Recherche
S'abonner
Connexion
Asset Management
Accueil Asset Management Actualités
29/08/2012

Mario Draghi n'ira pas à Jackson Hole

Le président de la BCE ne se rendra pas à la conférence de Jackson Hole, a annoncé hier l’institution monétaire, évoquant une charge de travail trop lourde. La réunion de cette année était particulièrement attendue alors que les observateurs attendent de savoir si la BCE et la Fed prendront ou non des mesures musclées afin de relancer la croissance aux Etats-Unis et apaiser les tensions en zone euro.
29/08/2012

La Catalogne appelle Madrid au secours

Après Valence et Murcie, la région demande 5 milliards d’euros au Fonds régional pour finir l’année. Les ressources du fonds pourraient être relevées.
29/08/2012

Erkki Liikanen souhaite plus de transparence de la BCE

Dans une interview accordée au journal finlandais, Erkki Liikanen, membre du conseil des gouverneurs de la BCE, estime que l’institution devrait faire preuve de davantage de transparence concernant son processus de décision, en «accélérant la mise à disposition publique de l’information». Le président de la banque centrale de Finlande considère que la durée de confidentialité des minutes de la BCE, fixée à 30 ans actuellement, est «très longue» et considère qu’un raccourcissement ne serait pas préjudiciable «à partir du moment où l’on peut s’assurer qu’une partie des discussions préalables à la prise de décision reste confidentielle».
29/08/2012

Hong Kong veut s’attaquer à la surchauffe immobilière

Le nouveau gouvernement de Hong Kong considère comme une priorité de s’attaquer à la surchauffe du marché immobilier, rapporte le journal de sources officielles. Il ajoute que le pouvoir entend augmenter les ressources foncières et indique que les propriétaires soutiendront les mesures prises afin de ralentir la hausse «irrationnelle» des prix.
29/08/2012

Les conservateurs allemands veulent un déficit nul dès 2014

Selon le journal qui cite Norbert Barthle, porte-parole de la coalition CDU/CSU, les parlementaires de l’actuelle majorité souhaitent ramener le déficit budgétaire de l’Allemagne à zéro dès 2014, soit 2 ans avant l’échéance ciblée par le Ministre des Finances Wolfgang Schaeuble.
29/08/2012

SMEs would like to go RMB

A growing number of businesses in Europe, particularly SMEs, would like ot undertake and complete transactions with Chinese clients in renminbi (RMB), according to a survey undertaken by Deutsche Bank of businesses in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Currently, only one business in five undertakes its transactions in RMB but 80% would like to switch to the Chinese currency. It is also true that the change has some interest for them, as foreign businesses can save an average of 4.8%. Commercial markets denominated in RMB outside China currently represent a total of about USD2bn per day. That is double the trades denominated in US dollars/RMB in the past 15 months.
29/08/2012

BlackRock recruits a head for Asia

Kevin Hardy will be leaving Northern Trust, where he had spent 9 years, to join BlackRock as head of the Asia Pacific Index Equity team, according to reports in AsianInvestor. In this position he will replace Jane Leung, who was appointed as head of iShares for Asia-Pacific in May.
29/08/2012

UBS poaches a former Alliance Bernstein employee

UBS has recruited Erik Carrell for its asset management division in Stockholm, where he will be responsible for third-party distribution, according to the Swedish website Fondbranschen. He had previously been at Alliance Bernstein.
29/08/2012

British retail investors go in for bond funds

Retail funds based in the United Kingdom in July had net inflows of GBP903m, according to the most recent statistics from the Investment Management Association. More than half of these inflows, equivalent to GBP480m, went to bond funds. The second most popular category of funds for the month is diversified funds, which took on GBP211m. Equity funds are in third place, with GBP152m. As of the end of July, retail funds had total assets of GBP612bn, compared with GBP600bn one year earlier. Institutional funds, for their part, have posted net inflows of GBP130m in July 2012, and funds domiciled abroad have seen net redemptions of GBP187m.
29/08/2012

Paulson denies massive outflows from funds

In a conference call held on Tuesday with Bank of America for financial advisers and their clients, John Paulson admitted that his flagship fund, Paulson Advantage, has posted disappointing results, but assured his interlocutors that Paulson & Co has not seen an exodus of investors.Currently, assets at Paulson & Co have fallen to USD19.5bn, compared with USD36bn as of the beginning of 2011. Paulson Advantage lost 36% in 2011, and has lost 13% since the beginning of this year. The Paulson Advantage Plus, for it part, lost half of its assets in 2011, and another 18% since the beginning of 2012.However, the Merger and Recovery funds have posted respective performances this year of 3.6% and 3.9%, beating their benchmarks.
29/08/2012

