Un nouveau modèle fait son apparition dans l’univers du capital-risque. Le fonds géré par Aster Capital et sponsorisé par les industriels Schneider Electric, Alstom et Solvay (ex Rhodia) s’ouvre à un nouvel investisseur, institutionnel cette fois : le Fonds européen d’investissement (FEI), homologue européen de notre Caisse des Dépôts. Celui-ci annonce aujourd’hui sa participation à hauteur de 20 millions d’euros dans le fonds Aster II, géré par Aster Capital, portant sa capacité d’investissement à 105 millions d’euros au total. Né dans le giron de l’industriel Schneider Electric il y a plus de dix ans, Aster Capital s’est ensuite ouvert aux groupes Alstom et Solvay en 2010. Au premier fonds de 50 millions d’euros supporté par Schneider Electric, a succédé un deuxième fonds baptisé Aster II dans lequel les trois industriels participent à hauteur de 85 millions d’euros. Celui-ci a vocation à soutenir des jeunes pousses dans le domaine de l'énergie et l’environnement. Dernier exemple en date : la société française Lucibel, spécialisée dans les lampes à diodes électroluminescentes dans laquelle Aster Capital a investi près de 1.5 million d’euros. Un modèle « hybride » Avec l’arrivée du FEI , la société de capital-risque bascule vers un modèle qualifié d’ «hybride» par son directeur général, Jean-Marc Bally. « Les structures financées par des institutionnels ou des banques recherchent avant tout la performance financière. Nous avons réussi à faire converger les deux mondes, notre modèle de création de valeur basé sur les coopérations entre industriels et jeunes sociétés répondant aux exigences du FEI», explique-t-il. Pour convaincre l’institutionnel, Aster Capital a dû démontrer que ses craintes concernant d'éventuels conflits d’intérêts n'étaient pas fondées, les équipes de gestion du fonds étant « totalement indépendantes» des industriels sponsors. En intégrant un investisseur renommé, Aster Capital souhaite ainsi obtenir « un label qualité, gage de crédibilité». Le FEI a déjà investi, en une vingtaine d’années, plus de 6 milliards d’euros dans 370 fonds pour soutenir des PME en Europe. Sa participation au fonds Aster II témoigne de sa volonté d’accroître la collaboration avec les grands groupes. « Alors que les levées de fonds deviennent problématiques pour le capital-risque, nous avons été séduits par la valeur ajoutée de ce modèle, souligne Patric Gresko, directeur des investissements au FEI. Tous sont gagnants : les industriels qui ont accès aux start-up, les gérants de fonds qui peuvent s’appuyer sur les ressources des industriels, et les PME qui peuvent nouer des partenariats privilégiés avec de grands groupes.» La société Lucibel commercialise ainsi en Asie des solutions d'éclairage intelligentes en partenariat avec Schneider Electric. Source : Les Echos

Anke Schaks, who had spent ten years at Deutsche Asset Management, most recently as head of distribution for insurance in Germany, has joined Munizich & Co in Cologne as head of institutional sales.She will report to Aiga Romanovsky, CEO of Muzinich Deutschland GmbH, who declined to answer questions from Newsmanagers about assets and subscriptions/redemptions for Muzinich on the German market.

Since the financial crisis, modifications to US regulations and continuing aversion to risk have led US money market funds to increase liquidity levels in their portfolios significantly, according to a new study by the financial ratings agency Fitch Ratings, published on 14 November.As of the end of September 2012, liquid asset represented a total of 45% of assets, compared with about 20% as of the end of 2006. The study finds that money market funds have increased their liquidity on three occasions in the past few years: firstly, at the outbreak of the financial crisis, particularly following the tensions of August 2007, which affected dedicated vehicles (SIV) and the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market, then following modifications to regulations initiated by the SEC in 2010, and lastly in mid-2011, when volatility in the euro zone began to increase.The market authorities are highly attentive to the capacity for money market funds to bear market shocks, and to “strong and considerable liquidity to meet redemption demand and maintain confidence during periods of volatility,” says Roger Merritt, managing director and head of the Fund and Asset Manager evaluation group at Fitch. The agency adds that it is unlikely that money market funds will maintain such high liquidity cushions for very long, since they eat into returns. As soon as market volatility declines, money market funds will be likely to look for more lucrative investment opportunities.

Janus Capital International, the international division of the US firm Janus Capital, has recruited Giorgia Rizzati in Italy as client relationship manager, Bluerating reports. Rizzatti has worked at Credit Suisse for 10 years in the asset management division, first in Luxembourg, and then in Milan, where she was responsible for distribution of funds to private banks, retail and professional clients.At Janus, she will be based in Milan, and will report to Andrea Cardone, head for southern Europe.

