Très discrète depuis sa création il y a cette année dix ans, Amiral Gestion, une société de gestion indépendante détenue par ses salariés, s’est malgré tout distinguée à travers les performances de sa gamme de fonds Sextant et l’obtention l’an dernier du mandat Nova 2 émis par la Caisse des dépôts et un pool d’investisseurs.La société compte aujourd’hui 13 collaborateurs, dont 10 gérants. Après avoir culminé à 550 millions d’euros, les actifs sous gestion de la société s'élevaient au 31 mars 2013 à 370 millions d’euros, dont environ 200 millions d’euros dans des fonds ouverts. Le fonds phare d’Amiral Gestion, Sextant PEA, a des encours d’un peu moins de 100 millions d’euros.Fidèle à une gestion de conviction éprouvée, surtout dans la sphère des petites et moyennes capitalisations en France et dans le monde, Amiral Gestion a l’an dernier recruté un directeur du développement, Benjamin Biard, qui ne va pas néanmoins modifier le modèle de croissance de la société. «Avoir dix ans et garder son indépendance dans le contexte actuel est déjà en soi la preuve d’un développement sain et maîtrisé», a souligné Benjamin Biard le 5 avril à l’occasion d’un point de presse. «Nous ne cherchons pas à grossir pour grossir. Nous sommes davantage en quête pérennisation et d’optimisation des relations avec nos partenaires investisseurs», ajoute-t-il.Autrement dit, Amiral Gestion souhaite se développer naturellement et conserver ses valeurs d’origine, conviction dans les choix d’investissement, indépendance, notamment vis-à-vis des benchmarks, transparence sur les choix d’investissement ou encore qualité du service, notamment pour éviter les risques. ""Notre seul et unique objectif est de générer de la performance sur la durée, c’est-à-dire en prenant un minimum de risque», rappelle Julien Lepage, gérant et directeur général d’Amiral Gestion. «Les fonds de la gamme Sextant sont investis dans des entreprises bien gérées et fortement sous-évaluées», poursuit Julien Lepage.La société envisage-t-elle de lancer de nouveaux produits ? «Chez Amiral Gestion, répond Benjamin Biard, nous ne faisons pas de produit «marketing», nous ne bâtissons pas une offre uniquement dans un but commercial. Les produits qui existent ont été créés parce qu’ils correspondaient à une conviction forte et à une vraie philosophie d’investissement. Et ça, ça ne changera pas. Il n’y aura pas de création de produits pour répondre à une mode, il n’y aura peut-être même pas de création de produits du tout!». Benjamin Biard estime toutefois que la marge de progression des encours est bien réelle, notamment sur Sextant Europe (moins de 10 millions d’euros d’encours) et Sextant Grand Large (environ 30 millions d’euros d’encours).

La Société Générale envisage de supprimer 600 à 700 postes en France dans le cadre de ses réductions de coûts, rapporte L’Agefi qui cite une information de Reuters via trois sources syndicales. La direction de la banque française a rencontré les organisations syndicales le 3 avril pour évoquer différents projets de réorganisation, dont les modalités et le calendrier définitifs ne sont pas encore arrêtés. 50 à 100 postes pourraient être recréés en dehors de France dans le cadre de ce projet, précise le quotidien.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The ETF provider Actively Managed Trust has submitted a license application for an actively-managed fund dedicated to dividends, which would also be hedged for risks related to US and international equities which pay high dividends, IndexUniverse reports. The Manna Core Equity Enhanced Dividend Stream Fund, which would charge fees of 0.85%, would be listed in New York on the Arca electronic platform.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 4 April, the NYSE Arca platform admitted the SPDR Blackstone / GSO Senior Loan exchange traded fund to trading under the ticker SRLN. The product is developed by State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) in cooperation with GSO Capital Partners, the credit unit of the Blackstone Group. According to the designers of the product, it is the first actively-managed ETF of senior loans. The objective is to manage a high income, preserve capital and outperform the Markit iBoxx USD Liquid Leveraged Loan Index and S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index. The underlying senior loans are generally rated below investment grade, and it is expected that an average of 30% to 35% of credit will come from outside the index each year. The total expense ratio is 0.90%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The CNMV has issued a sales license for Spain to the Luxembourg Sicav Abante Global Funds from the Spanish firm Abante Asesores, Funds People reports. The Sicav has four sub-funds.Santiago Satrústegui, chairman of Abante, has stated that the objective is to sell products to Spanish clients who prefer the Luxembourg version of funds to their original Spanish versions.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Funds People reports that BBVA AM has finally opted for an internal promotion: the asset management firm has appointed Joaquín García Huerga, who had previously been head of equity research at the bank, as its head of asset allocation and strategy. He joined the group in February 2008, and will now report to Eduardo García Hidalgo, global CIO.BBVA AM will now need to appoint a replacement for the second vacant post, that of chief investment officer for Spain. Retail asset allocation is directed by Javier Achótegui, while institutional asset allocation is led by Fernando Aguado, and global asset allocation for Latin American clients is led by Juan José García Petit.

