P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Miaodan Wu, a former portfolio manager at SAC Capital Advisors, known as Doctor Wu, is preparing to launch his own hedge fund in Hong Kong, which will bet on swings in share prices, Hedge Week reports, citing Reuters. The hedge fund, entitled Bach Option, will be released in late 2013. Wu has recruited Henry Ondo, formerly of Citigroup.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Lars König has left Citigroup Global Markets Deutschland, where he had been a specialist in institutional sales for Germany and head of relationship management for pension funds, to join Schroders Germany as director of institutional sales for Germany and Austria, where he will report to Carlos Böhles. Axa Investment Managers Germany has also announced that it has added to its institutional sales team with the recruitment of Martin Köhler as senior institutional sales manager. Köhler will now report directly to Jörg Schomburg, director of institutional sales for Germany. The new recruit had served in the same role at Credit Suisse, after spending ten years as manager of a diversified fund at Deka.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Net redemptions from 2,137 European ETPs fell in MAY to USD0.3bn, compared with USD0.8bn in April (2,142 ETPs), which reduced net subscriptions in the first five months of this year to USD6.2bn, according to statistics from the BlackRock Institute. However, as of 31 May, assets in these products had increased to USD378.1bn, compared with USD376.8bn as of the end of April. Since the beginning of this year, they have increased by USD10.7bn. Of the top ten providers of European ETPs, only iShares and Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) saw net subscriptions in May, with USD1.8bn and USD0.3bn, respectively, while ComStage (Commerzbank) posted an equal balance of subscriptions and redemptions. The largest net outflows were from ETF Securities and Lyxor, with USD1.1bn and USD0.6bn, respectively. In the first five months of the year, iShares stands out with net inflows of USD8.3bn, followed by DeAWM, UBS and Source, which each had net inflows of USD0.6bn. However, ETF Securities and Lyxor posted net outflows of USD2.1bn and USD1.8bn, respectively.

Insight Investment, a UK fund manager part of the BNY Mellon Group, is enhancing its range of credit funds with the Insight Buy and Maintain Bond Fund. It offers investors exposure to a diversified range of global corporate bonds. It follows a tested investment process that has garnered GBP7 billion in institutional segregated assets since launch in 2009.The fund, managed by Adam Mossakowski, will only buy bonds that the manager believes to have sound fundamental investment prospects. It will limit sector, industry and issuer concentration following a strict set of criteria. The fund will also avoid what the manager believes to be unsuitable instrument types altogether, for example Tier 1 bank debt.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In a solid month of April for European funds, five asset management firms in Europe recorded net inflows of over EUR2bn, Lipper reports in its most recent study on the subject. Pimco leads, with inflows of EUR5.3bn. It is followed by Franklin Templeton (EUR4.4bn), which has posted strong activity in Italy, JP Morgan (EUR3.5bn), M&G (EUR2.6bn), and Axa (EUR2.4bn). In April, European investors continued to choose bond funds. Sales of these funds in Europe set a new monthly record for the month of a net EUR35.4bn, he largest total since Lipper began monitoring European fund flows in 2002. Global and flexible bond funds in particular attracted a total of EUR12.7bn. This allowed the fund sector as a whole to earn net subscriptions of EUR52.5bn. This is only the third time in the past five years that the monthly total has reached above EUR50bn, Lipper points out. Despite the success of bond funds, equity funds also posted inflows, of EUR2.8bn. However, it is notable that ETFs weighed down inflows to equities, with redemptions of EUR1.3bn.