Lyxor on Wednesday launched the first ETF of Italian government bonds with a maturity of 1 to 3 years on Borsa Italiana, Bluerating reports. The Lyxor ETF MTS BTP 1-3Y Italy Government Bond has a total expense ratio of 0.165% per year. The product reproduces a EuroMTS index composed of 13 government bonds, with a total issue value of over EUR240bn. The ETF provides exposure to a basket of securities characterised by a short duration and returns at maturity of about 2.53%.

In the first ten months of this year, the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has issued Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) quotas totalling a record USD33.6bn, Asian Investor reports.In October, SAFE has also issued permission for a record volume of QFII quotas to a total of nine foreign financial institutions, at USD2.75bn, compared with a previous record of USD2.1bn in March.Singappore was particularly favoured, as its sovereign wealth funds GIC and Temasek Fullerton Alpha Investments received extensions of USD600m and USD700m, respectively, in addition to which USD250m was granted to Fullerton Fund Management, another Temasek affiliate.The other firms which received QFII quotas last month were AMP Investors, Société Générale, Barclays Bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Fubon Securities Investment Trust and Metzler Asset Management.

Despite net outflows of USD8.3bn from US equity funds (and as much as USD19.6bn counting ETFs), long-term open-ended funds in the United States have posted net inflows of USD27.65bn in October, compared with USD16.5bn in September. Morningstar reports that this brings total net inflows in the first ten months of the year to USD249.38bn, also despite net redemptions of USD84.67bn for US equity products.Four asset management firms show net subscriptions of at least about USD20bn since the beginning of the year. Vanguard has posted net inflows of USD81bn in January-October, including USD5.28bn in October, while Pimco (Allianz group) shows net subscriptions of USD50.52bn in the first ten months of the year, of which USD8.1bn were last month; this puts the firm well ahead of DoubleLine, which attracted USD19.9bn, and JPMorgan, with USD21.9bn, of which USD1.97bn were last year.

Newsmanagers understands that the asset management unit of Mirabaud, which has posted net inflows of CHF470bn since the beginning of the year, will soon be strengthened with the recruitment of more specialists in the British capital, following the recruitments of Andrew Lake and the emerging market equities team led by Daniel Tubbs (see Newsmanagers of 18 June and 8 November).The Geneva-based firm is planning to launch two funds in parallel with these recruitments, one of them a high yield bond fund, and the other a global equity fund. However, plans for an energy fund remain suspended pending the recruitment of a fund manager.

With the iShares Global High Yield Bond (acronym AYLD), launched on 13 November, iShares claims that it has become the first provider to offer an ETF based on high yield bonds from the developed world. The product was launched on the London Stock Exchange on 14 November.The fund physically replicates the Markit iBoxx Global Developed Markets Liquid High Yield Capped Index, which aims to cover the glboal high yield bond market in as balanced a manner as possible, including the most liquid issues possible within the constraints of the UCITS directive.The maximal maturity for issues in the portfolio is one and a half years for new securities, and one year for those already belonging to the index, with a total limit of 3% per issuer.CharacteristicsName: iShares Global High Yield BondISIN code: IE00B74DQ490Base currency: USDTER: 0.50%

The new hedge fund management firm Barnstar Funds has assigned its founder and CIO Charles M. Fernandez responsibility for the management of the Barnstar Opportunities Fund, a multi-disciplinary special situations product with a long bias, which was officially launched on 14 November.The portfolio will be entirely invested in the capital structure of US businesses which the managers consider sufficiently undervalued due to financial problems, regulatory difficulties, and/or ongoing legal proceedings.Fernandez was most recently chairman of Fairholme Capital Management. He has invested a large part of his personal wealth in the new fund.

Since 14 November, Euronext Funds Service (EFS) has been listing its 208th investment fund: it is the Intereffekt High Dividend (NL0010278073), whose benchmark index is the MSCI Frontier Markets. The TER for this product is 2.30%.

UCITS-compliant equity funds in September posted net inflows of EUR3bn, after several months of outflows, including a total of EUR10.3bn in August, according to statistics from the European fund and asset management association (EFAMA). Since the beginning of this year, equity funds have posted net outflows of EUR28.2bn.Bond funds have posted net inflows that have halved in one month, to EUR8.8bn in September, following EUR17.5bn in August.The same trend may be observed for diversified funds, which have seen a decline in their net subscriptions to EUR1.8bn, from EUR6.1bn in August.Overall, long-term UCITS-compliant funds (excluding money market funds) have posted a highly stable net inflow of EUR13bn, compared with EUR12.9bn in August.Net inflows to non-UCITS funds in September totalled EUR4bn, compared with EUR5bn in August. Dedicated funds finished the month with net inflows of EUR3bn, compared with EUR4bn in August.Net assets in UCITS-compliant funds increased by 0.4% in September, to EUR6.223trn, while net assets in non-UCITS funds were up 0.5% to EUR2.47trn.