The French Court of audit has recently cleared the additional pension fund for public employees (ERAFP) both of charges that the system is not sufficiently generous, and for the results of its management. Newsmanagers gives the floor to the defence, in the person of Philippe Desfossés, director general of the entity.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Baring Asset Management is planning to launch a fund in the next few weeks dedicated to frontier markets for its senior manager Michael Levy, Fundweb reports. The Barings Frontier Markets fund would be at lesat 70% exposed to frontier markets such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Levy says, “frontier markets are now positioned like emerging markets were 20 years ago, ready to become the great opportunity of the next few years.”

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Threats in North Korea, unorthodox politics in Japan and Eastern Europe and mediocre employment figures on both sides of the Atlantic have not helped second quarter to a strong start. Investors have nonetheless retained some appetite for risk, and high yield and emerging market bond funds both posted inflows of over USD850m in the week ending on 3 April. According to estimates by EPFR Global.Overall, bond funds finished the week with net inflows of USD4.89bn, while equity funds posted net inflows of USD1.9bn, more than half of it to dividend funds. Money market funds, for their part, posted net redemptions totalling a net USD11.3bn.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Cotizalia reports that Gonzalo Nebrada, who was director of private banking at Bankinter, has been recruited as director of private banking at Renta 4 Banco, which is planning to develop the unit by recruiting new clients and offering highly specialised and proactive service. Renta 4 is maintaining its independence, which allows it to offer the most appropriate products to clients at all times.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } ING Investment Management (ING IM) on Friday, 5 April announced the appointment of Alistair Perkins as head of Project Finance. He will be responsible for developing and managing portfolios of loans for infrastructure and industrial projects, both for ING Insurance and for other institutional investors. Perkins will report to Jan Rijken, head of Fixed Income Insurance at ING IM.Perkins had previously served at Dexia Management Services as head of Restructuring and Asset Sales, where he had been in charge of corporate restructuring, sub-prime loan and the preservation of asset value. He was previously director at Dexia Credit Local, and has also served in senior roles at NIBC Bank and CIT.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } ZKB Asset Management has made Samuel Manser principal manager of its EUR116m European investment grade bond fund, Citywire reports. Manser joined the bank in late 2012. The strategy, ZKB Bond Vision Fonds EU, had previously been managed by Edgar Salzmann, who will now assist in the management of the fund.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } JP Morgan Asset Management has promoted Simon Crinage to the position of head of activities related to investment trusts, effective immediately, Money Marketing reports. In this position, he replaces David Barron, who left the firm earlier this year. Crinage, who has been working at JP Morgan AM for 28 years, now reports to the head of management for British funds, Jasper Berens.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Two managers from the bond team at Schroders, Bhupinder Bahra and Frederick Bourgoin, are leaving the firm, Citywire reports. The move follows a reshuffle in the bond unit, which will be adopting a more team-oriented workflow.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } In March, Delta Lloyd took over the largest mezzanine fund in the Netherlands, which was created by the bank Oyens & Van Eeghen, and which takes positions on Netherlands-based businesses which are healthy but experiencing temporary financial difficulties, Fondsnieuws reports. The insurance group invested EUR25m to seed the fund, which is the initiative of Erwin de Jong, one of the directors of Oyens, who has since joined Delta Lloyd. The objective is to achieve returns of 12% per year. The volume of the fund will be limited to EUR100m, half of which will come from the insurer, and the other from high net worth clients of Oyens. The initiators of the project plan on a three-year building phase for the product.