Christoph Gloor, vice-président de l’Association des banquiers privés suisses (ABPS), a annoncé le 7 juin lors de l’assemblée générale que l’organisation professionnelle devenait l’Association des banques privées suisses». L’ABPS nouvelle mouture pourra accueillir en son giron les banques Lombard&Odier et Pictet, qui ont renoncé à leur statut juridique de banquiers privés en février.L’ABPS ne compte pas changer de statuts et continuera d’exister, a indiqué le vice-président. Elle continuera d’accueillir uniquement des banquiers privés au sens juridique du terme. La nouvelle association permettra d’intégrer les deux établissements sur le départ, qui dès janvier 2014, verront leur statut juridique changer et devront quitter l’ABPS dans la foulée. «La nouvelle association entrera en vigueur dès janvier 2014", a indiqué de son côté Edouard Cuendet, conseiller juridique de l’ABPS."Les questions ouvertes seront réglées ces prochains mois», a indiqué Christophe Gloor devant l’Assemblée. Dans les faits, la nouvelle structure n’a pas encore de comité ni de statuts. «Les détails de la gouvernance ne sont pas encore fixés et les statuts doivent être rédigés», a indiqué Edouard Cuendet.L’Association des banques privées suisses ne compte pas concurrencer l’Association de banques suisses commerciales et de gestion qui regroupe la plupart des banques privées suisses. La nouvelle entité s’adresse principalement aux membres actuels de l’ABPS, c’est-à-dire «aux banques non cotées et en mains familiales». En seront toutefois exclus «les membres individuels, par exemple, les anciens associés», a indiqué Edouard Cuendet.

Oyster Funds, la société de la Banque Syz & Co, compte se développer au delà de sa “zone de confort”, rapporte Citywire Global, qui a interviewé le CEO d’Oyster Funds, Xavier Guillon. « Nous examinons des opportunités au Chili, en Colombie et au Pérou, qui formeront le cœur de nos premiers pas en Amérique latine. Nous nous sommes aussi enregistrés en Israël et nous sommes en cours d’enregistrement en Suède », explique-t-il.

Miaodan Wu, un ancien gérant de portefeuilles de SAC Capital Advisors connu sous le nom de docteur Wu, s’apprête à lancer son propre hedge fund à Hong Kong qui pariera sur les oscillations de cours des titres, rapporte Hedge Week, citant Reuters. Le hedge fund, appelé Bach Option, verra le jour fin 2013. Miaodan Wu a recruté Henry Ondo, un ancien de Citigroup.

Palatine Asset Management a annoncé le lancement, en partenariat avec Investeam et Accola Capital, de Micado France 2019, un FCP contractuel obligataire Mid Cap à horizon 2019 dont la société de gestion va assurer le pilotage. Le fonds sera investi en obligations émises à six ans par des entreprises de taille intermédiaires (ETI) françaises cotées mais non notées. Le taux de rendement interne net investisseurs attendu devrait être de l’ordre de 4,5%, précise le communiqué. Les sociétés émettrices seront sélectionnées sur la base de leur qualité de crédit. Micado France 2019 pourra également être investi à hauteur maximale de 10 % dans des entreprises non cotées.

La société de gestion alternative Salient Partners vient de lancer un stratégie à destination de la clientèle retail qui était jusqu’ici réservée aux investisseurs institutionnels, rapporte Opalesque. Le Salient Alternative Beta Fund pratique des expositions long/short dans des contrats de futures et forward tout en investissant dans des titres, des dérivés et autres instruments financiers, ce qui lui permet d’avoir une diversification supplémentaire. Les acifs sous gestion de Salient Partners s'élèvent à environ 18 milliards de dollars.

La société de gestion américaine Russell Investments va fournir à l’italienne Anima un service de conseil pour la construction et la gestion de produits de multigestion multi-classes d’actifs, annoncent les deux sociétés dans un communiqué.La collaboration entre les deux acteurs de la gestion portera sur les fonds des gammes Capitale Più et Forza et initialement sur un encours de 1 milliard d’euros, sachant qu’Anima gère plus de 40 milliards d’euros. Le communiqué précise néanmoins qu’il s’agit d’un premier pas et que l’accord est susceptible d’être élargi."Russell Investments pourra apporter à Anima un soutien important dans la sélection des meilleurs gérants (…)», commente Marco Carreri, administrateur délégué de la société italienne. Russell Investments, qui gère un encours d’environ 173 milliards de dollars au 31 mars, a des bureaux à Milan. Anima est une société de gestion italienne qui compte parmi ses actionnaires le fonds de private equity Clessidra et les banques italiennes Banca Popolare di Milano, Banca Monte dei Paschi et Credito Valtellinese.

La société de gestion américaine Pimco vient de signer un accord de distribution avec le réseau de conseillers financiers et de banquiers privés du groupe italien Monte dei Paschi, rapporte Bluerating. L’établissement de Sienne va ainsi commercialiser au sein de sa gamme multi-marques les 45 compartiments de la Sicav Pimco Gis, dont le célèbre Pimco Gis Total Return Bond Fund géré par Bill Gross.

