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05/06/2012

Money market fund liquidity comes at a cost

Maintaining a high degree of liquidity costs about 20bp to 30bp of yield to a money market fund, says Fitch Ratings in a newly-published report on the liquidity of European money market funds. European money market funds have substantially improved their liquidity profile since 2008, which is proving an efficient buffer to the more opportunistic volatility of investors’ flows, but comes at a cost, according the rating agency.'Liquidity cushions in Fitch-rated European MMFs have been continuously maintained at high levels following the 2008 crisis, with exposure to securities maturing within a week typically exceeding 25% of a fund’s total assets’ says Charlotte Quiniou, Director in Fitch’s Fund and Asset Manager Rating Group. In response to the eurozone crisis, portfolio liquidity has been rising even further, with overnight and highly liquid assets reaching 33% on average.
05/06/2012

Euro zone crisis worries investors

Investors continued their search for safer places to park their money going into June as Spain struggled to avoid becoming the latest Eurozone market to require bailing out and economic data in the US continues to disappoint. Flows into EPFR Global-tracked US Money Market Funds during the week ending May 30 jumped to a 25 week high while US Bond Funds took in over USD1.5 billion for the 24th week in a row and Gold Funds recorded their biggest inflow since late January while Europe and Emerging Market Equity Funds extended their current outflow streaks.Despite the souring mood in global financial markets, Equity Funds managed to post net inflows of USD6.2 billion. But this was all due to flows into US Equity Funds and half of the total inflows were into a single S&P 500 index fund. While Monday inflows were strong, flows into the equity funds were dissipating at midweek. Bond Fund inflows amounted to USD1.5 billion while Money Market Funds took in a net USD2.2 billion as the flows into US funds were largely offset by redemptions from Europe Money Market Funds that hit an eight week high of USD7.6 billion.Nonetheless, «redemptions still haven’t hit the levels seen last August,» noted EPFR Global Research Director Cameron Brandt. «That may be due in part to the fact that flows are currently dominated by institutional investors. The retail investors who fled during 3Q11 have stayed away.»
05/06/2012

One quarter of Chinese asset managers had losses in 2011

According to a survey by Z-Ben Advisors, a decline of 7.35% in revenues and rising costs last year resulted in losses for 25% of asset management firms with Chinese funds. This particularly affected small and mid-sized actors, who did not have sufficient capital to adapt to changing investor demand, rising costs and market trends. Some, however, were able to increase their profit margins by developing non-core product lines.
05/06/2012

Appointment at Julius Bär

Stephen Kamp has been appointed as deputy head for Latin America, Spain and Israel, Julius Bär announced in a statement on 4 June. He will be based in Geneva. Kemp will assist Gustavo Raitzin, member of the executive board at the private bank. He will also participate in several projects, according to a statement released on Monday. Kamp will serve Israeli clients, whether or not they are resident in Israel. Julius Bär opened an office in Tel Aviv in March this year. The bank also acquired a minority stake of 30% in GPS, the largest Brazilian private wealth management firm, in 2011. Kamp previously worked at HSBC, where he served as chief administrative officer for the private bank in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa).
05/06/2012

Switzerland's CPCI announces external growth ambitions

Following a general shareholders’ meeting held on 25 April, the board of directors at the wealth management firm Compagnie Privée de Conseils et d’Investissements (CPCI) has held the second round of its capital increase share offering, increasing the number of shares from 6 to 7 million, enacting a decision by the shareholders’ meeting of 9 July 2010, Agefi Switzerland reports. The capital increase comes as part of a continuing development strategy at CPCI, which includes the integration or acqusition of third-party asset management firms. In addition to third-party asset management firms, CPCI continues to be interested in all types of acquisitions in Switzerland which are compatible with its current structure and its development plans.
05/06/2012

Lehman ex-trader closes a hedge fund

Allan Bedwick, a former trader from Lehman Brothers, has decided to close his global macro hedge fund, after attempting for more than two years to increase assets in the fund, according to documents obtained by Reuters. Bedwick’s fund, whose assets under management totalled about USD120m, is based in Hong Kong. Facing ongoing uncertainties in the euro zone and concerns about a slowdown in growth, investors have been tending to steer clear of smaller alternative management actors in favour of heavyweights in the sector.
05/06/2012