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Fidelity Worldwide Investment is reportedly planning to scrap its securities lending activities, Financial Times Fund Management reports. The profitability of such programmes has been eroded by new guidelines by the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA), introduced in February, which require that asset management firms return all revenues from securities lending, after costs. In addition, new tax harmonisation rules in France require local funds to pay the same tax rate on dividends as foreign funds which hold French equities, which is also expected to reduce demand for securities lending in the dividend season. Many feel that similar regimes in Germany, Spain, Belgium and Poland will also disappear.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Since its launch in February 2012, the Total Return ETF from Pimco (USD4.6bn) has posted returns of 13.5%, 5 percentage points higher than the Pimco Total Return mutual fund (USD288bn), the Wall Street Journal reports. The two funds are both managed by Bill Gross. But the smaller ETF is more manoeuvrable: a position equivalent to 1% of its assets is less than USD50m, while a 1% position for the mutual fund would represent nearly USD3bn, which would run the risk of throwing a market segment off balance. In other words, the ETF can position itself on less liquid but more lucrative securities than its daddy.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The natural resources and emerging markets specialist US Global Investors, based in San Antonio, Texas, has announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in the Toronto-based asset management firm Galileo Global Equity Advisors. Assets under management at Galileo total about CAD320m, while assets at US Global Investors totalled USD1.68bn as of the end of December 2012.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BNY Mellon has won a custody mandate from Howard University, covering the endowment and the pension plan, for a total of about USD1.1bn, according to a statement released on 4 April. BNY Mellon already serves 46% of the 50 largest university endowments in the United States, with cumulative assets of over USD113bn.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Beat Wittmann is launching an asset management firm entitled TCMG Asset Management, Finews reports. The founder of the asset management firm Dynapartners has chosen to found a firm on the model of a galaxy of multi-boutiques. Teams of asset managers will be integrated into the group in the next few months, but will continue to work independently. TCMG AM will initially concentrate on the Swiss market, with the initial integration of Dynapartners. In the mid-term, more than 10 firms may be included in the group, Finews reports.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Munich-based private bank Merck Finck & Co, an indirectly-owned affiliate of the Qatari firm Precision Capital, has announced the recruitment of Philipp Stodtmeister and Stefan Ludwig as client advisers in Hamburg, with responsibility for the northern part of Germany. Both previously worked at Berenberg, whence the firm recruited Eberhard Hoffmann and Carsten Gennrich, the new heads of the Hamburg office, in January.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With the assistance of Munich-based analyst at Meyer & Cie, Neue Vermögen Asset Management on 15 March launched a risk parity fund, managed by AmpegaGerling Investment, entitled Active Return AMI. Each asset class (equities, government bonds, corporate bonds, and non-agricultural commodities) contribute equally to the risk of the portfolio, with monthly re-weighting of the allocation. The weight of each asset class is determined by analysts at Meyer & Cie, while Neue Vermögen provides allocation solely to index-based products.CharacteristicsName: Active Return AMIISIN code: DE000A1J3AK7Front-end fee: 3%Management commission: 1.30%Performance commission: 10% on performance exceeding the Euribor 3 month + 300 basis points

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Stevena Berexa will now concentrate on his role as head of research at Allianz Global Investors (AGI), the asset management firm has confirmed to Fonds Professionell. Berexa will remain as deputy manager of the two technology funds Allianz Informationstechnologie and Allianz Global Hi-Tech Growth, whose principal manager since 1 April is Sebastian Thomas.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Lyxor hedge fund index gained 0.62% in the month of March, bringing gains in the first three months of the year to 2.36%, according to the most recent Lyxor Flash, released on 5 April.Ten strategies out of the 14 that compose the index finished the month with gains, particularly the Lyxor Special Situations fund, which gained 2.09% for the month, the Lyxor L/S Equity Long Bias (+1.41%), and the Lyxor Merger Arbitrage (+1.14%).The best strategy in first quarter was the Lyxor L/S Equity Market Neutral, with gains of 7.20%, followed by the Lyxor L/S Equity Long Bias (+6.15%).

