P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Swiss firm Unigestion (EUR10.7bn in assets as of 31 March), on 19 April announced that it has signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI).“By becoming a signatory to the PRI, the firm assigns the greatest importance to the role that ESG analysis plays in investment processes throughout its product range. Unigestion will also dedicate more time to monitoring the responsible behaviour of the managers it invests with, and will encourage them to make necessary improvements where necessary,” a statement says.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Trian Fund, the activist hedge fund from Nelson Peltz, has announced that it has purchased additional shares in Pepsico and Mendelez. According to the Wall Street Journal, the fund now holds USD1.4bn of shares in Pepsico and USD1.3bn in shares in Mendelez. According to financial industry sources, Peltz is seeking to impose a merger of Pepsico (Frito-Lay, Tropicana and Quaker Oats) and Mendelez (Oreo and Cadbury).

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Assets under custody and administration at State Street as of the end of March totalled USD25.422bn, up 4.3% compared with fourth quarter 2012, according to figures released on 19 April.Assets under management by the US firm as of the end of March totalled USD2.176trn, compared with USD2.86bn one quarter previously, up 4.3% quarter on quarter.Commissions for services in first quarter increased 2.2% to USD1.2bn, due to the good performance of equity markets and higher trading volumes.Management commissions totalled USD263m, compared with USD260m in fourth quarter, a limited increase due to falling performance commissions.Net profits in first quarter totalled USD45m, compared with USD468m in fourth quarter 2012, and USD417m in first quarter 2012.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Vincent Ribuot, head of marketing and strategy, on 19 April announced that Ofi as of the end of March reached assets of EUR55.620bn, which represents an increase of EUR2.087bn, or 3.9%, compared with EUR53.533bn as of the end of December. One third of this increase comes from market appreciation, and two thirds from net subscriptions, of which 50% are to core products and 50% of less traditional products such as infrastructure.Three high yield horizon funds have been launched recently, one dedicated 2018 fund, one retail 2018 fund and one institutional fund, which have attracted EUR220m since their launch, and which still have good potential for short-term inflows.Ribuot also stated that about one quarter of total assets are subject to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, and that assets in SRI-labelled investment total EUR5.6bn.Jean-Marie Mercadal, deputy CEO in charge of investment management, recommends investments in the current situation in equities (including European equities), high yield, convertibles, and for those who are inclined to take risks, government bonds from peripheral European countries.In the area of emerging market debt, Mercadal and Ribuot have announced that Ofi has recently launched a dedicated fund which invests in government and corporate bonds denominated in hard and local currencies, both investment grade or non-investment grade. The product is 50% managed internally, and the remaining 50% are outsourced to external specialist manageers who know internal local markets well.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } After more than ten years as part of the Edmond de Rothschild group, Sophie Debert-Pérat, who had most recently been head of sales for Switzerland and Belgium at the Edmond de Rothschild Paris group (Edrim) for fixed income and credit manafgement, structured management, absolute return management, long-only multi-management and alternative multi-management, is joining the Paris office of Muzinich & Co as director of institutional clients. Debert-Pérat will be more particularly responsible for developing relationships with Swiss and Belgian clients. The Paris office, led by Eric Pictet, now has 5 employees.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Brazilian independent portfolio management firm Victoire Brasil Investimentos has retained Amadé Global Partners, a French TPM, to provide commercial development in France.The Latin American firm, founded in 2001, is known for its expertise on Brazilian equity markets, with nearly USD1bn in assets under management.It is now developing sales of its fund range to European institutional and private investors.It is not the first Brazilian asset management firm to enter the French market. Bradesco Asset Management, an affiliate of a major Brazilian bank, also began courting French investors a few months ago.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Agefi reports that Laurence Fink, the head of BlackRock, made USD20.2m in 2012, down 7.5% compared with the previous year. The CEO of the asset management group earned a salary of USD500,000, a cash bonus of USD8.6m, USD10.9m in shares, and USD187,350 of compensation in other forms.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Funds People reports that March Gestión has absorbed the Consulnor dividendos fund into the March Europa Bolsa, the Consulnor Renta Fija Corto Plazo into the March Premier Tesorería, and the Fonconsul into the Fonmarch. There are also plans for the asset management firm for Banca March to take over the profiled funds from Consulnor in the near future.In June 2012, Banca March bought a stake in the Basque firm Consulnor, with plans to subsequently acquire all capital in the firm. Consulnor Gestión manages nine funds (including three transferred in March) for a total of EUR134m, while March Gestión has 25 funds, with EUR1.1bn. Consulnor Gestión manages 43 Sicavs with EUR259m in assets, while March Gestión has 68, with EUR874m.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Andrea Greco has left UBS Wealth Management in Italy to join Azimut Wealth Management, Bluerating reports. Previously, Greco had worked at Banca Mediolanum and Banca Cremonese.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Quantitative easing in Japan, which will be likely to boost the world’s third-largest economy, and the most recent Chinese statistics suggesting more moderate growth in the next few years, of less than 8%, played a central role in investment decisions in mid-April.Japanese equity funds posted net inflows of over USD3bn in the week ending on 17 April, while Chinese equity funds saw further redemptions totalling approximately USD480m, according to statistics released by EPFR Global.Developed market equity funds finished the week with gains due to subscriptions to Japanese and US equity funds, but investors continued to avoid European funds due to very mediocre growth outlooks. German equity funds saw outflows of over USD400m in the week ending on 17 April, and since the beginning of the month of March, European equity funds overall have seen net redemptions totalling over USD6bn.Overall, equity funds have posted net inflows in the week to 17 April of USD4.63bn, while bond funds, for their part, have attracted USD3.47bn. Money market funds have seen one of the largest weekly outflows since the beginning of the year, due to redemptions of about USD30bn from US money market funds.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of the end of first quarter 2013, the coverage rate for liabilities of the pension fund for Netherlands public employees ABP rose to 101%, compared with 95% one year previously, and 96% as of the end of December. This increase is due to an increase in interest rates (0.1%), to better performance, and to a 0.5% reduction in benefits (from 1 April 2013). However, says Henk Brouwer, president, ABP still has a financing deficit, because the Bank of the Netherlands requires a minimum coverage rat of 104.2%, which ABP hopes to reach by the end of 2013.Liabilities as of the end of March totalled EUR289bn, 3% less than as of the end of 2012, while assets were up by EUR11bn to EUR292bn, largely due to positive market effects (EUR10bn). The contribution of the equity allocation to this increase was EUR7bn.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The co-founder of the alternative asset management firm Brevan Howard, Alan Howard, has held onto his top place in the Sunday Times rankings of hedge fund managers, with wealth of GBP1.5bn, up by GBP100m compared with the previous year. Howard benefited from an 18% increase in assets under management at Brevan Howard since the end of 2011, to USD40bn. The Master fund by Howard, whose assets under management total about USD28bn, has also gained 6% since the beginning of the year. Another big winner in 2012 was the co-founder of BlueCrest Capital, Mike Platt, whose wealth rose by nearly 50% to GBP950m, and who places third, just behind Alex Knaster, founder of Pamplona Capital, whose wealth has risen by nearly 25% to GBP1.1bn. Among the big winners out of the past year are also Michael Hintze, founder of CQS, whose wealth rose 55% to GBP900m. The CQS Directional Opportunities fund last year earned returns of 36%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BNP Paribas Investment Partners Taiwan is merging the Parvest and BNP Paribas L1 product ranges, Asian Investor reports. This will reduce the number of funds from 60 to 43, all under the name Parvest BNP. The funds which are not registered in Taiwan will be closed down. Products with the same investment theme will be merged.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Lloyds Banking Group is studying the possibility of selling its asset management affiliate Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, according to Financial News, citing a source familiar with the matter. The asset management firm has assets of GBP141.7bn.