Assets at Banca March up 16%

As of the end of March, assets in the private banking/wealth banking division of Banca March were up 15.7% to USD5.775bn. Assets managed by March Gestión, for their part, were up 11%. About 70% of funds beat their benchmarks.Banca March reports that in first quarter it launched the Family Businesses fund, which invests exclusively in publicly-traded family businesses, and which comes as an addition to the product range in the Luxembourg Sicav from March Gestión, alongside the Vini Catena (wine) and Terranova (defensive) funds.Net profits at Banca March in first quarter fell to EUR21.3m, comapred with EUR59m (-63.9%), and pre-tax profits are down to EUR58.7m from EUR244.4m (-76%). Profits in the corresponding period of 2011 were boosted by a one-time capital gain of EUR179.6m, which was generated by a sale of a 5% stake in ACS.Lastly, the bank reports that its tier 1 owners’ equity ratio as of the end of March stood at 24.1%, compared with 26.5% one year earlier.
05/06/2012

AmpegaGerling merges two funds

As of 1 June, Ampega Gerling Investment has absorbed the small fund Aktiv Trend Global (DE000A0NGJ51 / DE000A0Q8HK3), with EUR3.3m in assets in shares in equity funds, into the Gerling Portfolio Multi ETF Strategie (DE000A0NGJ69/DE0009847327), a fund of ETFs with EUR11.37m in assets, which may invest in equity and bond ETFs.
05/06/2012

UniImmo: Europa earns capital gains in United States

The open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Europa, from the German asset management firm Union Investment, has resold the Fremont Lake Union Center office building in Seattle (27,616 square metres) to Killroy Realty Corp for USD106m, USD40m higher than the acquisition price in 2005, and USD15m above the last expert valuation.The UniImmo: Europa has five other properties in its portfolio with a value of USD900m, in New York, Washington, Chicago, San Diego and Seattle.
05/06/2012

FTC offers a futures fund

The Austrian firm FTC Capital has announced the launch of a UCITS-compliant managed futures fund, FTC Global Diversified. The German-registered product will invest in equities, bonds, currencies, commodities and volatility, using several strategies. The volatility objective is 15% over a rolling 12-month period.CharacteristicsName: FTC Global DiversifiedISIN code: DE000A1JDWE7Management commission: 2%Performance commission: 20%, with high watermarkHurdle rate: 3%
05/06/2012

In BRIC countries, household wealth is growing fast

The financial assets of retail clients has increased by 1.9% worldwide in 2011, to EUR122.800trn, but that figure conceals highly varied realities: assets were down 0.9% in North America, 0.4% in Western Europe, and 2% in Japan, but up by 18.5% in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reports in the most recent edition of its Global Wealth 2012 report.The fastest increase by client segment was for the ultra-high net worth (UHNW) client category, with wealth of over USD100m, where the increase was 3.7%, compared with an average of 1.7% in all other segments.While there has been a decline of 182,000 in the number of these clients in the United States and Japan, the number of US dollar millionaire households last year increased by 175,000 in developing countries, including China and India.As of the end of 2011, the number of US dollar millionaire households totalled 12.6 million, 0.9% of the BCG sample. The highest number of millionaires (5.1 million) continues to be in the United States, followed by Japan (1.6 million) and China (1.4 million). The highest density of millionaires was in Singapore, with over 17% of households, followed by Qatar (14.3%), Kuwait (11.8%) and Switzerland (9.5%). But the United States is the country with the largest absolute number of millionaire households (2,928) and billionaire households (363).Compared with the size of the population, Switzerland has the largest number of ultra-high net worth households, while Hong Kong is the country with the largest number of billionaires, in both cases due to immigration.
05/06/2012

LGT recruits a director from BZ Bank

Stefan Lindermann, who has been the director of distribution and marketing at BZ Fonds, the asset management affiliate of BZ Bank (based in Wilen, in the Swiss canton of Schwyz) since April 2011, has been recruited as director of private label funds for LGT Bank in Liechtenstein from the beginning of June.Lindermann will report directly to Norbert Biedermann, CEO of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein.
05/06/2012

Italian funds: online procedure for documentation submission

On 1 June 2012, a new procedure came into force, by which asset management firms are required to comply with disclosure requirements imposed by the Italian regulatory agency Consob, Bluerating reports. Asset management firms and Sicavs which would like to submit documentation for offerings of OPCVM investment products are now required to use exclusively the online procedure, which requires an account to log in.
05/06/2012

