Les placements privés de dette en Allemagne se multiplient
Le succès de la levée de fonds de Seb en Allemagne, après Sonepar ou Faurecia, illustre l'ouverture du segment Schuldschein aux émetteurs français
La BCE serait prête à lancer un programme de rachat illimité
La BCE doit préciser à 14h30 les contours de son plan de rachats de dettes, qui ne prévoirait pas de rendement cible et serait stérilisé
Paris et Pékin font cause commune dans le non-coté
Le quotidien souligne qu’«à l’issue de plus de deux ans de pourparlers», la France et la Chine donnent aujourd’hui officiellement le coup d’envoi de leur fonds commun d’investissement dédié aux PME des deux pays. Un partenariat signé en l’occurrence par la Caisse des Dépôts et China Development Bank, qui créent un fonds de 150 millions d’euros confié à Cathay Capital. Ils envisageaient initialement de «créer deux fonds nationaux miroirs». «Deux investissements ont d’ores et déjà été identifiés», souligne le quotidien, qui assure que «les deux partenaires n’excluent pas de relever leur objectif d’investissement».
Bruxelles veut réformer les indices de marché
Le scandale du Libor soulève des questions de principe sur le fonctionnement des indices en général
Bruxelles veut réformer les indices de marché
Le scandale du Libor soulève des questions de principe sur le fonctionnement des indices en général
Aberdeen AM lance un fonds immobilier dédié outre-Rhin
La société de gestion écossaise Aberdeen Asset Management, par le biais de son antenne allemande Aberdeen Immobilien Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, a lancé en mai dernier un fonds immobilier à destination des investisseurs institutionnels doté au départ d’un peu plus de 100 millions d’euros d’amorçage. Il s’agit du deuxième fonds immobilier lancé cette année en Allemagne par Aberdeen.Dénommé «Städte und Wohnen», le fonds investira dans un premier temps dans de l’immobilier résidentiel à Berlin, Francfort, Hambourg et Karlsruhe. Des investissements sont également en cours à Heidelberg et Munich. L’objectif du fonds est d’investir environ 1 milliard d’euros dans l’immobilier résidentiel allemand.
ÖkoWorld lance un fonds émergent "vert"
Filiale de l’allemand versiko AG, la société de gestion ÖkoWorld Lux, dont tous les fonds sont gérés en fonction de critères écologiques, éthiques et sociaux, va lancer officiellement le 15 septembre le fonds d’actions émergentes ÖkoWorld Growing Markets 2.0 pour lequel la souscription initiale a été ouverte le 15 juillet et se termine le 15 septembre.L'équipe de gestion investira principalement en actions de sociétés actives dans les domaines de l'éducation, des énergies renouvelables, de l’eau, des services financiers durables, de la santé, de l’information, de la consommation et des loisirs durables, de l’urbanisme et de l’infrastructure ainsi que du progrès technique, de la mobilité et du logement. Il s’agit donc de changer de paradigmes par rapport au stade 1.0 des marchés émergents, où les marchés d’actions ont été dopés par la hausse du prix des matières premières.Le fonds bénéficie d’agréments de commercialisation pour le Luxembourg, l’Allemagne, l’Autriche et la Suisse.CaractéristiquesDénomination : ÖkoWorld Growing Markets 2.0Code Isin : LU08 0034 6016Droit d’entrée : 5 %Commission de gestion : 1,76 %
Partners Group et Avista rachètent l'américain Strategic Partners
Partners Group et Avista Capital Partners ont racheté le fabricant américain de chaussures et de vêtements médicaux Strategic Partners, en compagnie d’une équipe de dirigeants de la société. Strategic Partners est un leader dans son secteur, ainsi que dans les uniformes scolaires, indique un communiqué publié le 6 septembre. Le montant de la transaction n’est pas divulgué.
Ping An Russell prépare un fonds de multigestion
La co-entreprise Ping An Russell Investments prépare le lancement d’un fonds de multigestion à destination d’une clientèle fortunée de HNWI au début du troisième trimestre, selon Hedge Week.Le nouveau produit, dénommé MoM, donnera accès aux mêmes hedge funds locaux sélectionnés par Russell Investment pour les investisseurs en dollars par l’intermédiaire du futur fonds QFII réservé aux investisseurs institutionnels étrangers qualifiés.