Standard Life Investments has announced three new appointments to its European Business team, including a new director for Germany.Dirk Tiemann has been appointed as investment director for semi-institutional (wholesale) sales in Germany and Austria. He will be based in Frankfurt. Dirk Tiemann (44), who has worked in the German and Austrian investment markets since 1994, previously ran Tinion Capital, a company which distributed selected investment funds to German institutional and wholesale clients. Before that, he was head of banks and sales director at Fidelity; and ran the European Marketing and sales team at MainFirst Bank. He joins Frank Richter (also based in Frankfurt) who was appointed in January this year as investment director for institutional sales in Germany and Austria. Standard Life Investments has been active in the German market for over ten years.Standard life Investments has also appointed two new business development managers, based at its Edinburgh HQ - Alan Simpson for Germany and the Nordics, and Abilio da Rocha for Switzerland and Southern Europe – bringing the team to a total of 13 people. Alan Simpson (32) previously worked in sales roles at Scottish Widows and Standard Life Group, and has been at Standard Life Investments for three years.Abilio da Rocha (33) was a product specialist at Union Bancaire Privée in London and Switzerland, following an internship as a portfolio manager at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch in Geneva, and speaks six languages.Standard Life Investments SICAV funds have public distribution status in 14 European countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, the UK, Switzerland and Spain), with an AUM across Europe of EUR24.3bn Euros, over 11% of the total AUM of EUR211.8bn (31 March 2013).

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } At a time when investors are massively selling Japanese equities, George Soros, with his firm Soros Fund Management, is still buying, the Wall Street Journal reports. The firm sold most of its positions on Japanese equities in May, before the recent fall, according to a source familiar with the matter. But last week, it returned to the market.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Swiss firm Unigestion on 7 June announced its collaboration with the Centre for Asset Management Research (CAMR) at Cass Business School, a London-based establishment that ranks among the best producers of university financial research in Europe. As part of the collaboration, Unigestion displays its desire to explore and deepen its research programme and to produce new cutting-edge techniques in asset management. Via the research partnership, Unigestion will sponsor the annual CAMR conference in London; to be held in early December 2013, as well as a series of work seminars. Institutional investors, consultants and advisers from the industry will be invited to attend and participate in meetings to facilitate three-way dialogue and to discuss questions of application directly with asset managers and academics. Unigestion will also admit several Cass students for internships, in order to allow them to conduct more extensive research on topics that may be immediately applied as part of the investment process at the firm. Unigestion and Cass are assured that their collaboration will help to generate innovative new ideas in research and to encourage fruitful exchanges between the academic world and the world of asset management, in the interests of institutional investors. The first conference, on the subject of asset allocation between various segments of private equity, was held on Wednesday, 1 May at Cass Business School. The debate was introduced by Hanspeter Bader, head of private equity at Unigestion, and hosted by Edgar Miller, associate professor of private equity at Cass. The second conference will be held in September 2013.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Syz & Co has recruited Thomas Mesmin, a specialist in consumer products, to strengthen the team of manager Eric Bendahan, Citywire Global reports. He will work on the Oyster European Opportunities and Oyster European Selection funds. He had previously worked for Credit Agricole Cheuvreux in Paris.

Global bond funds started June by posting their biggest weekly outflows on record as fears the US Federal Reserve will start reining in its current quantitative easing program – QE3 – put pressure on bond prices and chased investors out of riskier asset classes, according to EPFR Global.The week ending June 5 saw USD12.53bn redeemed from global bond funds. High yield bond funds alone recorded outflows of over USD6bn, while emerging market bond funds saw outflows of over USD1bn.Redemptions from equity funds hit a 28 week high of USD6.21 billion. Emerging market equity funds in particular saw outflows of over USD4bn. Flows into money market funds were volatile, posting two daily swings in excess of USD17 billion before ending the week with net inflows of USD3.87 billion.

La contraction du PIB italien a été revue à 0,6% au premier trimestre contre une baisse estimée initialement à 0,5% par l’institut national des statistiques le 15 mai. Sur un an, la baisse du PIB atteint 2,4%. La récession en Italie devrait se poursuivre pour le huitième trimestre consécutif à fin juin, comme le laisse craindre le recul de la production industrielle en avril.

