Skandia Deutschland on 24 May announced that as part of a reshuffle in Europe, the headquarters of Old Mutual Wealth Management Europe will be located in Luxembourg. In Germany, the group is opening a new location in Stuttgart, which will concentrate on the deployment of a new business model for the German market, positioning the firm as an investment specialist and to high net worth private clients.There are no plans to continue developing the retail market, which had previously been served from an office in Berlin, and talks are underway with the trade unions on the subject of “necessary organiational adjustments.”Administrative services to existing clients with about 360,000 life insurance policies and a volume of EUR12.4bn in assets will continue to be provided in Berlin.

Several major European asset management firms have confirmed to the Financial Times that they are unloading their euro assets, due to concerns over an exit from the single currency for Greece. Amundi and Threadneedle have reduced their exposure to the euro in recent days. The US specialist Merk Investments, a currencies specialist, has liquidated all positions on the euro for its flagship fund. The euro has lost 5% in the past few weeks, to EUR1.2544 as of Thursday.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has announced the appointment of Tarak Achich as head of Procapital Securities Services, one of the five BtoB affiliates of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. At the same time, Frédéric Diverrez is appointed as CEO of Monext, one of the five BtoB affiliates of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. Achich, aged 44, previously served as a manager at Oddo & Cie, where since 2008 he had been in charge of supervising operations, permanent control and financial direction. From 2002 to 2007, he had been deputy CEO of Euronext, and then executive director of NYSE Euronext, where he was responsible for systems and projects to harmonize trading platforms. Deverrez, for his part, had been chairman of the board at Procapital Securities Services. He is a member of the management board at Steria France, and has served in serveral positions, including a stint as director of the Testing Services Bunsiess Unit, and from 2006 to 2007, director of the Banking and Insurance Business Unit. The appointments come at the same time as a reorganisation led by the firm and its decision to set up a unit dedicated to BtoB – ARKEA Services – which is dedicated to sales of banking, securities and money market services by the group.

The Luxembourg-based firm La Mondiale Europartner, the international unit of the French insurer AG2R La Mondiale, is planning to offer wealth management services in the United Kingdom, Investment Europe reports.La Mondiale Europartner will create a range of international investment portfolios aimed at ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients and compatible with RDR legislation.

Harvest and Nuatai PineBridge have published a list of the 10 largest investors in their new cross-border ETFs on the CSI 300. Portfolios 302 and 307 from the Chinese national social security fund (NCSSF), managed by Bovero and E-Fund, both appear on these lists, with CNY900m each for the Harvest fund and CNY750m each for Huatai-PineBridge, Z-Ben Advisors reports.According to sector specialists, the NCSSF is operating a wing maneuver, instructing managers to increase their exposure to cross-border tracker funds.

A survey undertaken by the German association BVI of asset management firms has found that Allianz Global Investors is the top actor in the management and administration of institutional funds (Spezialfonds) investing in securities, with assets of EUR1535m as of the end of 2011, or a market share of 18.9%. Universal-Investment is in second place, with EUR98.2bn, followed by HSBC Trinkhaus & Burkhardt with EUR78.3bn. The total market represents EUR812.8bn, compared with EUR782.4bn as of the end of 2010. In terms of porrtfolio management services alone, Allianz GI has a market share of 25.9%, with EUR147.2bn in assets, followed by Union Investment (co-operative banks), with EUR68.4bn, DekaBank (savings banks) with EUR49.1bn, and the Deutsche Bank family, with EUR44bn. Total assets come to EUR567.4bn.The BVI association states that in first quarter 2012, institutional securities funds had net inflows of EUR13.8bn, after inflows fo EUR42bn in all of 2011, and a peak at EUR69.4bn in 2010, and that assets as of the end of March totalled EUR852bn.Asset management firms as of the end of 2011 were responsible for EUR1.132trn in assets, of which EUR812.9bn were in Spezialfonds investing in securities, while the remainder was in mandates and institutional real estate funds.

The growth sourt proved short-lived: in April, open-ended funds in Italy saw net redemptions of EUR997m, after net inflows in March for the fist time in a long time, totalling EUR2.4bn. These outflows were largely driven by equity frunds, which saw outflows of EUR1.216bn. Bond funds, which took on EUR1.578bn in April and EUR6.766bn since the beginning of the year, did not manage to reverse this trend. As of the end of April, assets in funds on sale in Italy totalled EUR433.872bn. With the addition of closed ended funds, which had inflows of EUR316m in April, and mandated management (+EUR618m), assets in the asset management sector in Italy totalled EUR966.766bn. In terms of businesses, the firms with the largest inflows in April were the Banco Popolare group (+EUR734m), followed by Poste Italiane (+EUR414.5m) and Amundi (+EUR270.5m). At the other extreme, the groups which posted the heaviest redemptions were the three largest in terms of assets: Pioneer (-EUR918.1m), Generali (-EUR842.5m), and Intesa Sanpaolo (-EUR357.9m).

