In January, the Pimco Total Return Fund (USD250.5bn), managed by Bill Gross, made 2.44%, compared with 0.45% for its benchmark index, and has posted USD230.6m in net subscriptions, the first in four months, Mutual Fund Wire reports. In 2011, the fund underperformed its benchmark by 3.68 points, and saw net outflows of USD5bn.

On 3 February, the CNMV registered the Foncaixa Deuda Publica España, FI, from InverCaixa Gestión. As its name indicates, the new product will be invested primarily in Spanish government bonds, with an option to invest up to 35% of its assets in public debt from other European countries.The KIID states that the fund is aimed primarily at subscribers seeking to invest exclusively in Spanish public debt, such as insurance companies and labour disability mutuals. Liquidity will be daily.CharacteristicsName: Foncaixa Deuda Publica España, FIISIN code: ES0137505006Benchmark:90% BofA Merrill Lynch Spanish governments 1-10 years10% EoniaManagement commission: 0.81%

The working group at the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), on general shareholders’ meetings, chaired by Olivier Poupart-Lafarge, a member of the college, has delivered its conclusions. The group has laid out 34 proposals which are centred around four themes: dialogue between shareholders and issuers; voting; the meeting office and voting on regulated conventions. In general, the report delivers an overall positive opinion of the functioning of general shareholders’ meetings in France, and consequently proposes areas for improvement in the areas given. In the chapter on voting, the working group proposes that a third type of vote be introduced to realise the concept in French law of a “genuine abstention” as opposed to a “nay” vote. The group also proposes an improvement to the relatively comp[lex voting mechanism for non-resident shareholders. At the conclusion of the public consultation, which will remain open until 7 March, the group’s proposals, which do not require amendments to legislative or regulatory texts, may be applied at the recommendation of the AMF, and subsequently at shareholders’ meetings held from 1 January 2013.

Although they have received written support from the SEC and the Department of Labor, two former employees of Fidelity have had their complaints against their former employer dismissed by the US Court of Appeal for the 1st Circuit, Mutual Fund Wire reports. The court of appeals has overturned a prior judgement by a Boston federal judge that the two people who called the attention of authorities to irregularities at the business that employed them (“whistleblowers”) were protected by terms in the Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowing law. The court of appeals found that the Sarbanes-Oxley law applied exclusively to publicly-traded businesses, while the whistleblowers were employees of private affiliates of Fidelity.

Sal Naro, former head of international bonds at UBS and a former co-managing partner at Sailfish Capital, has launched its own boutique, Coherence Capital Partners, based in New York, a specialist in bonds, Investment Europe reports. The creation of Coherence Capital is related to an MBO at the insurance entity of Jefferson National, Naro’s last employer, where he had been a shareholder, vice-chairman of Jefferson National Financial and CEO of Jefferson National Asset Management. The management team at Coherence Capital includes Vincent Mistretta, former head of portfolio management at Jefferson AM, Greg McKay, former chief operating officer at Jefferson AM, and Robert Del Grande, former CFO at Jefferson AM.

Prudential Asset Management has recruited Jeremy Hall as head of sales for northern Asia, as part of a development of its activities serving institutional investors, Asian Investor reports. Hall, who had previously worked at RREEF (Deutsche Bank), will be based in Hong Kong, and will serve China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

The additional retirement institution for public employees (ERAFP) has launched a consultation to award a real estate asset management mandate. The consultation will issue two allocations, corresponding to two types of mandates.The first will be for an allocation to private properties in France, mostly offices, commercial and residential properties. This allocation will select three candidates, two of them for standby mandates. The total investment amount will be about EUR310m in the next three years.The second mandate is for an allocation to private properties in Europe. This allocation will also select three candidates, two of them for standby mandates. Investments will total about EUR345m in the first three years.The new mandates must comply with the ERAFP SRI charter.

SEI has announced that it has won a fund administration, trust and custody mandate for the new range of Irish-registered Qualified Investment Funds (QIF) from the London-based asset manager Asset Value Investors (AVI, USD2.6bn in assets). AVI has chosen the QIF formula which allows investors a regulated vehicle while preserving flexibility of investment strategies.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs Asset Management (USD828bn in assets as of the end of December) announced that it has acquired the defined-contribution retirement planning specialist Dwight Asset Management (USD42bn in assets as of the end of December) from Old Mutual Asset Management (USD224bn as of the end of September). The sale price for this deal which will be finalised in second quarter has not been disclosed.

