn.
The new large clients and investor solutions (GBIS) unit at the Société Générale group, which includes financing and investment banking and the private banking, asset management and investor services unit, has posted growth in its revenues of 7.2% in third quarter. Asstes under management at the private bank total EUR83.9bn as of the end of Sepember, due to net inflows of EUR0l8bn for the quarter, largely driven by France and Asia, a market effect of EUR0.7bn, and a currency effect of EUR0.1bn. However, the sale of activities in Japan on 1 October generated a perimeter effect of -EUR2.2bn. Investor Services activities have seen their assets under custody rise 7.7% to EUR3.609trn compared with the end of September 2012, and their assets under administration are up 11.6% in the same period, to EUR500bn. In finance and investment banking activities, “Lyxor has posted an incrase in its assets under management, thanks to significant inflows in the quarter as part of an extension of its product range.”
Choi Chong-suk, chairman and CEO of the Korean sovereign wealth fund, the Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), has resigned from his position for personal reasons, Asian Investor reports. The chief investment officer, Lee Donk-ik, will replace him for the interim. A replacement for Choi, who had been in office since July 2011, will be found by the end of the year, Asian Investor predicts. As of 31 March, the sovereign wealth fund had assets of USD61.6bn.
Fabrice Cuchet, a member of the executive board and head of alternative management at Dexia Asset Management, on 6 November announced that the asset management firm “has chosen a double UCITS/AIFM license for its asset management firms based in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and will submit AIFM applications to this effect in the first few months of 2014.” The decision is being taken for practical reasons, since moving to AIFM now would require reporting from early next year, which would represent a disproportionate workload.For Dexia AM, there will be about 200 UCITS funds and 100 AIFM funds. Clearing partners will have to be selected by second half next year and existing ISDA contracts will have to be updated with 15 counterparties.The conclusion of the transaction by which New York Life acquires Dexia AM is expected to come by the end of the year, and the European asset management firm will change names.Cuchet also says that net subscriptions totalled about EUR300m for alternative management at Dexia AM since the beginning of the year, with acceleration once news of the sale got out. Inflows were primarily concentrated on long/short credit, global macro and CTA strategies. Alternative assets as of the end of October totalled about EUR4.5bn.
Natixis, which on Wednesday, 6 November unveiled its results for third quarter, has posted strong growth in revenues for core professions, up 10% compared with third quarter last year, to EUR.597bn. In the Spain unit, asset management has posted record net inflows of EUR11.2bn, driven mostly by the United States, and life insurance activities, which were dynamic.