The British asset management firm F&C has recruited Alvin Chua as its head for Asia, with the mission of winning over new institutional clients, and launching new funds and new partnerships, Asian Investor reports. With the arrival of Chua, the Hong Kong office now has 4 members. Chua had previously worked at F&C from June 2008 until May 2009, as head of distribution and development for Asia. Assets under management at F&C total about USD160bn.

One after another, State Street Corporation has announced that it has been awarded two large custody contracts, one for USD80.4bn from the Washington State Investment Board (WSIB), and one for USD32bn from QSuper. For the WSIB, the contract is for daily reporting on investments and compliance, securities lending, securities valuation and settlement. For QSuper, State Street will provider valuation of securities, compliance monitoring and reporting on alternative assets and fiscal and accounting services.

Agicam on 30 March announced that it has awarded a mandate to Caceis for the functions of depository banking, custody and fund administration for all of its business common investment fund (FCPE) products. The agreement covers over 80 FCPEs with EUR800m in assets. From offices in Paris and Marseille, Agicam manages financial assets for complementary retirement retirement planning and insurance schemes from representative entities of the AG2R La Mondiale group. It also manages the range of financial vehicles which makes up the employee savings product range. Overall, Agicam assets under management total about EUR13bn.

About 18 months after its creation, the asset allocation assistance website for IFAs Myflow just before the weekend announced the launch of a new product, the first participative directory of independent financial advisers aimed at retail clients, http://www.leconseilpatrimonial.com/, which will be unveiled on 3-4 April, at the conference of the Chambre des Indépendants du Patrimoine (CIP). The objective is to bring solutions to retail clients seeking advising on their financial investments, to put more than 1,800 independent financial advisers in contact, and to promote advising. “We need to work on relationships. Independent financial advisers are too isolated,” says the CEO of Mythflow, Frédéric Picard, who is hoping to position the platform, which is designed as a “tool for commercial conquest,” between insurers, platforms, asset management firms, IFAs and groups of IFAs.

Barclays has registered the 16 sub-funds of its GlobalAccess multi-manager funds range in France. The management of the products, which cover various asset classes and geographical regions, is outsourced to various asset management firms (one or more firms, depending on the fund). For example, the Emerging Market Equity fund is managed by Aberdeen, Arrow Street, Fidelity, BNY Mellon ARX and East Capital. The US Small & Mid Cap fund has been contracted out to Pyramis Global Advisors, Delaware Investments and Kennedy Capital. “Each manager is selected for their expertise in a particular market. That manager is then “teamed up” with other specialists in complementary styles, in order to diversify the sources of outperformance (“alpha”). Assets are contracted out to the asset managers, who are selected via management mandates, ...” a press statement explains. The range, which has over EUR3bn in assets, is managed by the multi-management team from Wealth & Investment Management, composed of nine professionals, based in London and Paris. The team, led by Jaime Arguello, manages nearly EUR9bn in investments and EUR6.5bn in assets advised in fund selection.

Aviva Investors France has started the year 2012 well, with external inflows of EUR949m as of 15 march. The new comes after “a very trying year in 2011,” the chairman of the board at Aviva Investors France, Jean-François Boulier, admitted on 30 March at a press conference. Over the year 2011 as a whole, net external inflows totalled EUR487m, of which EUR138m went to French clients. Gross external inflows totlaled EUR6.2bn, of which EUR1.2bn were for long-term assets. As of the end of December, assets under management totalled EUR79.7bn, compared with EUR80.7bn as of the end of December 2010. As of the end of the year, bonds represented 73.6% of assets, or EUR58.68bn,, compared with barely 13% for equities (EUR10.26bn) and 13.5% for short-term assets. In 2012, Aviva Investors France is planning to continue its external development, with the emphasis on institutional investors and concentrating its sales efforts on its expertise in bond, real estate and multi-asset class management. Following the recruitment of two credit analysts in 2011, the firm is planning to add to its management teams, setting up Aviva Investors France as the centre of expertise for European equity management at the group. Meanwhile, a programme to unite and improve the operational platforms, initiated in late 2010, is expected to be completed by the end of 2012. After the deployment of a monitoring and control module for market risks last year, Aviva Investors France in early February deployed operational management modules. All of these modules are included in a single platform, which will be used for all Aviva Investors sites. The strategic review initiated by the group, which reduced personnel by 12%, will have a limited impact in France, with only three employees out of about 100 to depart. This is partly because Aviva Investors France has opted for a “gradual increase” in its activities over the past few years, says Boulier.

Joe Linhares, CEO of BlackRock for Europe, on Friday called for European regulations to make a stricter separation between ETF promoters who use derivatives (synthetics) and the providers of these derivatives (swaps), which ESMA did not do in its proposals in late January, Handelsblatt reports. Linhares also claims that the names of ETFs should make it possible to easily determine whether the ETF uses synthetic or physical replication. Linhares is also critical of proposals by ESMA which would impose the same securities lending standards for counterparties and swaps, even though the portfolio and collateral do not have the same objective: in the former case, the aim is to avoid letting the portfolio get too concentrated, while collateral aims to minimise counterparty risks. Lastly, the BlackRock head affirms that it is necessary to label particularly complex ETFs, which is not the case for all products of that type, which use swaps. However, inverse leveraged funds clearly need to be identified as high risk.