Fidelity promotes Abigail Johnson

Fidelity Investments has promoted Abigail Johnson to the postion of president of Fidelity Financial Services, making her the heir apparent at the US asset management firm still headed by her father, Edward “Ned” Johnson, 82, the Financial Times reports. Fidelity Financial Services includes the key activities of the firm: asset management, institutional and retail brokerage, and administration of pension plans and benefits.
29/08/2012

Pershing Square Capital Manager puts pressure on General Growth

The hedge fund manager William Ackman, head of Pershing Square Capital Management, is putting pressure on the shopping centre manager General Growth Properties, and has twice called for the firm to be put up for sale in letters. Ackman suggests that the second-largest firm in shopping centres in the United States should not allow the asset management firm Brookfield Asset Management take control of the firm, in which Brookfield already controls a 42% stake. Ackman goes so far as to say that the leading shopping centre player, Simon Property Group, would be an excellent acquisition candidate. Brookfield Asset Management, which in 2010 helped to prevent bankruptcy at General Growth, has since claimed that it does not want to increase its stake in the firm. Pershing Square owns 10.5% of capital in General Growth.
29/08/2012

Hedge funds prefer Harvard and Columbia

What are the most sought-after MBAs for hedge fund managers who recruited in 2012? According to the most recent survey by HFObserver, it is a tie between the two most sought-after degrees, from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and from Harvard Business School. These are followed by the MBAs from the Stern School of Business (New York University) and the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania). The survye reviews over 800 full-time recruitments (excluding administrative positions) at alternative management companies (hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, alternative units of sovereign funds, trusts, private equity firms). HFObserver finds that 31% of professionals recruited by hedge funds in 2012 had an MBA. Among investment professionals, the percentage with an MBA is 33%.
29/08/2012

Carmignac recruits a European equities analyst

Carmignac Gestion has announced the arrival of Merkus Kulessa as an analyst in its European equity team. Kulessa, a German national, assumed his new position on August 1, 2012, and reports to Laurent Ducoin.Before joining the French asset management firm, Kulessa worked as an analyst in the mergers & acquisitions department at KPMG AG in Frankfurt, and prior to that, at Société Générale and Wachovia Securities in London.
29/08/2012

Hedge fund assets up 3.2% in first half

As of the end of June, total assets in single hedge funds and funds of hedge funds came to USD2.317trn, 3.2% higher than the USD2.245trn recorded at the end of 2011 (see Newsmanagers of 2 May), according to statistics from PerTrac.The total number of funds, for its part, increased 4.61% to 14.013, with a 7.46% increase to 10,754 funds for single hedge funds. Three quarters of the increase in the number of single hedge funds is due to small funds and start-ups with less than USD25m in assets. That suggests that asset allocators are increasingly interested in alternative investments, and are showing an increasing tendency to invest directly in hedge funds.Investors have preferred large funds, with the result that the “billion dollar club” of single hedge funds with over USD1bn in assets increased to USD1.146trn as of 30 June, compared with USD1.080trn as of the end of 2011. As of the end of June, that represented 60.6% of volume in single hedge funds. For funds of hedge funds, 48.7% of assets of USD425bn as of the end of June (-4.92% compared with the end of December) were controlled by 3.24% of managers with AUM over USD1bn.PerTrac states that assets in single hedge funds in first half increased 5.23% to USD1.892trn.
29/08/2012

US investors drag down confidence index in August

The Global State Street Investor Confidence Index (ICI) for August 2012 fell from July’s revised reading of 94.3 to 90.9. Driving the decline was a sharp deterioration in risk appetite among North American investors: the North American ICI declined 8.7 points from July’s revised level of 93.1 to settle at 84.4. The European ICI was close to unchanged, ticking down half a point from 101.7 to 101.2. Among Asian investors, risk appetite improved for the fourth successive month, and the Asian ICI rose 2.9 points from a revised level of 90.6 to finish at 93.5.“While confidence among European and Asian investors has broadly stabilized, this month’s reading on North American risk appetite signals a clear set-back,” commented Kenneth Froot, one of the developers of the index. “We did note some concrete buying of European equities, excluding the UK, as policy makers took pains to try to limit the ‘tail-risk’ of a euro-currency break-up, but in other regions flows were negative. One change we did note is that the composition of flows is slightly less defensive than was true earlier in the year. For example, the Materials and Financial sectors gained at the expense of Utilities and Consumer Staples.”
29/08/2012