On 14 November, the Financial Services Authority published at 232-page consultation paper on its website covering the transposition into British law of the European Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). The consultation will conclude on 1 February 2013, while the transposition is slated for 22 July 2013.The document focuses on the prudential regime applicable to all types of alternative fund managers, and to the regimes applicable to depositories. It also concerns the level 1 obligations under the directive for alternative fund managers.

Elodie Duvaldestin, formerly of Barclays Wealth & Investment Management, has joined State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the asset management activity of State Street Corporation, as head of marketing for Southern Europe.She will be responsible for the marketing team, based in Paris, and will report to Richard Parker, head of marketing at SSgA for the EMEA region, and Marco Fusco, chairman and CEO of SSgA France and head for Southern Europe. She will be responsible for developing and deploying marketing and communication strategies for a wide range of products (passive and active management, alternative, ETF), to institutional clients and distribution intermediaries. Her position will cover the southern European geographical region, including France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.Before joining SSgA, Duvaldestin served as head of marketing for France for four years, successively at Morgan Stanley Investment management (2 years), and then at Barclays Wealth & Investment Management (also 2 years). She previously worked at Franklin Templeton Investments for four years, where she began in the sales team in Paris, and then became a product development analyst, successively on the team based in San Francisco, and then at the Paris office.

Sal Naro, CEO and CIO of Coherence Capital Partners, a hedge fund management firm launched in February 2012 as a spinoff of Jefferson National, has announced the recruitment of Philip Levy and Edgar Benavidea as partners, and head of business development and head of operations, respecrtively.Levy joins from Mudrick Capital Management, where he had been head of marketing & investor relations, while Benavidea had been a project manager in the capital markets unit at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The asset management operation at Natixis has posted net redemptions in third quarter of EUR5.4bn, according to a financial statement from the bank released on Wednesday evening. The outflows were largely from money market funds, which saw outflows of EUR7.3bn.Nonetheless, positive market effects have allowed asset management at Natixis to increase its assets between June and September from EUR560bn to EUR570bn. They have also increased in comparison to the end of 2011 (EUR544bn).Net banking revenues from asset management have increased 20% compared with third quarter 2011, to EUR411m, due to an improvement in the business mix, the bank says. Net operating profits are up 51% year on year to EUR110m.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) has ceased its onshore activities in Korea after five consecutive years of operating losses, Asian Investor reports.Goldman Sachs, which had bet it all on institutional fixed income, has also concurrently discontinued its business relationships with the Korean asset management firm Tong Yang Asset Management, to allow the US group to distribute local products to local investors.Assets under management at GSAM had totalled USD4bn, not a sufficient level for a fixed income operation, which has a margin of 3 to 5 basis points for institutional assets.

After migrating six of its funds from MSCI indices to their FTSE equivalents more than a month ago (see Newsmanagers of 3 October) Vanguard has taken out licenses for two Canadian indices from FTSE, which will be used as the basis for new ETFs to be listed in Toronto, FTSE announced on 14 November. The indices are the FTSE Canada High Dividend Yield Index and the FTSE Canada All Cap Real Estate Capped 25% Index.

With the acquisition of AIS Fund Administration and its USD25bn in assets under administration, US Bancorp Fund Services has increased its assets for alternative products on its middle and back office platform to about USD50bn. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.Current clients of both businesses will continue to be served by the same teams.

Following the guaranteed funds Amber (Ámbar) and Jade, Bankinter on 8 November registered the Cuarzo (Quartz) guaranteed fund with the CNMV, a product with a target date eight months longer than its predecessors, but similar returns of 4.05%. Capital invested will be redeemed on 2 August 2017, at 119.95% of the net asset value recorded on 31 December 2012.CharacteristicsName: Bankinter Renta Fija Cuarzo 2017 Garantizado, FIISIN code: ES0118843004Minimal initial subscription: EUR500Front-end fee: 5%Management commission: 0.3% until 13 December 2012, 0.7% thereafterWithdrawal penalty: 3%

The London-based asset management firm Sanlam Private Investments (SPI) has recruited Bruce Ely-Johnson as director of development, Investment Week reports. Ely-Johnston had previously worked at London & Capital Asset Management. In his new role, he will be responsible for the strategic positioning of the firm and leadership of the sales team.