Selon une étude de Natixis Global Asset Management, 88% des investisseurs institutionnels français et 68% des européens s’attendent à des difficultés dans le financement de leur passif à long-terme au cours des trois prochaines années. Plus de 90% s’accordent à dire que la faiblesse des rendements et la baisse des performances représentent les principaux risques de portefeuille. 88% s’inquiètent également de l’impact de la volatilité sur leurs portefeuilles et 61 % considèrent que l’inflation sera source de difficultés au cours des trois prochaines années. L'étude a été menée auprès de 500 institutions, dont 40 en France, gérant 11.500 milliards de dollars.

La fragilité de la reprise américaine devrait encore pousser la Réserve fédérale à la prudence

La fragilité de la reprise américaine devrait encore pousser la Réserve fédérale à la prudence

La Cour constitutionnelle d'Allemagne se penche demain sur le programme de rachat de dette mais aussi sur le mécanisme européen de stabilité

La Cour constitutionnelle allemande tient mardi et mercredi des auditions sur le bien-fondé du programme de rachat de dette souveraine présenté par la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) en septembre dernier et auquel s'était opposée la banque centrale allemande, dirigée par Jens Weidmann.

Après avoir achevé la consolidation du rally initié à 3.585 points, l’indice devrait à nouveau viser les 4.170 points

Stefan Isaacs, gérant du fonds M&G European Corporate Bond

Les exportations ont enregistré en mai leur plus faible croissance depuis juillet 2012. La demande intérieure ne parvient pas à compenser

Les chiffres révisés à 4,1% au premier trimestre entraînait ce matin une hausse de 3% du Nikkei et un affaiblissement du yen à 98,24 contre dollar

Le groupe américain, qui détient 100% du capital depuis le début de l’année, a «entrepris une restructuration pour ramener la structure européenne à l’équilibre», indique au quotidien Emmanuel Laussinotte, le président de Raymond James European Securities, holding détenant Raymond James Euro Equities. 8 collaborateurs sur une trentaine à Paris seraient concernés, de source de marché. Mais «le chiffre n’est pas définitif» selon le quotidien.

Les autorités chinoises ont approuvé le lancement d’un fonds ETF indexé sur l’or libellé en yuan et qui sera échangé à la Bourse de Shanghai par Guotai Asset Management, indique la radio officielle chinoise sur son site internet. Parallèlement, Huaan Asset Management a également indiqué hier avoir reçu l’aval des autorités pour lancer un fonds du même type.

Nadège Dufossé, stratégiste allocation d’actifs chez Dexia AM

Jean-Louis Mourier, économiste chez Aurel BGC

Depuis mi-avril, le real brésilien et le dollar australien se sont chacun dépréciés de 11% contre le billet vert, et le rand sud-africain de 12%

Maud Minuit, responsable taux et aggregate chez Groupama AM

Jean-Luc Proutat et Francois Faure, économistes chez BNP Paribas

CVC, Permira et Charterhouse comptent remplacer 4 milliards de livres de prêts à taux élevés contre une dette à long terme moins coûteuse dans le cadre d’un refinancement qui pourrait mener à une scission d’Acromas, d’après le Sunday Times. Les fonds pourraient céder le service d’assistance routière AA puis vendre des parts dans Saga, qui fournit des services aux seniors. Quelque dix établissements dont Deutsche Bank, RBS et Barclays travaillent sur l’opération.

La justice américaine a débouté le fournisseur de données financières qui contestait une nouvelle règle sur le trading des swaps mise en œuvre par la Commodity Futures Trading Commission, le régulateur américain des marchés à terme. Bloomberg estimait que la mise en place de marges dans le cadre d’une swap execution facility (SEF)risquait de nuire à son activité.

François Hollande a déclaré samedi au Japon que le rapport de la commission d’experts sur l’avenir des retraites mettra toutes les options sur la table mais qu’il reviendrait au gouvernement de faire son choix après concertation. La présidente de la commission d’experts sur l’avenir des retraites, Yannick Moreau, remettra vendredi prochain son rapport au Premier ministre, lit-on dans l’agenda officiel de Jean-Marc Ayrault.