Artemis Investment Management has hired Henderson’s Paul Casson to help Tim Steer manage the GBP504 million Artemis UK Growth Fund, segregated institutional UK Growth accounts and the Artemis UK Hedge Fund.After a BSc in Accounting and two years as an auditor, Paul Casson started his investment career in 1997 with Martin Currie. In 2001 he moved to SVM and then in 2005 to Henderson as a director of pan-European equities. Meanwhile, Artemis also announces that Stephen Yiu, who joined Artemis with Tim Steer from New Star in 2009, has resigned in order to move back to his native Hong Kong.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The head of EMEA retail strategic client accounts at BlackRock, Mark Elliott, has left the firm, Fund Web reports. He had held the position since January 2012.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Assets in Asia ex Japan funds are expected to increase by 67% to a total of USD1.9trn by 2017, Asian Investor reports, citing figures from Cerulli Associates. Last year, assets rose 20% to USD1.140trn, a record.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Schroders has added a share class in pounds sterling for retail investors to its offshore fund Global Multi-Asset Income, Investment Week reports. It is the first time that the firm has opened the fund to retail clients. The product has a one-year track record, and has received USD1bn in investment since its launch. It is managed by Aymeric Forest and Iain Cunningham.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Cazenove Capital Management has asked the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission for licenses to launch investment advisory and asset management activities in the territory, Asian Investor reports.Cazenove is the subject of a takeover bid from Schroders.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BlackRock has recruited Scott Greenberg from Morgan Stanley has its first head of global capital markets for Asia-Pacific, Asian Investor reports. Greenberg began in Hong Kong on 15 April, and reports to Steve Sterling.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Former members of the Swedish real estate group Sanska have founded their own hedge fund, Crescit, which was launched in April, and raised SEK800m, largely from pension funds, the website Dagens Industri reports. The firm is led by Hans Biörck, former CFO of Skanska. The managers Jonas Granholm and Gustav Lundeborg both worked at managers of the real estate group’s pension fund. Lennart Grebelius, a Swedish billionaire, is also a shareholder. The fund will be concentrated on equity index derivatives.

