James Senior, former head of marketing at Ignis, has joined Henderson Global Investors as consultant on marketing issues, Fundweb reports. Senior left Ignis in September 2012.

SEI Investments has announced the appointment of Kevin Bull as director in charge of development of strategic alliances, and Simon Pinner as director of sales, and the distribution team of the UK Asset Management unit.Bull previously worked at Hearthstone Investments, while Pinner was previously at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP).Pinner will be responsible for about 50 British consulting firms, and will also assist with the team’s expansion in Europe.

As of the end of December, assets under management by Spanish individual pension funds totalled EUR51.75bn, compared with EUR49.9bn one year previously. They underwent net outflows of EUR824.75m, but market effects were positive by more than EUR2.67bn, meaning that the increase in assets, at nearly EUR1.85bn, represented 3.71% for 2012 as a whole, according to statistics from VDOS Stochastics.As for investment funds, the top three asset management firms by assets are BBVA, with EUR9.14bn (+8.6% for the year), Santander, with EUR7.33bn (+5.1%), and Caixa, with nearly EUR7.13bn (-3.6%).However, BBVA shows net inflows of EUR309.3m, Santander has seen net outflows of EUR57m, and inflows at Caixa totalled EUR664.3m.VDOS reports that two products from BBVA lead, one for assets, the BBVA Proteccion 2015 (EUR1.71bn), and one for net subscriptions, the BBVA Tranquilidad 16V, with EUR110.2m. However, BBVA Proteccion 2014 is also the fund which has seen the heaviest net outflows (EUR192.9m).

En vue de les faire commercialiser en Espagne par sa filiale locale de banque privée, le Banco Alcalá, l’andorran Crèdit Andorrà a fait enregistrer par la CNMV les neuf compartiments de sa sicav luxembourgeoise Crediinvest, rapporte Funds People. Il s’agit des fonds Money Market Euro, Money Market Dollar, Fixed Income Euro, Fixed Income Dollar, Big Cap Value, Spanish Value, International Value, US American Value et Sustainability.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, launched on 22 January 1993 by State Street, which goes by the NyseArca ticker SPY, on Tuesday, 22 January celebrated its 20th birthday. Celebration is justified, according to IndexUniverse, since the product was the first ETF listed in the United States, and it is now the larget ETF in the world, with assets of USD125bn.SPY accounts for about 9% of the USD1.403trn now invested in ETFs, It is among the least costly ETFs on the market, with total TER of 0.0945%, while the TER of its direct competitors, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and iShares Core S&P 500 ETF are 0.05% and 0.07%, respectively.

Deka Immobilien has acquired a commercial real estate property under construction located in the avenue de France in Pars from Nexity. The property (7,200 square metres), which is slated for completion in September 2013, will be added to the portfolio of an institutional real estate fund.

Edhec on 18 January published its estimate of the performance of hedge funds and funds of hedge funds in December and 2012 as a whole. Last year, only funds specialised in short-selling showed losses, of 3.94%. For 2012 as a whole, that strategy has lost 19.3%, while CTA has lost 2.3%. The S&P 500 index posted gains of 16% last year.However, the other categories all show gains, both for December and for the year as a whole, with the best results for 2012 as a whole for distressed securities and emerging markets, with respective perforamnce of 13.2% and 9.9%, followed by event-driven (+9.6%) and relative value (+9.2%).Overall, maximal return discrepancy last year totalled 32.5 percentage points. Edhec also states that since January 2001, distressed securities and emerging markets have posted average annual gains of 10.4% and 10.1%, while only dedicated short bias showed losses (of an average of 0.8%).The only strategy which shows a Sharpe ratio of higher than 1 is distressed securities (1.03), while two categories have a negative ratio: dedicated short bias (-0.35) and funds of funds (-0.09).

Assets in hedge funds rose by USD60bn in fourth quarter to a record USD2.25trn, according to the most recent statistics from the HFR Global Hedge Fund Industry Report.Net inflows totalled USD3.4bn in fourth quarter, bringing inflows for the year as a whole to USD34.4bn.The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index gained 1.3% in fourth quarter, and 8.2% for the year as a whole.HFR also states that it has launched the HFRU indices, which track the performance of UCITS-compliant hedge funds. The HFRU Hedge Fund Composite Index gained 4.9% in 2012.

BNP Paribas has agreed to spin off its private equity activity dedicated to green energies, the Financial Times reports. The team, which has adopted the name Glenmont Partners, will continue to have the bank as an investor in its EUR437m fund, raised in 2010. The bank has also agreed to sell the fund to its clients. Since 2007, the team at Glenmont Partners has invested over EUR1bn in 12 projects.

CalSTRS, the second-largest pension fund in the United States, has identified two more makers of arms in its portfolio, following the shooting in a US school last month, Financial Times Fund Management reports. They are Sturm & Ruger and Smith & Wesson. “These stakes represent less than 10% of our daily equity trades,” says Ricardo Duran of CalSTRS. They come in addition to 2.4% of Freedom Group, the maker of the weapons used in the massacre, which is in the process of being sold by its owner, Cerberus, due to pressure from CalSTRS.