Norwegian fund opposes Glencore/Xstrata merger

The Norwegian sovereign funds has rallied its Qatari counterpart to oppose a USD70bn merger between the commodity trader Glencore and the mining group Xstrata, the Financial Times reports. Norges Bank Investment Management, the asset management firm responsible for the Norwegian fund, has spent more than USD500m in the past few weeks to acquire shares in Xstrata. It is now the fourth-largest shareholder in the mining group, just behind Glencore, Qatar and Blackrock, with 2.97% of capital in the group.
29/08/2012

Only one hedge fund out of ten outperforms the S&P 500

In the seven months to the end of July, only one hedge fund in ten has managed to outperform the S&P 500 benchmark index, largely due to a double-speed decline for an index of long positions taken by managers, according to analysis by Goldman Sachs, Investment Europe reports. The 50 long positions most frequently cited by managers as being among their top 10 positions as of 30 June had lost 7.2% in the past three months. The S&P 500 index lost only 2.8% in the same period. Due to this underperformance, only 11% of hedge funds managed to outperform the benchmark index between January and July. This is less than half the percentage (26%) which did so for the year 2011 as a whole. Average gains of 5% for hedge funds as of 3 August is less than half that for the S&P 500 (12%).
29/08/2012

Moody's sets long-term issuer rating for Julius Baer at A1

Moody’s Investors Service assigned on August 28 a first-time long-term issuer rating of A1 to Bank Julius Baer & Co. AG, Zurich (BJB). The rating is on review for downgrade following Moody’s 15 August 2012 action on the bank’s deposit ratings. The A1 issuer rating on BJB is at the same level as the bank’s long-term bank deposit rating and is therefore under review for downgrade, explains Moody’s. On 15 August 2012, Moody’s downgraded BJB’s long-term bank deposit rating to A1 from Aa3 and placed it on review for further downgrade, following the announcement by the Julius Baer Group that it was acquiring Merrill Lynch’s international wealth-management business outside the US from Bank of America.
29/08/2012

Inflows at Valartis, and a return to profits

Assets under management at the Swiss group Valartis, which has begun a process of refocusing on its wealth management activities, increased in first half by 8% compared with the end of December 2011 to a total of CHF7.4bn, according to a statement released on 28 August. Net inflows for the half totalled CHF491m, of which CHF486m came from private clients. Positive market and forex effects represented a total of CHF97m. The group returned to profitability in first half, with net profits of CHF3.9m, compared with losses of nearly CHF20m in the first six months of 2011.
29/08/2012

Vontobel planning to spin off structured products unit

The Swiss Vontobel group is reportedly planning to open its structured products platform Deritrade up to other issuers, or to spin off the activity, several sources are reporting, according to finews. Vontobel has declined to comment on the speculation. One thing, however, is sure: the structured product activity represents more than three quarters of the operating revenues for Vontobel. Separating Deritrade from the parent company could increase the credibility of the platform and spur its development in Asia, observers claim.
29/08/2012

Assets under management down but a return to profitability at Bellevue AM

Assets under management at the Swiss firm Bellevue Asset Management were down 3% in first half to a total of CHF3.5bn, according to a statement released on 27 August. The good performance of several investment products offset outflows.The asset management firm also returned to profitability in first half, with a net profit of CHF8m, where the first six months of 2011 saw a low of CHF23.5m.
29/08/2012

Accelerando recruits a head for Germany and Benelux

The third-party marketer (TPM) and fund distribution consultant Accelerando Associates has announced the recruitment of Janek Baranowski as head of TPM activities for Germany and Benelux, Investment Europe reports. Baranowski, who has 25 years of experience in financial services, previously worked at Fundmatrix, ABN Amro, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.
29/08/2012

Hedge fund advertisng: first SEC vote to be held on Wednesday

The Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC will be voting a first time on Wednesday this week to repeal a ban on advertising by private investment companies. The US regulator was slated to take a similar vote in June to comply with the JOBS act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups). A second vote by the SEC will be necessary in autumn. Hedge fund directors are beginning to approach advertising professionals to determine whether they can envisage any novel advertising methods. They will certainly not be buying TV advertising spots or renaming stadiums, as their more visible compatriots in the banking world do.

Sujets d'actualité

Tous les sujets