06/09/2012
AMP Capital veut se développer en Asie
L’australien AMP Capital veut se développer en Asie à partir du bureau de Hong Kong, ouvert le 4 septembre, rapporte Asian Investor. En outre, la société de gestion a confié à son CEO pour l’international, Anthony Fasso, la responsabilité de la clientèle basée en Australie. Lers actifs sous gestion d’AMP Capital s'élèvent à environ 125 milliards de dollars, dont 85% émanent de la clientèle australienne. Anthony Fasso souligne que si le marché australien reste essentiel pour son activité, les zones les plus dynamiques en termes de croissance se trouvent à l’international, notamment au Japon et en partie en Europe. AMP Capital souhaite développer ses activités dans le fixed income en Asie. La croissance organique reste la priorité mais la société n’exclut pas de faire des acquisitions si l’occasion se présente.
06/09/2012
Un autre départ dans l’équipe suédoise d’Aviva Investors
Senait Asgede a elle aussi quitté l’équipe suédoise d’Aviva Investors, rapporte le site suédois Fondbranschen. Elle a rejoint Credit Suisse Asset Management à Stockholm. Elle retrouve Tove Bångstad qui a suivi le même parcours et qui s’occupe désormais des pays nordiques chez Credit Suisse AM.
06/09/2012
Sarasin se renforce à Genève
Frédéric Luyet, en dernier lieu responsable adjoint de la banque privée chez Credit Suisse pour la région genevoise, rejoindra au 1er décembre le bâlois Banque Sarasin comme directeur de l’unité private banking Suisse romande à Genève.Placé sous l’autorité de Bas Rijke, responsable du site de Genève, le nouvel arrivant prendra la tête d’une nouvelle équipe de plus de vingt personnes, composée de conseillers à la clientèle expérimentés ainsi que de spécialistes du crédit, du conseil en placement et de la planification financière.Les affaires de Sarasin liées à la clientèle privée domiciliée en Suisse romande seront considérablement développées à partir de Genève.
06/09/2012
Composition of CAC 40 may be modified this week
The flagship index of the Paris stock exchange may be changed at the end of this week, Les Echos reports. Peugeot may be remoed from the index, to be replaced by the chemist Solvay, according to market specialists. Arkema and Sodexo are also among the candidates to join the CAC 40, where they would join Alcatel-Lucent and STMicroelectronics. The decision may be taken later this week, this evening or tomorrow, marking the first changes to the flagship index for nearly one year.
06/09/2012
Risk management at the heart of hedge fund strategies
The 2008 financial crisis altered the behaviour of hedge funds in terms of risk management. A new study from the Managed Funds Association (MFA), BNY Mellon, and HedgeMark outlines new data showing that hedge funds are continuing to develop risk management practices that fit the needs of investors and fund managers alike.Managers of hedge funds have reinforced their internal controls with key recruitments, and considerably increased the amount of information released to investors on a regular basis. They have also made an effort to express their approach to risk management in comprehensible language, and are not hesitating to go into detail.The survey finds that 79% of firms now separate their risk manager and fund manager functions entirely to ensure independent oversight. More than 50% of participants estimate that independent verification of positions is an essential element in hedge fund surveillance.Institutional investors have welcomed the moves, and are not concealing their appetite for ongoing training in risk management. Efforts by hedge funds and professional associations are a step in the right direction, but need to be sustained in order not to be overtaken by developments in the sector.The survey finds that many hedge funds claim that practices put in place for risk management may generate alpha, and may allow them to stand out from the competition. In any case, reporting to investors will be produced on a daily or weekly basis for the next five years, compared with only 12% in 2007.
06/09/2012
Santander to merge foreign asset management affiliates
Funds People reports that, according to Expansión, Santander is planning to merge its ten foreign asset management affiliates in a single holding company. The project is already well-advanced, as Spanish, UK, Argentinian and Luxembourg asset management firms have already been integrated, and the Mexican asset management firm of the group will soon be added as the bank in this country holds its IPO.The group will gradually transfer the Brazilian, Chilean, Polish, Puerto Rican and Swiss asset management firms to the holding company, while Santander Asset Management has recently founded a German affiliate, which will soon open in Frankfurt.