California-based Hennesy Advisors has declared net profits for the quarter ending on 31 December of USD0.77m, compared with USD0.15m in the corresponding period of 2011, while assets at the end of 2012 totalled USD3.02bn, compared with USD780.9m one year previously. Asset increases largely come due to the acqusition of FBR Funds on 26 October.

Deka Immobilian has acquired the office and retail property Alte Hauptpost in Erfurt, a 15,000 suqre metres property, for its institutional real estate fund Deka S-Property Fund N°2. The vendor is Aberdeen Immobilien KAG, and the sale price has not been disclosed.

Ian Spreadbury will be the manager of the new Fidelity MoneyBuilder Income Reduced Duration fund, an institutional product available with a minimal subscription of GBP1m. The fund, aimed at wealth managers, will be an OEIC master-feeder fund which complies with the UCITS IV directive, and which is slated for launch by the end of the month, according to various British media.The manager will be able to use swaps and futures as an overlay to reduce the duration of the benchmark portfolio to two years (7.8 years for the MoneyBuilder Income), which is estimated to be the neutral point on the return curve for risk.Like the MoneyBuilder Income (GBP3.3bn), of which it is an alternative version, and which is managed by the same manager, the new fund will charge a management commission of 0.8%, and will carry no front-end or withdrawal fees.

Sam Vecht and Henry Wigan will be responsible for managing a new emerging market absolute return fund for BlackRock in the United Kingdom, Investment Week reports.The portfolio of the long/short product will include a total of 40 to 70 equity positions on firms with market capitalisations of over USD1bn, and its benchmark will be the Libor 3-month. The management commission is set at 1%.

David Driver, who has been network director for three years, has been promoted to the position of managing director of Standard Life Wealth, and will be responsible for discretionary funds, Fundweb reports. In his new role, Driver will report to CEO Richard Charnock.

According to various sources in the British media, the Swiss firm LGT Capital Partners has won a “multi-alternative” mandate on GBP280m in assets from the pension fund of Hertfordshire City Council. It is the largest mandate for alternative investment (nine asset classes) ever awarded by a British public pension fund.

In its monthly report for January, the Bundesbank states that investment funds whose shares are primarily held by retail investor have a more pronounced tendency than other funds to use subscriptions to build a mattress of liquidity in order to be able to better confront redemptions in periods of increased tension.The German central bank also estimates that from the beginning of 2007 until the end of September 2012, institutional investors placed EUR237bn in new money in institutional funds (Spezialfonds), with insurers being the most active in this area.

Bradesco Asset Management, the asset management affiliate of one of the largest banks in Brazil, has received a license to release its Luxembourg-registered Sicav Bradesco Global Funds in France, according to information received by Newsmanagers. The product range from the asset management firm, which is currently composed of three funds, is focused on its home market, Brazil. The largest product by assets (USD93.5m) is the Brazilian Equities Mid Small Caps, a Brazilian small and midcaps fund. Currently, its manager has a preference for shares which benefit from economic growth in the country. The second-largest fund by size if the Brazilian Hard Currency Bond Fund USD, a fund of Brazilian government bonds denominated in US dollars. “The choice of the US currency allows the fund to avoid a 6% tax on foreign investments in local bond funds,” Bradesco AM says. Lastly, the third fund is also a bond fund, but this one denominated in local currency. With assets of USD33.1m, the Brazilian Fied Income fund invests in Brazilian debt, issued by public and private issuers. It is also exempt from the 6% tax. With its first funds licensed for sale in France (two others will follow), Bradesco AM will be able to serve France from London, where the firm has constructed a team dedicated to international development. Ileana Salas, head for Europe and the Middle East, will be responsible for the French market. This effort in France comes as part of a foreign expansion by Bradesco AM. The funds have also recently been licensed for sale in the United Kingdom. The strategy was seeded in 2009 with the creation of the Luxembourg Sicav, and was followed in late 2010 by the opening of an office in London. The Sicav has about USD200m in assets, which is still a drop in the water compared with total assets under management by the Brazilian asset management firm, which had USD141bn as of the end of December, and has many pension funds among its clients.

Net inflows of EUR4.5bn in 2012 allowed Carmignac Gestion to offset poor results in 2011, when the asset management firm based in the Place Vendôme in Paris posted net outflows of over EUR6bn, of which EUR2.5bn were from the Carmignac Patrimoine fund, the firm’s flagship product, alone. Assets under management at the firm have returned well above EUR50bn as of the end of December 2012, at EUR53.7bn, compared with EUR45bn twelve months previously.This increase includes market effects, which, as an example, bring assets in the Carmignac Patrimoine fund above EUR28bn, with gains of 5.42% last year. For its part, Carmignac Emerging Patrimoine, which had EUR230m as of the end of 2011, as of the end of 2012 had assets under management of EUR1.8bn, after gains of 14.43%.