Net inflows to the British boutique Liontrust Asset Management totalled GBP189m in the six months to the end of September, compared with GBP59m in first half 2011 to 30 September, according to figures released on 14 November.Assets under management as of the end of September totalled GBP2.36bn, compared with GBP1.2bn one year ago, previous to the acquisition of Walker Crips Asset Managers in April this year.The half brought a pre-tax loss of GBP4m, due to the cost of the acquisition of Walker Crips (GBP4.9m).

F&C has reshuffled its bond activity, which has resulted in the departure of manager Fatima Luis and three other members of the team: Han Altink, Mario Hooghiemstra and Leenders Schoenmaker. The reports, which first appeared in Citywire Wealth Manager, have been confirmed to Newsmanagers by a spokesperson for the British asset management firm. The reshuffle will merge the high yield team from F&C and the credit team from Thames River. The integration will be overseen by the head of global credit opportunities, Keith Patton, who joined the multi-strategy team at F&C in May 2012 from UBS Wealth Management. The head of global credit at F&C, Steve Drew, and Brett Golledge, who had been a member of his team, have left the firm, as has Peter Stage, head of credit research at F&C.

On its website, F&C Investments on 14 November published an article from Wealth Manager which claims that the reorganisation of its bond unit will result in the merger of high yield teams from F&C with credit teams from Thames River. This will result in the departures of fund manager Fatima Luis and three other members of the bond team. Han Altink, Mario Hooghiemstra and Leenders Schoenmaker. Fundweb states that F&C has confirmed the gist of the internal memo obtained by Wealth Manager. The British press is also reporting that Steve Drew, head of global credit at Thames River, has left the group, along with his colleauges Brett Golledge, and Peter Stage, head of credit research from F&C.

For the first nine months of this year, M&G Investments has posted net subscriptions of GBP11.3bn, compared with GBP2.6bn in the first three quarters of 2011, with record subscriptions of GBP6.4bn in July-September, compared with net outflows of GBP0.3bn in the third quarter of last year. In the nine-month period under review, net subscriptions have set records both for retail (GBP6.1bn compared with GBP2.6bn) and for institutional subscriptions (GBP5.2bn compared with zero).Assets as of 30 September totalled GBP216.9bn, compared with GBP194.4bn one year previously, including a record GBP104.2bn, compared with GBP87.3bn, for clients external to the Prudential group.

The German financial services group MLP has announced a net profit for the first three quarters of 2012 of EUR18.6m, compared with EUR2m in the corresponding period of last year, while pre-tax profits and financial charges total EUR26.7m, compared with EUR4.6m.The quarterly report reveals that the group largely profited from asset and wealth management, a unit whose revenue rocketed 41% to EUR83.7m in the first nine months of the year, largely due to growth at its affiliate Feri.As of 30 September, assets under management totalled EUR20.9bn, compared with EUR20.2bn as of the end of June and EUR19.3bn one year previously.

Fabian Klingler, CEO of Aberdeen Immobilien KAG, has been appointed as a member of the managing board at its parent company, Aberdeen Asset Management Deutschland AG. He will be responsible for the investment, fund and asset management and treasury operations, and will retain his repsonsibilities as head of the real estate fund affiliate, which has now been refocused on institutional funds and mandates, following the liquidation of its open-ended funds.The board at Aberdeen Germany includes Hartmut Leser (chairman, responsible for distribution, marketing, communications and product development) and Michael Determann (operations, finance, risk, personal, legal and controlling).

L’Espagne a pris des mesures efficaces pour réduire son déficit budgétaire en 2012 et en 2013, a déclaré le commissaire européen aux Affaires économiques et financières, laissant entendre qu’il n’avait pas l’intention de durcir les procédures disciplinaires engagées contre Madrid. Si l’Espagne ne semble pas en mesure d’atteindre les objectifs de déficit nominal fixés, elle respecte les objectifs d’ajustement structurel, a précisé Olli Rehn.

Pour le deuxième mois consécutif, le passif de l’Espagne vis-à-vis de Target2, devenu l’une des mesures des déséquilibres intra zone euro, s’est réduit en octobre. La baisse atteint désormais 54 milliards d’euros sur deux mois. Les banques espagnoles ont réduit leur recours au guichet de la BCE. Selon JPMorgan, l’amélioration du solde Target2 s’expliquerait pour l’essentiel par un meilleur accès des banques au marché du repo.

Le directeur exécutif de l’Institute of International Finance (IIF), Charles Dallara, a estimé que la Grèce devait bénéficier d’un ralentissement du rythme de l’ajustement budgétaire afin de pouvoir sortir de la crise et abaisser ses conditions de financement. Le responsable du lobby bancaire a toutefois jugé qu’une décote sur les titres de dette du secteur public ne paraissait pas politiquement faisable.