A comparative study by the Berlin-based ratings agency Scope has found that over the long run, “dividend” funds are on the whole neither better performing nor less risky than traditional funds. And ETFs may even bring significant losses in periods of falling markets, although some actively-managed products manage to perform better. According to Scope, “dividend” funds are only a marketing ploy, as things now stand.

The index provider MSCI has announced the launch of a family of indices, the MSCI Economic Exposure indices, which reflect the performance of businesses with significant exposure to specific regions or countries, Investment Europe reports. MSCI has launched the first five indices, which provide exposure to companies on developed markets which are active in emerging markets.

L’indice devrait remonter à 2.600-2.650 points dans les semaines à venir puis viser les 2.800 points

L’Espagne économisera 27,3 milliards d’euros de plus pour atteindre le nouvel objectif de déficit de 5,3% exigé par l’Union européenne

Les gestions anticipent un statu quo du S&P 500 et du Nikkei dans six mois et une hausse de 5% du CAC 40 et de l’EuroStoxx 50

Dans un entretien accordé au quotidien, l’ancien président de la Réserve fédérale américaine (Fed), Alan Greenspan, a défendu son successeur, l’actuel président Ben Bernanke, en jugeant «totalement infondées et destructrices» les critiques «ad hominem» dont il fait face de la part des candidats républicains à l’élection présidentielle. Et d’ajouter qu’il a été «très impressionné par la profondeur de ses compétences» pendant les trois années durant lesquelles ils ont travaillé ensemble au sein du comité de politique monétaire de la Fed. Il rappelle enfin que «les opinions de politiques monétaires sont protégées statutairement».

L'indice Tankan de confiance des grandes entreprises manufacturières est resté stable à -4 points fin mars. Un rebond du yen de 6% est anticipé d'ici fin juin

Alors que l'indice officiel est monté en mars à un plus haut de onze mois, celui établi par HSBC montre une poursuite de la contraction

Le quotidien taïwanais qui ne cite pas ses sources rapporte que le gouvernement du pays, qui a déjà autorisé une hausse des prix du carburant, envisagerait également de relever dans la foulée les prix de l’électricité à partir du mois de mai, ce qui se traduirait par une augmentation de 30% de la facture électrique des entreprises.

La filiale française du pôle de gestion de l'assureur a vu sa collecte issue du groupe reculer, mais celle des clients externes plus que tripler

La BCE devrait attendre que les deux injections de liquidité fassent tout leur effet avant d'agir à nouveau sur le refi

Si la moyenne d'avril reste quasiment stable, près de la moitié des gestions s’allègent légèrement en obligataire et en monétaire

L'Etat irlandais va émettre une obligation à 13 ans de 3,06 milliards d'euros pour couvrir l'échéance annuelle des «promissory notes» du 31 mars

L’accord trouvé vendredi en zone euro sur le FESF et le MES aboutit, dans les faits, à «seulement» 500 milliards d’euros de capacité nouvelle de prêts.

La nouvelle capacité de prêt à partir de juillet sera plafonnée à 500 milliards d'euros, l'équivalent du MES parvenu à sa pleine puissance

Après un premier trimestre exceptionnel, les panélistes prévoient une stabilisation des spreads

Après un premier trimestre exceptionnel, les panélistes prévoient une stabilisation des spreads

Le président-candidat, en meeting samedi au parc des expositions de la porte de Versailles, a annoncé son intention de créer une «banque de la jeunesse» qui permettra aux jeunes, via un système de caution, de financer leurs projets et faciliter leur entrée dans la vie active. Le candidat socialiste François Hollande a réagi en soulignant que «ce qui compte, c’est de réformer le système bancaire dans son entier».

Deux millions de fonctionnaires allemands vont être augmentés de 6,3% sur deux ans, a annoncé samedi le ministre de l’Intérieur Hans-Peter Friedrich, à l’issue d’une nuit de négociations avec les représentants du syndicat Verdi. L’accord met fin à un conflit social qui a entraîné des perturbations dans les services publiques, ces dernières semaines, et dissipe la menace de mouvements de plus grande ampleur.

Réunis à Copenhague, les ministres européens des Finances ont décidé de superviser les projets visant à contraindre les sociétés à effectuer une rotation des agences de notation. Le marché de la notation «n’est pas mature à ce point», a déclaré Margrethe Vestager, la ministre danoise de l’Economie, soulignant que certaine sociétés nécessitent une expertise particulière pour leur audit.

Le gouvernement français a révisé sa prévision de déficit public 2012 à 4,4% du produit intérieur brut contre 4,5% auparavant, déclare la ministre du Budget dans un entretien au quotidien Le Monde publié vendredi. Cette révision fait suite à l’annonce par l’Insee d’un déficit de 5,2% du PIB en 2011, inférieur au 5,7% prévu en loi de finances.

Berne a émis des mandats d’arrêt visant trois fonctionnaires allemands qu’elle accuse d’espionnage industriel pour s'être procuré les relevés bancaires de fraudeurs du fisc à l’insu de Credit Suisse, a déclaré samedi le ministère des Finances du Land de Rhénanie du Nord-Westphalie. On estime que les ressortissants allemands détiennent quelque 125 milliards d’euros dans des comptes secrets en Suisse.

Les banques danoises ont emprunté un total de 18,9 milliards de couronnes (2,5 milliards d’euros) lors de l’injection de fonds à 3 ans réalisée par la banque centrale. Danske Bank, premier prêteur du pays, en a pris à elle seule 15 milliards. Cette opération, inspirée des deux LTRO de la BCE, a donc été bien moins utilisée que ne le prévoyaient les analystes.