The Turin-based asset management firm Ersel Gestioni di Patrimoni has recruited Gianluca Oderda as head of quantitative investments, Investment Europe reports. Oderda had previously been head of multi-asset & total return at Pictet Asset Management, where he spent ten years.

The board of directors at UniCredit on 10 July adopted a decentralised structure, discontinuing efforts to create a pan-European division. The private bank, retail bank and SME bank will be organized locally in Itally, Germany, Austria and Poland. However, the COO and asset management division will retain their current prerogatives worldwide.

After net outflows in May of SEK0.7bn, Swedish funds in June say further net redemptions of SEK0.3bn. However, the Fondsbolagens Förening association of asset management firms reports, first half ended with net subscriptions of SEK11.8bn, while assets as of 30 June totalled SEK1.895bn. In June, outflows affected equity funds especially, with net outflows of SEK10.6bn, and to a lesser extent, hedge funds (USD0.3bn), In the first six months of the year, however, equity funds posted inflows of SEK3.6bn, and diversified funds posted USD5.6bn in inflows, and bond funds attracted SEK9.6bn. But money market funds and hedge funds underwent respective net outflows of SEK3.3bn and SEK3.5bn.

The number of firms with a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license in China rose to 172 in June, as the regulator issued licenses to ING Investment Management and Mitsubishi UFJ, for a total of USD1.35bn, Z-Ben Advisors reports. In first half overall, the CSRC issued quotas to 37 firms, totalling USD5.7bn.

Agefi cites reports in the New York Times that the US Federal prosecutor is considering criminal charges against several banks involved in the Libor rate-fixing scandal. Some traders at Barclays are said to be concerned. Agefi suggests that these impending charges may provide added impetus to the banks to settle out of court. In Europe, the newspaper points out, Deutsche Bank has signed a cooperation agreement with the European Commission to minimise any potential economic impact on the bank. The Bank of England, for its part, has released emails which confirm that its governor, Mervyn King, in 2008 supported proposals by Timothy Geithner, then chairman of the Federal Reserve in New York, to reform the way in which the Libor rate is calculated.

AdvisorShares is launching its fifteenth ETF, the AdvisorShares Global Alpha & Beta ETF, managed by Your Source. The ETF offers a strategy which bets on equities when the markets are rising, and on short-term bonds when the markets are falling, Mutual Fund Wire states.

According to a Morningstar study, of nearly 38,000 products, the total expense ratio for investment funds increased steadily between 2007 and 2010, from 1.52% to 1.64%, but fell for the first time in 2011, to 1.58%, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. This is also true for funds which charge no performance commissions, which fell to 1.9% from 2.17% in 2010 (compared with 1.78% in 2007). The most costly funds were equity products, with 1.79% in 2011, after two successive double-digit declines in 2009 and 2010.

In the week to 11 July, bond funds have posted net subscriptions of USD4.87bn, the strongest inflows in eight weeks, bringing net subscriptions since the beginning of the year to USD200bn, EPFR Global reports. Meanwhile, equity funds have posted net outflows of USD327m in the week under review, while money market funds have posted their best weekly results since the beginning of the year, due to USD20bn for US products. According to EPFR, European equity funds have seen modest outflows for the sixth time in the past eight weeks, and net redemptions since the beginning of the year total USD21.7bn, compared with net subscriptions of USD1.4bn in the twelfth consecutive week and the twenty-sixth week of the first 28 weeks of the year.

As part of research by the Newedge chair on the subject of “Advanced Modelling for Alternative Investments,” the EDHEC-Risk Institute has adopted a new method for evaluating the performance of hedge funds on the basis of a non-linear adjustment of risk performance. It has been tested on various hedge fund indices and several individual hedge funds, taking into account a variety of risk factors, covering equities, bonds, credit, currencies and commodiies. The study concludes that what had been unduly considered alpha in previous analyses is actually a form of just recompense for hedge fund managers for holding a variety of relatively complex linear and non-linear exposures to various risk factors. Often, EDHEC adds, declines in performance are triggered by a few extreme events which cannot be captured with traditional linear methods.