Western Asset Management drops Legg Mason brand

Western Asset Management has decided to drop the name of its parent company, Legg Mason, from the names of its products, Bloomberg reports. The decision will take effect from 1 August, and aims to boost sales of funds, particularly to retail investors, who are highly sensitive to brand reputation.
05/06/2012

Qatari fund QSI finalises acquisition of Paris Handball

The investment fund Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which is already a majority shareholder in the Paris SG football team, on Monday officially acquired a 100% stake in Paris Handball, which is becoming a first-division team. QSI would like to make a long-term engagement to Paris Handball, and over the long term hopes to construct a top-calibre national and European team, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of the PSG football club, who will also direct the handball team, says.
05/06/2012
Gestion d'actifs

Réunica se laisse un délai d'observation d'un an et demi sur les fonds ouverts

Francis Weber, directeur financier de Réunica lors d’une table ronde organisée par amLeague et Newsmanagers: Dans notre cas, notre période d’observation d’un fonds ouvert est en gros d’un an et demi. Si le gérant ne surperforme pas ou ne fait pas une bonne performance au moins en indice pendant un an et demi, on aurait tendance, sauf cas particulier, à le sortir assez rapidement. Nous avons une période d’observation relativement courte, nous sommes moins patients que dans le cadre d’un mandat. On ne peut pas accepter un gérant qui serait sous-performant pendant trois ans. C’est vrai que les conseils d’administration nous donnent davantage cette pression aujourd’hui. Nous regardons les portefeuilles au mois le mois. Évidemment, on ne peut pas surperformer tous les mois, mais on est dans des délais relativement courts. Vous avez dans les conseils souvent des non-spécialistes, ils considèrent que les spécialistes doivent savoir. Ils doivent savoir sélectionner les bonnes valeurs, ils doivent connaître le timing des marchés et donc surperformer tout le temps. Mais nous savons bien, nous, que malheureusement ce n’est pas possible. On n’a pas un temps infini devant nous, on ne peut pas attendre cinq ans pour avoir de la performance. Nous avons des actifs de 8 milliards d’euros. Nous travaillons avec 10-12 gérants de fonds dédiés et avec une bonne soixantaine de gérants sur des fonds ouverts. Nous avons aussi des fonds de fonds qui sont délégués. Si on regarde par transparence, nous avons beaucoup plus de gérants, peut-être 150 gérants. Mais, en direct, nous travaillons avec 60-70 gérants. Les fonds ouverts représentent 20% des encours. Nous n’avons pas de ligne directe en interne.
Gestion d'actifs
05/06/2012

Le divorce entre les Français et la Bourse semble consommé

Seul un particulier sur dix estime qu’il s’agit d’un «bon moment» pour placer une partie de son épargne en Bourse. Une opinion partagée par 23% des actionnaires, réputés plus avertis, selon le journal qui cite une étude TNS Sofres. «Du jamais-vu» précise le quotidien. D’ailleurs, 91% des personnes sondées par l’étude jugent le marché des actions «risqué».
05/06/2012

Schroders prend le relais des banques

Le quotidien croit savoir de sources proches que le gestionnaire d’actifs britannique songe à mettre en place une activité dédiée au financement des foncières et promoteurs immobiliers au sein de la division spécialisée dans la détention d’actifs immobiliers. Les discussions n’en sont qu’à un stade préliminaire et Schroders n’a pas d’idée précise des sommes qui pourraient être mises en jeu. Responsable de l’immobilier chez Schroders, William Hill a refusé d’évoquer le projet tout en reconnaissant que «le retrait des banques du financement senior a créé une opportunité très intéressante à exploiter pour d’autres sources de capital».
05/06/2012

Pékin fait barrage à la cotation des sociétés étrangères

La commission chinoise de régulation des marchés a mis entre parenthèses son projet de compartiment dédié aux valeurs étrangères en Bourse de Shanghai en raison des turbulences rencontrées par les marchés de capitaux mondiaux et domestiques, fait savoir le 21st Century Business Herald. La commission préfère actuellement se consacrer à la mise en route d’un marché à terme.
05/06/2012

Moody’s rassure sur la décollecte dans l’assurance-vie

«Si cette décollecte, attribuable à des facteurs tant structurels que conjoncturels, pose des problèmes de rentabilité à moyen terme, elle ne s’accompagne pas pour l’heure d’un risque de liquidité», estime Moody’s dans un nouveau rapport. En janvier dernier, l’agence a maintenu sa perspective négative sur le secteur français de l’assurance-vie.

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