La société de gestion de portefeuille brésilienne indépendante Victoire Brasil Investimentos a mandaté Amadé Global Partners, TPM français, pour assurer son développement commercial en France.Fondée en 2004, la structure latino-américaine est reconnue pour son savoir-faire sur les marchés actions au Brésil avec près d’un milliard de dollars d’actifs sous gestion.Elle développe aujourd’hui la commercialisation de sa gamme de fonds auprès des investisseurs institutionnels et privés européens. Ce n’est pas la première société de gestion brésilienne à arriver en France. Bradesco Asset Management, filiale d’une grande banque brésilienne, a également commencé à démarcher les investisseurs français depuis quelques mois.

Après avoir passé plus de dix ans dans le groupe Edmond de Rothschild, Sophie Debert-Pérat, qui était en dernier lieu responsable commerciale pour la Suisse et la Belgique au sein d’Edmond de Rothschild Paris (Edrim) sur la gestion taux et crédit, la gestion structurée, la gestion de performance absolue, la multigestion long-only et la multigestion alternative, rejoint le bureau de Paris de Muzinich & Co comme directeur de la clientèle institutionnelle.L’intéressée sera plus particulièrement chargée de développer les relations avec les clients suisses et belges.Le bureau parisien, dirigé par Eric Pictet, compte désormais 5 collaborateurs.

Vincent Ribuot, directeur marketing et stratégie, a indiqué le 19 avril qu’Ofi AM a atteint fin mars un encours de 55.620 millions d’euros , ce qui représente une hausse de 2.087 millions ou de 3,9 % par rapport aux 53.533 millions de fin décembre. Un tiers de cette hausse provient de l’effet de marché et deux tiers des souscriptions nettes, dont 50 % pour les produits core et 50 % pour des produits moins traditionnels comme l’infrastructure.Trois fonds haut rendement datés lancés récemment, un dédié 2018, un retail 2018 et un institutionnel, ont drainé 220 millions d’euros depuis leur lancement et conservent un bon potentiel de collecte à court terme.Le directeur du marketing et de la stratégie a par ailleurs précisé qu’environ un quart de l’encours total est référencé à des critères environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance (ESG) et que les actifs labellisés ISR représentent 5,6 milliards d’euros.Jean-Marie Mercadal, directeur général délégué en charge des gestions, a entre autres préconisé dans la situation actuelle des placements en actions (entre autres européennes), en haut rendement, en convertibles, et pour ceux qui sont disposés à prendre du risque, les obligations d’Etat d’Europe périphérique.Le CIO a souligné aussi qu’il est statistiquement rare que les actions émergentes sous-performent les actions des pays développés comme ce peut être le cas actuellement, et que cette situation ne devrait pas perdurer.Concernant la dette émergente, Jean-Marie Mercadal et Vincent Ribuot ont indiqué qu’Ofi a récemment lancé un fonds dédié investissant aussi bien en titres d’Etat et en obligations d’entreprises et aussi bien en devises «dures» qu’en monnaies locales. Ce produit est géré à 50 % en interne, les 50 % restants étant confiés à des gestionnaires externes spécialisés qui ont la connaissance intime des marchés locaux.

Les actifs sous conservation et administration de State Street s’inscrivaient fin mars à 25.422 milliards de dollars, en progression de 4,3% par rapport au quatrième trimestre 2012, selon les chiffres publiés le 19 avril.Les actifs sous gestion du groupe américain s’inscrivaient fin mars à 2.176 milliards de dollars, contre 2.86 milliards de dollars un trimestre plus tôt, en hausse de 4,3% d’un trimestre sur l’autre. Les commissions liées aux services ont augmenté au premier trimestre de 2,2% à 1,2 milliard de dollars en raison de la bonne tenue des marchés d’actions et à des volumes de transactions plus élevés. Les commissions de gestion ont totalisé 263 millions de dollars contre 260 millions de dollars au quatrième trimestre, une progression limitée en raison de la baisse des commissions de performance. Le bénéfice net s’est inscrit au premier trimestre à 455 millions de dollars contre 468 millions de dollars au quatrième trimestre 2012 et 417 millions de dollars au premier trimestre 2012.