The alternative asset management firm Millbrook Capital has decided to close an activist hedge fund, MMI Investments, which has earned solid performance in the past fifteen years by specialising in small and midcaps, Hedge FundAlert reports. The head of Millbrook Capital, John Dyson, took the decision in order to dedicate himself to personal investments, it is said.MMI Investments has earned average annual returns of 20% to 25%, with a peak at 80% in 2009. Assets in the fund peaked at about USD700m, before the onset of the financial crisis.

Selon L’Agefi, le projet de JPMorgan de lancer un ETF sur le marché du cuivre est vivement critiqué. Dans un courrier récemment adressé à la Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Southwire, l’un des plus grands consommateurs de métal rouge aux Etats-Unis, et le courtier Red Kite mettent en garde contre les dangers que pourrait faire naître ce produit. Selon eux, cet ETF à réplication physique risque de tendre un peu plus les stocks mondiaux de cuivre logés au London Metal Exchange et donc de tirer à la hausse les cours du métal.

BNP Paribas Investment Partners has launched a global promotion campaign to promote a new strategy which is presented as a second-generation investment approach to low volaitlity equities.In light of growing interest on the part of institutional investors in charge of equity strategies based on risk criteria, BNP Paribas Investment Partners has engaged in a reflection on the various existing approaches in an article which appeared in the Journal of Portfolio Management («Demystifying Equity-Based Strategies : A Simple Alpha plus Beta Description», by Pierre Moulin, Raul Leote de Carvalho and Xiao Lu, all of BNP Paribas Investment Partners).One of the main conclusions of the research is that strategies based on risk criteria can play a central role in portfolios. They also explain an anomaly of volatility, that shares with less risk generate better returns, which contradicts the model of financial asset valuations by which returns on an equity are proportional to the beta on the equity. The fund BNP LI Equity World Low Volatility, which has been in existence for one year, and which has total assets of about EUR35m, and mandates in addition, is a proprietary systematic strategy which aims to benefit from this anomaly in volatility, and which can be used to correct the problem of high tracking error observed for traditional minimum variance strategies.At a recent presentation, Pierre Moulin, head of financial engineering at BNP Paribas Investment Partners, and Denis Panel, head of investments at Theam, have defined principles, with supporting statistics, which support the major advantages of this strategy, which primarily invests in shares with low risk levels in all sectors, with an investment horizon of two to three years and monthly rebalancing.Structurally, the new fund provides a clear way to significantly reduce volatility in a controlled manner. Then, it brings spectacular improvement to the Sharpe ratio compared with the MSCI World index (0.45 compared with 0.12 for the benchmark index between January 1005-December 2011). It also earns a high information ratio (0.72), with tracking error risk of 5.5%. Lastly, the strategy outperforms in virtually all market situations, particularly phases of falling markets, though it tends to ouperform the benchmark index only in phases of very strong rebound.Since its launch in April 2011, the fund has earned returns of 11.87%, compared with 5.28% for the benchmark index, an outperformance of 6.59%.

In first quarter 2012, the most overweight position for hedge funds was Express Scripts, according to analysis by the quantitative research team at Credit Suisse Securities reported by Institutional Investor.In ninth place the previous quarer, the firm attracted the interest of Third Point, which acquired more than 3.1 million shares in first quarter, and Maverick, which bought more than 2 million shares. The two firms have become the two largest shareholders in the firm.The survey also finds that four new firms entered the top 15 most overweight positions for hedge funds in first quarter: Sars Holdings, Visa, Crown Castle and JCPenney. They replace Anadarko, Family Dollar, Williams and Medco Health Solutions.Several of the 15 shares acquired have been involved in acquisition operations, and were M&A arbitrage investments for many investors.

A growing number of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are focused on alternative management, a round table held last month by Opalesque dedicated to the Gulf region has claimed. SWFs are generally invested in bonds and equities, but the need to diversify and higher profits will be a draw, given the low level of interest rates.It is also notable that SWFs are increasingly attentive to the development of the asset management sector in the Gulf countries.Assets under management for SWFs overall total about USD4.6trn.

Macquarie Investment Management (MIM) has announced the appoitment of Axel Maier as head of distribution for Asia. At the head of a team of seven people, Maier, who will be based in Hong Kong, will be in charge of developing the activities of Macquarie serving Asian institutional clients in particular.Maier, who previously worked at Wellington Management, replaces Damon Hambly who left the position at the end of January and has since joined Natixis Global Asset Management as head of strategy and development for Asia.Assets under management at MIM total about USD220bn, slightly under 50% of which is from institutional investors.