06/09/2012
Ignis hires an LDI specialist from BlackRock
Ignis Asset Management has hired Joanna Howley as product specialist LDI and fixed income. She will be responsible for helping to grow Ignis’ fixed income and liability driven investment (LDI) business and will work closely with Ignis’investment professionals as well as clients, and will interact with all distribution channels.Jo Howley joins Ignis from BlackRock where she had worked since 1997. There, she held fixed income and LDI product specialist positions. Her responsibilities included mandateoversight, consultant liaison and client relationship management. She played a key role in helping to establish BlackRock as one of the UK’s leading providers of LDI solutions.
06/09/2012
Co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown resigns from board of directors
Hargreaves Lansdown announced on 5 September, at a release of annual results, that the co-founder of the firm, Stephen Lansdown, plans to resign from the board of directors at the next general shareholders’ meeting. Pre-tax profits at the group totalled GBP152.8m for the half-year to 30 June, compared with GBP126m the previous year, an increase of more than 20% year on year. Assets under administration as of 30 June totalled GBP26.3bn, up 7% compared with the previous year.
06/09/2012
Appointment at SWIP
Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Calum Smith to the newly-created position of head of the “Global Aggregate” unit, in the fixed income team based in Edinburgh, Investment Europe reports.Smith previously worked at BlackRock. The fixed income team at SWIP manages about GBP70bn in assets.
06/09/2012
Equities will be investors' preferred asset class in 2013
At a time when investors continue to prefer bonds, a survey by Neptune Investment Management finds that equities will be the preferred asset class for independent financial advisers (IFA) in 2012-2013.Neptune finds that 60% of advisers say equities will be investors’ preferred asset class, followed by fixed income (23.5%), commodities (3.5%) and real estate (2.4%). The survey also finds that investors continue to prefer British products to the detriment of international products.
06/09/2012
HSBC GAM introduces RDR share classes in its tracker funds
The range of eight tracker funds from HSBC Global Asset Management will gain the addition of a share class that complies with RDR regulations, with a management commission of 0.10%, Fundweb has announced. The shares will be available from independent financial advisers (IFA) via a certain number of platforms, institutions and discretionary managers.Overall, with registration fees, the products will cost 0.15%, compared with 0.25% net of front-end fee currently.Total TER varies depending on the product (see attached table).
06/09/2012
Series of promotions at Newedge
Leslie Richman, based in Chicago, and Duncan Crawford, based in London, have been promoted to the position of co-global head, alternative investment solutions, in the prime clearing services unit at Newedge, a joint venture of Société Générale and Crédit Agricole CIB. They will report to Chris Topple, global head of prime clearing services. The former has for the past two decades been head of alternative investment solutions for the United States, while the latter was global head of the capital introuctions branch, in which position he will be replaced by Keith Johnson, based in Chicago, who had previously been head of capital introductions Americas.James Skeggs, in London, and Ryan Duncan, in Chicago, become global co-heads of the advisory group, which is responsible for analysis of hedge fund strategies. Skeggs had been head of research EMEA, wile Duncan has been head of research Americas (he is also chairman of the index committee at Newedge). In their new roles, they will report to Richman and Crawford.
06/09/2012
Icap makes a risky bet on forex market transparency
Icap, the major inter-bank broker worldwide, has made technical modifications to come into effect on 17 September, which will affect its EBS electronic trading platform, due to dissatisfaction on the part of its major clients, banks, due to competition which is viewed as aggressive and disruptive from high-frequency traders, Agefi reports.Icap will modify the granularity of its listings, removing the fifth decimal point from the relative price of strategic currency pairs. The broker will also reduce the percentage of allowed orders which are not processed as transactions, since these are only used to survey the market, in order to profit from any short-term inefficiencies.
06/09/2012
Union sets up its own system of country ratings
Frank Engels, CIO for fixed income, announced on 5 September that Union Investment (the central asset management firm for the German co-operative banks) has set up its own system of country ratings, because S&P, Moody’s and Fitch have demonstrated in the past few years that they continue to behave procyclically and to react too late.The system developed by Union allows for systematic, uniform and transparent judgement of the solvency of governments, on the basis of fundamental economic data and measurable social and political indicators. It is based on three basic elements: fundamental macroeconomic evaluation of the ability of governments to pay their debts, an estimate of the desire of these governments to pay, and thus to make the necessary reforms in the case of need, and lastly, an advanced warning system which detects signs of weakness in economies which had previously been solid.Compared with ratings by the established ratings agencies, the Union ratings are worse for many industrialised countries, due to weak growth, the scale of debt, and poor budgetary discipline. On the other hand, emerging countries with solid budgets and strong growth are better-rated than by the established ratings agencies.According to Engels, the country ratings system from Union has recently been able to anticipate about 80% of ratings adjustments by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. The system will be integrated from 1 November into the basic allocation process for the UniInstitutional Global Government Bonds fund, which is focused on investment grade government bonds.