The Lyxor global hedge fund index has posted losses in June of 0.47%, putting average performance in first quarter at 0.49%. Seven out of 13 strategies showed losses last month, but bond arbitrage and long/short equity long bias have posted respective gains of 1.97% and 1.95%. Three categories have posted strong returns in January-June: bond arbitrage leads, with 5.65%, followed by distressed securities (4.89%), and long/short equity long bias (4.30%). However, CTA Long Term has posted losses of 2.72% in first half.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that following Barclays, 11 other banking establishments may also be fined for manipulating the Libor rates. RBS may also face fines of GBP150m, Investment Week reports. Overall, the banks concerned may be facing fines of GBP22bn.

For second quarter 2012, the asset management unit at JP Morgan Chase has posted net profits of USD391m, compared with USD386m in January-March, and USD439m in the corresponding period of last year. Assets under management as of the end of June totalled USD1.3trn, a gain of USd5bn compared with their levels as of 30 June 0211, as net subscriptions to long-term products were compensated by the negative effect of falling markets and net redemptions from money market products. In the twelve months to the end of June, assets under management increased under the influence of net inflows of USD31bn, but in April-June 2012, the asset management firm shows net outflows of USD11bn, due to net redemptions of USD25bn, partly offset by USD14bn in net subscriptions to long-term products. JPMorgan states that its long-term products in April-June posted their thirteenth consecutive quarter of net subscriptions. For the J. P. Morgan Chase & Co group as a whole, net profits in first half totalled USD9.85bn, compared with USD10.96bn in January-June 2011, while pre-tax losses of USD4.4bn due to the operations of the “Whale of London” did not prevent the group from posting a net profit of USD4.96bn in second quarter, compared with USD5.43bn in the corresponding period of 2011.

The French asset management firm Mandarine Gestion has signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI). Assets at Mandarine as of the end of June totalled EUR1.3bn.

Les Echos reports that JP Morgan is expecting a trading loss of USD7.5bn at most. At a presentation of results for second quarter, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan, revealed that losses due to bets on credit derivatives by the London-based teams of the Chief Investment Office (CIO) totalled USD4.4bn in second quarter. Overall, trading losses to date total USD5.8bn. According to Les Echos, the bank has “discovered information that casts doubt on the integrity of traders’ ‘marks,’ and which suggests that some individuals may have attempted to falsify the total amount of losses incurred by the portfolio in first quarter.”

In second quarter 2012, Wells Fargo on 13 July announced a record net profit of USD4.62bn, compared with USD4.2bn in January-March and USD3.9bn in the corresponding period of 2011. For first half as a whole, net profits totalled USD8.9bn, compared with USD7.7bn. The total expense ratio improved to 58.2%, compared with 60.1% for the previous quarter, and 61.2% in April-June 2011. Net profits for the wealth management, brokerage and retirement unit, meanwhile, totalled USD343m, USD47m higher than first quarter and USD6m higher than April-June last year. The statement adds that assets for the wealth management division as of the end of June totalled USD197bn, USD8bn or 4% less than one year previously.

Following the departure last week of Philippe Couvrecelle from Edmond de Rothschild AM (EdRAM), where he had been chairman of the board, the Edmond de Rothschild group on Friday declared its intentions. As had increasingly been rumoured recently, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EdRAM) and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (EdRIM) will be merging. Pending permission from the supervisory authorities and consultation with labour representatives, the objective for the firm is to create a single structure, with over USD20bn in assets under management, of which USD11.3bn were at EdRAM as of the end of May. This, the group says, “will allow it to set up a new organisation, whose objective is to better promote the global asset management range, strengthen commercial actions in the service of institutional and distribution clients in France and abroad, and to improve the efficiency of the platform.” In practice, the new entity will include all asset classes which had previously been developed at EdRAM and EdRIM: equities, fixed income and credit, convertible bonds, diversified management, multi-management, structured management, alternative management, and asset allocation. The remaining question is to whom the Edmond de Rothschild group will entrust responsibility for this project. As Newsmanagers reported last week, the operation will not proceed with one of the asset management firms acquiring the other. Instead, the operation will e led by the chief operating officers of both affiliates. Following the departure of Couvrecelle, Christophe Boulanger, who the group announced on Friday evening has succeeded him as chairman of the board at EdRAM, after serving as CEO when Couvrecelle was chairman, will lead the project, alongside Guillaume Poli, chairman of the board at EdRIM.