The Robeco group has had a very strong start to the year, with net subscriptions in first quarter of a record EUR15bn. Assets increased from EUR150bn as of the end of 2011 to EUR177bn as of the end of March 2012, in a sign of the “great interesst of investors in solutions related to retirement,” Robeco says in a statement. At the end of first quarter 2012, net subscriptions from institutional clients totalled a particularly high amount, and were well-distributed over a wide range of strawgies, bringing the proportion of assets managed on behalf of institutionals to 51% of total assets under management (compared with 41% in first quarter 2011). Net inflows in first quarter came to EUR15bn. The strategy to integrate ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria has continued to show itself highly effective, with total assets invested in businesses engaged in active dialogue with Robeco totalled EUR45.1bn, compared with EUR43.4bn in first quarter 2011. Robeco has achieved a total average return 1.67% higher than the benchmark for all strategies (gross of fees) in first quarter 2012, and 83% of funds have outperformed their index. Due to these positive retuls, total average perfoamnce over 3 years improved further as of the end of March 2012, to +1.72% gross of fees compared with the index, and 77% of funds have outperformed their index between April 2009 and March 2012. All asset classes made a positive contribution to these results.

On 24 May, the BBVA notified the CNMV that it has decided to study “strategic options for its mandatory retirement savings in Latin America.” Although this is a very attractive area, but has few synergies with the core profession of the group, universal banking, which has triggered a reconsideration of maintaining the activity.Among the options under consideration are a total or partial sale of pension fund administration firms in Chile, Colombia and Peru, and a retirement fund administration firm (Afore) in Mexico, though this will not necessarily mean a sale.The process will most likely take several quarters, and will not be completed before the end of the current fiscal year under any circumstances.Funds People understands that BBVA is already considering several proposals, with assets in question totalling over EUR30bn. Expansión estimates that BBVA could possibly make EUR3-4bn if it succeeds in selling the whole Latam pension fund business.

During Q1 2012, only 506 funds were launched in Europe, which showed a decrease of 36% compared to the same period in 2011, when 785 funds were launched, according to Lipper.The quantity of newly launched funds for Q1 2012 showed the lowest number for the first quarter results of the last five years. Compared with the peak in Q1 2008, the number of newly launched products for 2012 showed a decrease of around 50%.The number of liquidations went up approximately 11%, comparing Q1 2012 with Q1 2011, to 493 from 446. At the same time the number of fund mergers went down approximately 12%, from 233 in Q1 2011 to 205 in Q1 2012.As a result, the European market saw 192 funds disappear in first quarter. Lipper expects a further-shrinking market in terms of available products.As of the end of March 2012, there were 32,158 mutual funds registered for sale in Europe. Luxembourg continued to dominate the fund market in Europe, hosting 8,439 funds, followed by France, where 4,743 funds were domiciled.Equity funds still dominated the scene with 37% of the funds available for sale, followed by mixed-asset funds at 24%. Bond funds stood at 18%, while money market funds represented 5% of the market.

The Zurich-based firm Stoxx Ltd. on 24 May announced that it has signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI) as a service provider.Meanwhile, the firm has launched four regional indices of the largest caps ranked in terms of their quality from the points of view of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, as an addition to the Stoxx Global ESG Leaders indices, developed with Sustainalytics. The new products are the STOXX Europe ESG Leaders 50, EURO STOXX ESG Leaders 50, STOXX Asia/Pacific ESG Leaders 50 and STOXX North America ESG Leaders 50.Unlike other indices in the Stoxx Global ESG Leaders range, which consist of three categories of indices for environmental, social and governance, respectively, regional indices also have three aspects under one roof.

Quentin Fitzsimmons, head of government bonds at Threadneedle Investments, has decided to «take a career break» and has resigned from Threadneedle, according to a press release on May 24. He will leave the firm in mid-July.Quentin Fitzsimmons joined Threadneedle in 2003. He has led the company’s absolute return bond strategies.Matthew Cobon, fund manager and FX specialist, is currently co-manager of the Threadneedle Absolute Return Bond and Target Return Funds and will assume lead responsibility for these funds. Responsibility for other funds managed by Quentin Fitzsimmons will be assumed by members of the team, including Richard Stevens, Dave Chappell, Martin Harvey and Matt Rees.Jim Cielinski, head of fixed income at Threadneedle commented: “We are very sorry to see Quentin leave Threadneedle. We are making changes to strengthen and extend our fixed income platform and would have liked him to be part of our future growth. However we respect his decision and we wish him and his family well, and thank him for the outstanding contribution he has made.Threadneedle will announce new appointments to its fixed income team shortly.

