Ireland announced on 7 December that it has signed an agreement with the United States over application of the US Fatca tax law.The US tax law will allow the US government to tax all accounts held internationally by parties subject to US tax. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Axt (FATCA) requires banks and insurers to sign an agreement with the US tax authorities, by which they agree to disclose all accounts held by US nationals. If this is not done, the firms will be required to pay a 30% withholding tax, or not accept US clients.Assets under administration by the Irish fund sector recently reached a record USD2.2trn, while funds domiciled in Ireland for the first time topped EUR1trn.
Assets in fixed income hedge funds are expected to overtake assets in equity strategies for the first time in the history of the industry, the Financial Times reports. At the end of third quarter, equity and relative value arbitrage hedge funds (which include various bond strategies) represented USD586bn each. “It is highly likely that by the end of the year equities will no longer be the main strategy, and that has never happened before,” predicts Ken Heinz, chairman of HFR.
Leen Meijaard, director of institutional sales for continental Europe, has become director of sales at iShares for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), replacing David Gardner, who is leaving the business after 12 years, Cinco Días reports, relaying reports in Investment Week. Meijaard will also remain as direct head for the Benelux region.The position of director of institutional activities in continental Europe left vacant by Meijaard will be occupied by Peter Nielsen, who since 2009 has contributed to the establishment of the iShares organisation in Scandinavia. Nielsen also remains as direct head for Scandinavia.
The Lyxor Hedge Fund index has posted returns of 0.4% in the month of November, meaning that since the beginning of the year, it has gained 2%, Lyxor reports on 7 December. 13 of the 14 strategies in the index finished the month with gains, including gains of 1.2% fot the Fixed Income Arbitrage fund and 1% for the Long/Short Credit Arbitrage.
Krishna Patel has resigned from his position as head of the private bank at the british HSBC group. Le Temps reports that he will be leaving his Geneva office by the end of January, following a period of transition. The director, based in Geneva and Zurich, is 63 years old, and the reasons for his departure and his future plans have not been disclosed. Peter Boyles, current head of continental Europe and European activities at the commercial bank will take over his duties.
There are some signs that investors on both sides of the Atlantic believe the Eurozone crisis may have passed its high point. Europe Money Market Funds have seen net redemptions of over USD17 billion during the past two weeks -- versus inflows of more than USD35 billion for their US counterparts, according to estimates released by EPFR Global. During the week ending December 5, USD22.06 billion flowed out of money market funds, while equity funds absorbed USD2.3 billion. US equity funds recorded net outflows of over USD2 billion, while Europe equity funds attracted USD1.2 billion. Early December saw EPFR Global-tracked emerging markets equity funds take in over USD3 billion on consecutive weeks for the first time since the first quarter EPFR Global-tracked bond funds took in a net USD4.46 billion for the week, taking the YTD total past the USD450 billion mark.
Lee Kranefuss, CEO of iShares from 2000 to 2010, has been recruited by Warburg Pincus to head the USD30bn private equity group’s expansion into the ETF market, Financial Times Fund Management reports. Cary David, managing director of Warburg Pincus, has announced that Kranefuss has been recruited to evaluate opportunities in ETFs, index-based investments and asset management in Europe, Asia and Latin America. “The time is ripe to create a large, global and independent provider of genuinely attractive and innovative products that investors demand, Kranefuss says.
Karina Litvack is leaving F&C Asset Management, where she has been working for ten years, and had been head of governance & sustainable investment. The news, which first appeared in the UK press, has been confirmed to Newsmanagers by a spokesperson for the asset management firm. Litvack, widely known in the sustainable investment industry, joined F&C in 1998. Her departure is reported by the British website Fund Web to be related to a restructuring of the governance and sustainable investment team.
Alcentra, a boutique from BNY Mellon, a specialist in speculative debt in Europe and the United States, will be participating in an initiative by the Bank of England to provide up to GBP200m in financing to British high-quality middle market businesses. Alcentra is expected to develop the strategy over the next twelve months, with average investments of GBP10m to GBP25m each.
Old Mutual Global Investors (OBGI) has announced that its Skandia Global Best Ideas fund (GBP275m) will be diversifying its portfolio to adopt an approach to strategic allocation moderated by GDP instead of the more traditional model which had previously exposed the half of the portfolio to British equities and half to global equities.The change will mean that the firm will be more highly diversified in terms of countries and currencies. In addition to geographical diversification, the changes will result in a reduction of about 6 basis points to TER.The new regional weightings will be as follows:Region/Former allocation/New allocationEurope including R-U 61.89%//26/66%United States 13/66%/26/29%Japan 4.91%/9.46%Asia-Pacific ex Japan 8.33%/23/93%Emerging markets ex Asia 11.21%/13.66%
Tony Lanning, head of multi-asset at Henderson, is leaving the firm at the end of January to join JPMorgan Asset Management and manage portfolios built by the investment team at J.P. Morgan Adviser Solutions, Money Marketing reports. Bill McQuaker will take over management of the multi-manager absolute return fund as lead manager at Henderson.