Investment Europe reports that the British firm Threadneedle Investment has released its European absolute return equity fund Threadneedle (Lux) Absolute Alpha for sale in Italy. The product is a UCITS version of the long/short hedge fund Threadneedle Apex European Fund, which aims to satisfy Italian investors’ current taste for UCITS-compliant products.

The asset management firm of the Munich Re group, MEAG, on 13 July announced that it has acquired six wind farms already connected to the grid on behalf of its shareholder. The wind farms, located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandebnurg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, were sold for a total sum “in the tens of millions of euros” by the developer, wpd. The operation is part of the Renewable Energy & New Technologies (RENT) programme, launched by Munich Re in 2010, which will eventually have a total of EUR2.5bn in assets.

According to an internal document which was procured by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Munich-based firm KanAm has changed its strategy to sell off the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund grundinvest (EUR6bn), which must be liquidated by 2016. Initially, the objective had been to make as much as possible for each of the properties to be sold. Now, the properties in the portfolio will be divided into four categories: firstly, properties which can easily be sold and are not mortgaged; then, properties which can be put on the market only when the credit has been paid off; thirdly, properties which need to be restructured, or whose leases need to be renegotiated, and fourthly, properties which are morgaged, and which in their current state would be difficult to sell.

As part of a suicide attempt, Les Echos reports, Russell Wasendorf Sr, founder and CEO of the derivatives broker Peregrine Financial Group, confessed in a suicide note that for nearly 20 years he falsified banking information at the firm. The letter explains the mysterious disappearance of about USD200m, initially detected by the National Futures Association (the voluntary industry watchdog body for the derivative sector in the United States) early last week.

Les banques britanniques pourront emprunter jusqu’à 5% du montant actuel de crédits contractés auprès de la BoE, soit 80 milliards de livres

Les discussions se poursuivent à l'échelon européen sur CRD4 en vue d’une adoption à l’automne. Pour ne pas pénaliser le financement de PME, l’idée d’un plafonnement, voire d’un rabais, sur les exigences en capital, circule. Les négociations tripartite pourraient aussi donner de la latitude à Bruxelles dans la définition des ratios de liquidité.

Les deux principales filiales de gestion en France, Edram et Edrim, vont être rapprochées pour créer un pôle de plus de 20 milliards d’encours

La récente émission obligataire en dollars de la CDC montre un appétit grandissant des investisseurs du Moyen-Orient et un repli de l'Asie

Les deux principales filiales de gestion du groupe en France, Edram et Edrim, vont être rapprochées. Christophe Boulanger succède à Philippe Couvrecelle à la présidence du directoire d’Edram et conduira le projet au côté de Guillaume Poli.

La reprise amorcée début juin à 2.050 points constitue vraisemblablement une pause dans la descente vers les 1.930 points

Le Financial Times indique que les autorités chinoises vont réduire jusqu’à 50% l’imposition des bénéfices que les sociétés étrangères souhaitent rapatrier dans leur pays, afin de favoriser l’investissement en Chine. Le projet concerne également les dividendes versés par les groupes chinois cotés aux actionnaires étrangers dans le cadre du programme d’investisseurs qualifiés QFII. Sous réserve d’existence d’accord de double imposition, ce qui exclut les entités américaines.

La cession de l’immeuble Praetorium a été signée le 13 juillet, a indiqué le Crédit Foncier, qui a financé le promoteur du bien, Capital et Continental. Depuis sa livraison il y a trois ans, l’immeuble n’avait pas trouvé de locataires en raison d’un loyer trop élevé. Le Crédit Foncier a démenti vendredi dans un mail avoir «forcé» cette vente.

L'économie de Singapour, très dépendante de l'évolution du commerce international, s’est contractée de 1,1% au deuxième trimestre après une croissance soutenue sur les trois premiers mois de l’année, un retournement de tendance qui illustre l’impact du ralentissement des pays occidentaux sur l’activité en Asie.

L’Agence France Trésor a annoncé vendredi l’adjudication, le jeudi 19 juillet, d’un montant compris entre 8 et 9 milliards d’euros de bons du Trésor à intérêts annuels (BTAN), dont pour la première fois, un nouveau BTAN de référence à 5 ans. L’AFT adjugera le même jour entre 1 et 1,5 milliard d’euros d’obligations assimilables du Trésor indexées sur l’inflation de la zone euro (OATei) et sur l’inflation française (OATi).