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } JP Morgan Asset Management is offering a return fund dedicated to convertibles, the Global Convertibles Income Trust, which aims for annual returns of 4.5%, Investment Week reports. The fund will be managed by Antony Vallee, head of the convertible bond team at JP Morgan. The fund will take the form of a closed structure, in order to give the manager more flexibility to invest in new issues.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to the most recent statistics from EFAMA, investment funds worldwide attracted EUR828bn last year, of which EUR395bn were for the United States, and EUR201bn for Europe. However, money market funds alone took inflows of EUR599bn, with EUR306bn in North America, and EUR203bn in Europe.It is also noted that equity funds worldwide saw net outflows of EUR49bn, largely due to EUR58bn in outflows in the United States, while in Europe the balance was slightly positive (EUR2bn). However, 37% of global assets in funds as of the end of 2012 were held in equity funds, compared with 24% for bond funds, and 16% for money market funds.Total assets as of the end of December came to EUR22.170trn, compared with EUR19.970trn one year previously, and EUR19.940trn at the end of 2010. It has thus increased 11%, or EUR2.200trn, in one year, meaning that market effects contributed 62.4% of the increase in assets under management, compared with 37.6% from net inflows.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Although it has had a representative office in the country since 2009, the Scottish asset management firm Martin Currie on 5 April announced that it has created a platform in Singapore to provide services directly to Asian clients. In addition, the enlarged location will have research capacities for equities, and capacity for local equity trading. The CEO for Singapore is Paul Danes, investment director. He joined Martin Currie in 2007, and will make particular additions to the equity research unit. Kimon Kouryialas, head for Asia Pacific, returned to Singapore in October, and Mike Gibb will leave Edinburgh to direct development at the new office. Martin Currie is also transferring Steven McCole, head of Asia-Pacific dealing, from Edinburgh to Singapore, while Liping Tan has been recruited from Prusik Investment Management as an equity dealer.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Ontario teachers’ pension fund (RREO, for Régime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l’Ontario) has announced that it earned a return of 13% for the fiscal year ending on 31 December 2012, bringing its net assets to CAD129.5bn, compared with CAD117.1bn as of the end of 2011. Returns for the pension fund exceeded those for its global benchmark (11%) by two percentage points, which is equivalent to gains of CAD2.2bn, Earnings on investments totalled CAD14.7bn in 2012, compared with CAD11.7bn in 2011. The real estate portfolio, managed by Cadillac Fairview (a wholly-owned affiliate of RREO), reached a value of CAD16.9bn, and earned annual returns of 19.4% as of 31 December 2012, compared with 15.5% for the benchmark, equivalent to gains of CAD0.5bn. At the end of the fiscal year, the value of the infrastructure portfolio came to CAD9.6bn, compared with CAD8.7bn as of 31 December 2011. Its returns were 8.4% compared with 8% for the benchmark index, for gains of CAD0.1bn. The global annualised rate of return over ten years stands at 9.6%.

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to a survey by Wealth-X cited by Asian Investor, ultra-high net worth clients in Hong Kong are aged an average of 57 years, and have USD150m in financial assets. On average, USD34m of this is held in cash. In total, in Hong Kong, the wealth of ultra-high net worth individuals adds up to about USD480bn, largely invested in real estate. One quarter of ultra-high net worth individuals in Hong Kong are aged over 70, with average wealth of USD100m which means that “a significant period of wealth transfer” will be coming in the next 15 to 20 years, Wealth-X reports.

La Bourse de Lisbonne est en baisse lundi, après que la Cour constitutionnelle portugaise a rejeté quatre des neuf mesures d’austérité adoptées par le gouvernement. En milieu de journée lundi, l’indice de la Bourse de Lisbonne recule de 0,71% à 5.600,63 points, alors que l’EuroStoxx 50 rebondit de 0,6%. Le rendement de l’emprunt d’Etat portugais à 10 ans se maintient autour de 6,42%, après avoir grimpé jusqu'à 6,83% en matinée. Les obligations françaises et belges, les premières à avoir profité de l’exode des fonds japonais ont vu leurs rendements à 10 ans toucher des plus bas record dans la matinée. Et les rendements des 10 ans espagnols et italiens perdent encore respectivement six points de base à 4,72% et 10 pdb à 4,31%.