Lazard Asset Management ouvre à nouveau son fonds émergent Lazard Emerging Markets aux souscriptions. Géré par James Donald, le fonds de droit irlandais pèse 751 millions de dollars. Il avait été fermé en novembre 2010 à 568,2 millions de dollars, afin de limiter l’afflux de nouvelles souscriptions et de protéger les performances, indique Citywire. Sur trois ans à fin mars, la performance du fonds a atteint 13,52 %.

Les grandes banques renoncent de plus en plus à certaines relations au Moyen-Orient ou en Asie par manque de crédibilité de leurs interlocuteurs, note le Financial Times, qui cite des sources bancaires non identifiées. Des banques comme Citigroup, JPMorgan, Standard Chartered et HSBC comparent le coût généré par un examen approfondi de leurs relations dans ces pays, qui peuvent parfois être trop élevés comparé aux bénéfices qu’ils sont supposés générer.

Les nouveaux hedge funds sont sur le déclin. Pour une raison très simple, selon l’hebdomaire The Economist, il est de plus en plus difficile de lancer un hedge fund.La tradition du 2/20, à savoir que le gérant de hedge fund pouvait prétendre à 2% des actifs de son client et à 20% des bénéfices, s’est évaporée avec la crise alors que les dépenses ont augmenté, en raison notamment des exigences en matière de conformité. Autrement dit, un hedge fund ne peut plus se permettre de démarrer avec 50 millions de dollars d’actifs, il lui en faut au moins le double. En outre, la clientèle fortunée n’est plus aussi présente que par le passé. Les investisseurs dominants sont désormais les fonds de pension. Plus prudents, ils préfèrent investir davantage dans un nombre restreint de structures affichant un historique de performances plus étoffé. Alors que plus de la moitié des hedge funds existants gérent moins de 100 millions de dollars, ils représentent moins de 1,4% des actifs du secteur. Il reste que les petites structures qui se lancent semblent enregistrer de meilleurs résultats que les sociétés plus établies. Mais les poids lourds du secteur ont aussi quelques atouts à faire valoir. Les 25 principaux gérants dans le monde ont engrangé l’an dernier –la plus mauvaise année depuis 2008- un montant cumulé de rémunérations et de bénéfices de 14 milliards de dollars, selon des statistiques d’Institutional Investor’s Alpha.

Le co-fondateur de la société de gestion alternative Brevan Howard, Alan Howard, a confirmé sa position de numéro un dans le classement des gérants de hedge funds du Sunday Times avec une fortune de 1,5 milliard de livres, en progression de 100 millions de livres par rapport à l’année précédente.Alan Howard a bénéficié d’une progression de 18% par rapport à fin 2011 des actifs sous gestion de Brevan Howard à 40 milliards de dollars. Le Master fund d’Alan Howard, dont les actifs sous gestion s'élèvent à quelque 28 milliards de dollars, affiche par ailleurs une progression de 6% depuis le début de l’année.Autre grand gagnant de l’année 2012, le co-fondateur de BlueCrest Capital, Mike Platt, dont la fortune a fait un bond de près de 50% à 950 millions de livres et qui arrive en troisième position juste derrière Alex Knaster, fondateur de Pamplona Capital, dont la fortune a progressé de près de 25% à 1,1 milliard de livres.Parmi les gagnants de l’année écoulée figure également Michael Hintze, fondateur de CQS, dont la fortune a fait un bond de 55% à 900 millions de livres. Le fonds CQS Directional Opportunities a dégagé l’an dernier une performance de 36%.

Le fournisseur d’ETF iShares a lancé le 19 avril quatre fonds d’obligations corporate à horizon, rapporte IndexUniverse. Ces fonds sont chargés à 0,10%, contre 0,24% pour les fonds BulletShares de Guggenheim.Les quatre nouveux fonds sontiShares 2016 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: IBCB)iShares 2018 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: IBCC)iShares 2020 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: IBCD)iShares 2023 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: IBCE)iShares marque ainsi sa volonté d’occuper une niche de la sphère des ETF obligataires encore peu explorée.