06/09/2012
Several funds woo Redcats US activities
Agefi reports, citing information in the New York Post, that the private equity funds TPG, Leonard Green, Berksire Partners and CCMP are reportedly in the running for the last request for proposals in the next few weeks to acquire the US activities of Redcats, an affiliate of the PPR group. Eight brands are included, primarily including the plus size clothing website and catalogue company OneStopPlus.
06/09/2012
Thomas d'Hauteville joins M&G Investments
As announced late in May by Newsmanagers (see Newsmanagers of 31 May 2012), Thomas d’Hauteville has joined M&G Investments as head of distribution in its Paris team. D’Hauteville was previously in charge of investor relations for North and South-West France at DNCA Finance. D”Hauteville will cover distribution activities in the North and South-West France regions for M&G.
06/09/2012
Un nouvelle société de gestion rejoint amLeague
La société de gestion Vivienne Investissement rejoint à compter du 1er octobre prochain le championnat amLeague. Adepte de la gestion quantitative, assurant la gestion d’un fonds «global macro» dénommé Ouessant, Vivienne Investissement interviendra de fait dans le cadre du mandat «multi asset class».Vivienne Investissement est une société de gestion quantitative indépendante issue d’un laboratoire de recherche et développement en finance quantitative fondé en 2005, et dont l’objectif a été, au moyen des mathématiques, d’innover et élaborer un processus de gestion robuste. Avec un track record obtenu en gestion pour compte propre, la société a élargi son activité à la gestion pour compte de tiers le 22 mai dernier.En rejoignant amLeague, Laurent Jaffrès, le président fondateur de la société compte ainsi accélerer le développement de son fonds en le faisant connaître auprès des investisseurs institutionnels, la gestion privée ou les family offices, etc. Le fonds, qui affiche un encours de 1,5 million d’euros, devrait cependant, dès l’année prochaine, être proposé aux particuliers via les conseillers en gestion de patrimoine.
06/09/2012
US hedge fund recruits a former Goldman director
The US hedge fund Strategic Value Partners has recruited Steve McGuinness, a former Goldman Sachs Asset Management executive, the Financial Times reports. He will be senior managing director at SVP, in charge of development, and will report to Victor Khosla, founder of the hedge fund. SVP has USD4bn in assets under management, of which USD2.2bn have been invested in distressed debt in the past 20 months.
06/09/2012
Summer rally penalises defensive managers
The S&P 500 index has posted gains of 12% since the beginning of the year, of which 9.8 percentage points have been since 1 June. This movement has caught defensive fund and hedge fund managers off guard, and they have now to buy shares not to be left out, in a trend which may drive up the price of equities further, the Wall Street Journal notes. However, there is a lot of uncertainty in Europe and about the Fed’s monetary stance, and so some managers are preferring to “keep their power dry.”
06/09/2012
Overall deterioration in results at Artio Global Investors
The US affiliate of Julius Baer Holding, Artio Global Funds, has filed with the SEC a fall in its profits in first half, to USD6.87bn, compared with USD44.7bn in January-June 2011.Assets as of 30 June totalled USD21.16bn, compared with USD46.83bn twelve months previously. Net redemptions totalled USD10.46bn, compared with USD7.76bn, while market effects were positive by USD1.26bn in the first six months of the year (compared with USD1.19bn in first half 2011), despite a negative impact of USD1.02bn in first quarter.In the period under review, Artio laid off 25 employees, but this measure which aimed to save USD20m annually did not affect portfolio managers or analysts in the areas of international equities, high yield or high grade bonds. The asset management firm has announced that it will be liquidating its four US equity funds (Artio US Multicap Fund, Artio US Midcap Fund, Artio US Smallcap Fund and Artio US Microcap Fund).