The solution provider SEI Global Wealth Services has appointed Anita Juneja as head of clients for the global wealth services unit, Investment Europe reports. Juneja, who previously worked at Close Brothers Asset Management, will be responsible for monitoring and development of strategic partnerships.

The alternative management firm Orix Investment Corporation (OIC) has retained SEI to provide a complete set of solutions including middle and back office functions.Orix will concentrate its internal resources on customer service and investment functions.

At a meeting on 8 May in Washington, with -among others- representatives from BlackRock, JPMorgan, Vangaurd and Invesco, asset management firms have approached the SEC, which had sought to impose a 3% to 5% freeze for 30 days on redemptions from money market funds, the Wall Street Journal reports. The professionals claim that such a rule would be the death knell for the activity. As a compromise, they propose imposing a withdrawal penalty on redemptions made during “liquidity events” such as the financial crisis of 2008.

Rating agency Moody’s, which has maintained France’s AAA rating with a negative outlook, has set a period of a few months to evaluate the economic policies of the French government in a difficult economic environment in the euro zone, according to a statement published on 24 May.According to the agency, the new French president, François Hollande, has shown his determination to bring recovery to the economy, but the way to achieve that remains uncertain.

The French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), on 24 May announced the appointment of Julien Ruderman as deputy director of its European and international business division, in the regulation and international affairs director’s office, from 3 May 2012. Since 1999, Ruderman worked previously at the international law firm Clifford Clance in Paris, where he worked on the structuring of merger and acquisition operations, asset financing and structured finance. He was appointed as a partner at Clifford Chance in 2004, and created and led the Fund Creation practice at the firm, assisting asset manaegment teams, sponsors and institutional invetors in the structuring and raising of investment funds.

Helmut Dörrbecker has been appointed as head of fund sales at Alceda Fund Management, an affiliate of Aquila Capital, effective from 15 May 2012, Fondsprofessionell reports. He will be head of sales for the German-speaking countries, particularly for UCITS funds from Alceda.

CNP Assurances s’intéresse aux infrastructures, en revendiquant une préférence pour les réseaux de transport (électricité, gaz, eau...) et les autoroutes (par opposition aux ports et aux aéroports, qu’il juge plus difficiles à aborder). Déjà investi dans les infrastructures, à la fois en direct et au travers de fonds d’investissement, le groupe est particulièrement attentif au risque de concentration après s'être aperçu que « plusieurs fonds dans lesquels il était investi étaient exposés aux mêmes actifs », relate Antoine Lissowski, directeur financier de CNP Assurances, qui pointe la nécessité de disposer d’une équipe suffisamment compétente pour analyser les investissements. Les investissements dans ce type d’actifs représentent aujourd’hui 1 milliard d’euros, sur un total de 264.8 milliards, cette part est appelée à croître, ne cache pas Mikaël Cohen, directeur des investissements du groupe.

Francis Weber, directeur financier de Réunica lors d’une table ronde organisée par amLeague et Newsmanagers: C’est possible d’investir dans des fonds globaux. Réglementairement, on est un peu limité puisque, dans la réglementation de la retraite AGIRC-ARCO, on ne peut pas être à plus de 10% hors zone OCDE. C’est un quota qui est déjà bien rempli. On peut donc le faire, mais c’est un peu à la marge. Nous avons des arguments pour augmenter la taille à l’international. Il est vrai que quand vous regardez les indices actions mondiaux ces dernières années, par rapport à l’Euro Stoxx ou au CAC 40, il y a une grande différence. Nous n’aimons pas les forts écarts de performances par rapport au benchmark. Même si le gérant gère en performance absolue, on va toujours comparer sa performance par rapport à notre benchmark. Pour nous, c’est le MSCI EMU. Celui qui a une très grande volatilité, qui fait à un moment donné beaucoup moins, nous n’aimons pas. Nous préférons avoir un gérant qui a des performances relativement lissées dans le temps.

La SEC a été mise en garde contre les risques de distorsion que pourrait créer ce produit sur les cours du métal rouge

La monnaie unique a chuté de 5% sur les trois dernières semaines contre dollar pour tomber à 1,2514, son plus bas niveau depuis le 6 juillet 2010

Les premières estimations des indices PMI font état d'une contraction de l'activité économique notamment en France et en Allemagne

Les premières estimations des indices PMI font état d’un recul de l’activité dans toute la zone en mai. Le PIB devrait se contracter d’au moins 0,5% au deuxième trimestre selon Markit. Même l’Allemagne n’est pas épargnée. Le secteur manufacturier y accuse un fort ralentissement.