Eurizon, la société de gestion du groupe italien Intesa Sanpaolo, a obtenu l’autorisation d’investir directement on-shore sur différentes classes d’actifs sur le marché chinois via ses fonds pour un montant maximal de 100 millions de dollars, rapporte Bluerating. « Eurizon est la première société de gestion appartenant à un groupe bancaire italien à obtenir la prestigieuse licence de Qualified foreign institutional investor », souligne Mauro Micillo, administrateur délégué d’Eurizon. Suite à cette autorisation, de nouveaux fonds seront lancés dans le cadre de la Sicav luxembourgeoise.

Lars König a quitté Citigroup Global Markets Deutschland, où il était spécialiste des ventes institutionnelles en Allemagne et responsable du suivi des fonds de pension, pour rejoindre Schroders Allemagne comme directeur des ventes institutionnelles pour l’Allemagne et l’Autriche, sous la direction de Carlos Böhles.Par ailleurs, Axa Investment Managers Allemagne indique avoir renforcé sa force de vente institutionnelle avec l’embauche de Martin Köhler comme senior institutional sales managers . L’intéressé est désormais subordonné directement à Jörg Schomburg, directeur des ventes institutionnelles pour l’Allemagne. Le nouvel arrivant exerçait les mêmes fonctions chez Credit Suisse, après avoir été pendant dix ans gérant d’un fonds diversifié chez Deka.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Securities and Exchange Commission will this year consider a proposal to simplify procedures to license non-complex ETFs, Norm Champ, the head for the asset management industry within the SEC, has announced at a Reuters conference on wealth management.

The mission to protect the banking and financial assets of depositories of the Fonds de Garantie des Dépôts means that the fund is an institutional investor which has no precise knowledge of its off-book liabilities, nor of the timing of its requirements. Thierry Dissaux, who is chairman of the Fund, explains to Newsmanagers the management constraints that characterise this process, and, with a volume of EUR2bn in assets under management currently, the ultimate management which he brings to bear in a low interest rate context.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has formally approved the registration of Dagong Europe Credit Rating Srl (Dagong Europe), based in Italy, as a credit rating agency (CRA) under Article 16 of the CRA Regulation. The registration takes effect from 13 June 2013.

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; } 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.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } John Paulson would like investors to stop focusing on his bets on gold, the Wall Street Journal reports. The billionaire fund manager was one of the most bullish investors in the precious metal, and suffered heavy losses as a result. His USD18bn firm will now cease to include the performance of its gold fund in monthly bulletins to investors, according to a letter sent to investors on Thursday. Paulson regrets that problems with the gold fund have eclipsed the good performance of his other funds. The gold fund and other strategies in that area represent only 2% of assets at the firm.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } 83% of investments in hedge funds last year were made at “full price,” without negotiations over fees, a new study by Goldman Sachs, cited by Financial News, reveals. The standard in the industry is management fees of 2%, and performance fees of 20%.

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.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Eurizon, the asset management firm of the Italian Intesa Sanpaolo group, has received permission to invest onshore directly in various asset classes on the Chinese market via its funds, for a maximal total of USD100m, Bluerating reports. “Eurizon is the first asset management firm owned by an Italian banking group to obtain the prestigious Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor license,” says Mauro Micillo, deputy director of Eurizon. Following the authorization, new funds will be released as part of the Luxembourg Sicav.

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; } Daniel McKerman of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership will this autumn be joining Standard Life Investments as head of investment grade credit in pounds Sterling, Investment Week reports. He currently serves in the same role at SWIP.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The chairman of the British investment management association (IMA), Douglas Ferrans, has called on asset management firms to strengthen ties with their clients, and to make an effort to win back their trust, Fundweb reports. “The asset management sector needs to see beyond its intermediation model, which is largely very cumbersome, and take concrete measures to strengthen dialogue with investors and to rebuild its reputation,” Ferrans said in a speech in London. Citing a policy of engagement on the part of asset management firms, Ferrans pointed out that there is no consensus among professionals on the subject. “However, it is a subject that cannot and must not be ignored,” Ferrans insisted. The chairman of the association, Daniel Godfrey, recently invited buy-side associations to study means to improve and develop their collective engagement in order to help companies become more sustainable.

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.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US asset management firm Pimco has signed a distribution agreement with the network of financial advisers and private bankers at the Italian Monte dei Paschi group, Bluerating reports. The Sienna-based firm will release the 45 sub-funds of its Pimco GIS Sicav, including the famous Pimco GIS Total Return Bond Fund, managed by Bill Gross, as part of its multi-brand range.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The US asset management firm Russell Investments will provide the Italian firm Anima with advising services to construct and manage multi-asset class management products, the two firms have announced in a statement. The collaboration between the two management players will affect funds in the Capitale Più and Forza ranges and will initially affect assets of EUR1bn, while Anima has over EUR40bn in assets under management. A statement says, however, that this is a first step, and that the agreement is likely to be extended. “Russell Investments will provide Anima with significant support in the selection of the best managers,” says Marco Carreri, deputy director of the Italian firm. Russell Investments, which has assets under management of about USD173bn as of 31 March, has offices in Milan. Anima is an Italian asset management firm which counts the private equity fund Clessidra and the Italian banks Banca Popolare di Milano, Banca Monte dei Paschi and Credito Valtellinese among its shareholders.

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.

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.