The Japanese Mizuho Financial Group last year decided not to invest as much as USD500m with SAC, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bank made the decision at a time when the US asset management firm was facing an investigation into insider trading allegations. SAC has seen large redemptions. This quarter, the firm will have to redeem USD1bn. An investment from Mizuho would have made it able to compensate for these redemptions and to attract other Asian investors.

The Hong Kong-based asset management firm Pacific Group has decided to convert one third of its hedge fund assets to physical gold, Bloomberg reports. The firm, founded by a former PaineWebber trader, is betting on a rise in the price of gold due to accommodating moneary policy on the part of central banks.Pacific Group has bought USD35m worth of gold ingots.

Following the recent opening of representative offices of Pictet Aset Management (PAM) in Brussels and Amsterdam dedicated to fund sales, Hervé Thiard, CEO in charge of the institutional market for Pictet in France, is also becoming director for the Benelux region. Assets in Paris totalled EUR3.1bn as of 31 December 2012.New offices come as additions to the existing marketing services of PAM in Luxembourg, the banking headquarters of the Pictet group in the European Union. In his new role, Thiard will be supported by Bruno Hellemans, who since 2007 has been operational head of the investment fund market in the Benelux countries.PAM has not disclosed its asset levels in Benelux, which Newsmanagers understands, is higher than its levels in Paris.

In April, Oliver Reisinger will join MainFirst as head of fixed income, Siegfried Jachinski, a board member, has told the Börsen-Zeitung. Reisinger had since 2011 been head of sales & marketing at HSH Nordbank.Mainfirst is planning to double the personnel in its fixed income operation in two years, to 40 people.

Lars Albert, director of distribution for Germany at Henderson Global Investors, will be joining Baring Asset Management in the same role, Das Investment reports.

Emerging markets equity and bond funds maintained their strong start to the New Year during the second week of January, absorbing another USD7.2 billion between them and taking their combined inflows for the first 16 days of 2013 over the USD18 billion mark. During the same period last year they had taken in just over USD4 billion, according to EPFR.The flows in emerging markets equity funds helped all EPFR global-tracked equity funds outgain their bond fund counterparts for the fifth straight week. The margin was, however, much slimmer than the previous week’s USD15.6 billion gap in favor of equity funds. Those funds took in a net USD7.19 billion during the week ending Jan. 16, with roughly 20% of those flows going to dividend equity funds versus 8% the previous week, while bond funds attracted a 10 week high of USD6.95 billion.Equity funds did attract retail money for the second week running, the first time that has happened since the second half of April, 2011.

Aberdeen Immobilien KAG on 21 January announced that its DEGI Europa fund, which must be liquidated by 30 September 2013, will on 25 January issue its fifth redemption. It will be paid at a rate of EUR0.60 per share.The next semi-annual payment will take place in July.The decision to liquidate the open-ended real estate fund was taken on 22 October 2010.

Selon l’Office national des statistiques, les emprunts publics de l’Etat britannique, hors interventions dans le secteur financier, ont atteint 15,4 milliards de livres (18,4 milliards d’euros) le mois dernier, contre 14,8 milliards en décembre 2011 et 15,2 milliards de livres attendu en moyenne par les économistes.

Philip Robert-Tissot, responsable chez Citigroup des fusions-acquisitions pour la région Europe-moyen-Orient et Afrique, sera le futur directeur général du Takeover Panel, l’autorité indépendante chargée du contrôle des offres publiques en Grande-Bretagne. Il prendra ses fonctions le 1er avril. Il remplacera Robert Gillespie, en place depuis septembre 2010.

L’indice ZEW, qui mesure le sentiment des investisseurs en Allemagne, a progressé bien plus qu’attendu en janvier à 31,5, un niveau qu’il n’avait plus touché depuis mai 2010, après 6,9 en décembre. Les économistes interrogés par Reuters anticipaient en moyenne une amélioration nettement plus modeste, à 12,0. Selon l’institut l’optimisme des entrepreneurs pourrait très vite se traduire par une reprise de l’investissement.

Afin d’allonger la maturité de sa dette, le Trésor espagnol a lancé son premier nouvel emprunt à 10 ans depuis plus d’un an mardi, profitant d’un apaisement des tensions sur le marché obligataire des pays périphériques européens. Madrid a fixé à 365 points de base au-dessus de la courbe des swaps le spread définitif de son emprunt syndiqué à 10 ans, indique Reuters de source de marché. Le Trésor souhaiterait lever entre 3 et 4 milliards d’euros, voire davantage en fonction de la demande. Sur le marché secondaire, le rendement des obligations souveraines à 10 ans reculait en fin de matinée de deux points de base, à 5,144%. Barclays, BBVA, Citi, Goldman Sachs et Société générale devraient fixer dans la journée les conditions d'émission définitives. Lors de sa dernière opération comparable, en février 2012, Madrid a mis sur le marché un emprunt à 10 ans assorti d’un coupon de 5,85%.