This year’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) SRI Index review finds that 76 out of 108 South African companies assessed by EIRIS for the JSE meet the sustainability criteria for inclusion in the JSE SRI Index. Now in its ninth year, the JSE SRI Index is based on sustainability criteria developed by the JSE and global responsible investment research firm EIRIS. Research for the index is undertaken by EIRIS’ global platform partner the University of Stellenbosch Business School’s Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa. The JSE is supported by the Government Employees Pension Fund - Africa’s largest pension fund - which has been actively involved in the JSE SRI index. The SRI Index comprises of listed companies which meet criteria related to their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, management practices and reporting. The intention of the index is two-fold: to encourage companies to operate responsibly and transparently and to prompt institutions to consider ESG factors when evaluating investments. The SRI Index is a key benchmark for broad-based environmental, social and governance practice amongst listed companies.
Allianz Global Investors Luxembourg has announced that on 7 December it liquidated the Allianz Islamic Global Equity Opportunities fund (LU0356363159), managed by Paul Schofield. Assets in the Sharia-compliant equity fund were insufficient, at EUR8.98m.
The British firm Standard Life Investments (SLI) has announced that, in line with the Stewardship Code, the time to publication of voting rights at general shareholders’ meetings of British and European companies will be shortened to two weeks following the month under review, instead of three months previously.Each year, SLI participates in votes at more than 1,000 general shareholders’ meetings in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.
Les tensions sur la dette italienne se sont ravivées lundi matin, après que Mario Monti a annoncé ce week-end sa démission prochaine de la présidence du Conseil, entraînant l’organisation d'élections anticipées, probablement en février, soit deux mois plus tôt que prévu. Cette instabilité politique fait craindre un abandon de la politique d’austérité mise en place depuis un an. Vers 13 heures, les taux à 10 ans progressaient de 34 points de base, à 4,85%, entraînant avec eux les taux espagnols et portugais. L'écart de rendement avec les taux allemands augmentait de 36 pb, à 358 pb. Une source italienne a indiqué à Reuters que ces tensions ne remettent pas en question les deux émissions prévues cette semaine par le pays mercredi et jeudi.
Les perspectives d'évolution de la croissance en zone euro, en Allemagne et en France restent faibles. L’indicateur avancé de l’OCDE pour la zone euro baisse de 0,1 point à 99,3. Celui de l’Allemagne recule de 0,1 point à 98,7, tandis que de la France baisse de 0,1 point à 99,4. Parallèlement, l’indicateur pour les Etats-Unis progresse de 0,1 point à 100,9 et celui pour le Royaume-Uni gagne 0,2 point à 100,5.
L’excédent commercial allemand s’est encore contracté en octobre, revenu à son plus bas niveau en plus de six mois, en raison d’une faible croissance des exportations, selon les chiffres de l’Office fédéral de la statistique. Les importations ont augmenté de 2,5% alors que les exportations n’ont progressé que de 0,3%.
L’agence de gestion de la dette publique grecque a prolongé jusqu'à mardi midi, heure de Londres, l’offre de rachat d’obligations du pays destinée aux créanciers privés. Selon la presse grecque, Athènes aurait reçu déjà pour près de 30 milliards d’euros de titres, le montant nécessaire au succès de l’offre.
La Banque de France a confirmé prévoir une contraction de 0,1% de l'économie française au quatrième trimestre, dans sa deuxième estimation fondée sur son enquête mensuelle de conjoncture. L’activité industrielle aurait très légèrement progressé, selon les chefs d’entreprises interrogés, avec des livraisons stabilisées après le repli d’octobre. Le taux d’utilisation des capacités de production est quasi stable et reste inférieur à la moyenne de longue période. Les carnets de commandes sont toujours à un niveau jugé insuffisant, les stocks de produits finis, proches du niveau désiré, n’ont pas évolué et les prix des produits finis ont légèrement augmenté.
Depuis le début de l’année, les émetteurs issus des marchés émergents ont levé près de 7 milliards de dollars grâce à des émissions d’obligations libellés en yen, selon le journal qui cite des chiffres fournis par Dealogic. Sur l’ensemble de l’année dernière, l’émission de «Samurai bonds» n’avait permis aux pays émergents de récolter qu’un montant total de 4,4 milliards de dollars.
L’Union européenne devrait prochainement, si l’on en croit les informations du journal qui cite des sources proches du dossier, pointer du doigt la responsabilité de nombreux établissements financiers dans la fixation du taux interbancaire européen, l’Euribor. Comme dans l’affaire du Libor, les banques se seraient ainsi entendues pour fixer le taux de référence du marché européen. Les banques françaises Crédit Agricole et Société Générale ainsi que la britannique HSBC ou l’allemande Deutsche Bank feraient partie des établissements s’étant associés à la britannique Barclays, qui a déjà reconnue sa responsabilité dans la manipulation du Libor et de l’Euribor.
La dette des gouvernements locaux ne posera pas de risque systémique à l’économie chinoise dans les trois à cinq prochaines années, indique le South China Morning Post qui cite Zhong Liang, responsable de la notation souveraine chez Standard & Poor’s. L’économie devrait, selon Zhong Liang, croître à un rythme suffisant pour absorber la dette des finances locales du pays.
BC Partners, Permira et CVC Capital Partners songent selon le quotidien à défier le difficile environnement macroéconomique italien. Les sociétés britanniques de private equity pourraient en effet formuler des offres visant Cerved, société d’études et de notation basée à Milan, selon des sources proches du dossier. Bain Capital et Clessidra ont racheté Cerved à des banques en 2008.