Pioneer Investments has launched a fund dedicated entirely to the Italian bond market, Bluerating reports. The Pioneer Obbligazionario Sistems Italia a distribuzione fund will be composed of Italian government bonds and high quality corporate bonds issued by businesses based in Italy with healthy balance sheets and convincing business plans.

Skandia Investment Group (SIG) has removed Julius Lipner of Aviva Investors from its Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund. The mandate stood at GBP7m out of assets under management of GBP52.1m as of the end of December.Lee Freeman-Shor, portfolio manager for Skandia Investment Group, said: “We have made the decision to remove the mandate from the Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund due to the uncertainty and unknown consequences, created by Aviva Investors’ announcement that it plans to review active equity management and concentrate on fixed income, real estate and multi asset solutions.”Lipner’s mandate will be equally redistributed amongst the remaining managers within the Skandia UK Strategic Best Ideas Fund (Richard Packett and Mark Lyttleton of BlackRock, Phil Hardy of Polar Capital, Colin McLean of SVM, Tim Steer of Artemis and Paul Casson of Henderson).

Schroders is going to launch in the United Kingdom the Schroder Strategic Bond Fund (subject to FSA approval) which aims to achieve a total return by investing across a broad range of fixed income markets. The fund will be managed by Gareth Isaac, senior portfolio manager, who joined Schroders in 2011 from GLG. The alternate manager will be Bob Jolly, head of global macro.The benchmark unconstrained fund will invest in fixed income opportunities across the globe while actively allocating between government bonds, investment grade corporates, high yield corporates and emerging market debt of both governments and credit. Additionally the fund may use derivatives to limit downside risk, with 80% of the portfolio being hedged back to sterling.

Last year, net subscriptions of owners’ equity to closed-end German funds rose 0.2% to EUR5.8461bn, compared with EUR5.8351bn in 2010, according to estimates by the VGF professional association, taking into account the 39 member firms and shareholders who raised at least EUR5m in owners’ equity in the past three years, a sample of 168 firms, of whom 112 had disclosed their results to the VGF. Inflows from private clients represented EUR4.8078bn, compared with EUR5.2125bn the previous year, while institutional investors increased 67%, to EUR1.3083bn. As of the end of 2011, assets in funds were down to EUR9.8908bn, compared with EUR10.8003bn twelve months previously. DWS Access (Deutsche Bank group) has stated that it was the closed fund manager with the largest inflows last year, with EUR504.3m in owners’ equity. The largest success was the DWS Access Deutsche Bank Türme fund, with a volume of EUR665.7m and subscriptions of EUR340m.

For the first time, Barbara Knoflach, head of SEB Asset Management, on Tuesday did not rule out the possibility that the open-ended real estate fund ImmoInvest (over EUR6bn in assets) may have to be liquidated, Handelsblatt reports. The fund, which has been frozen to redemptions since May 2010, still has not reached the 30% liquidity level considered necessary for redemptions to be reopened, and a sale of the family jewels, the 19-building complex at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, is taking longer than expected. The properties are valued at EUR1.4bn, but the market is difficult, and buyers are taking their time, though the deadline to reopen the fund is May 2012, as it is for the Credit Suisse Euroreal, the other major real estate fund currently closed to redemptions.

In January, three open-ended real estate funds, Deka-ImmobilienEuropa, Deka-ImmobilienGlobal and WestInvest InterSelect had net subscriptions of EUR400m, comparedf with EUR320m in the corresponding month of 2011. Of this total, about EUR270m were from reinvestment of dividends distributed by two Deka funds. However, net subscriptions in January 2010 totalled EUR415m.

In the last month of 2011, hedge funds saw net outlfows of USD5.2bn, and assets as of the end of December totalled USD1.64trn, a level 7.7% lower than at the end of 2010, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs.The BarclayHedge hedge fund index fell 0.4% in December, after a decline of 1.4% in November. Since May 2011, hedge funds have seen losses every month, except in October. For 2011 as a whole, hedge funds lost 5.5%, while the S&P was flat.

Six British consumers out of ten have no appetite for investment risk, according to an annual survey (FSA Consumer Awareness Survey 2011) recently published by the British Financial Services Authority (FSA). Only 4% of the 2,063 people surveyed say they are prepared to take on more risk in the hopes of higher returns. The FSA reports that the consumers have a “slightly” higher aversion to risk than in 2010.

Standard Life Investments, the fourth-largest shareholder in Xstrata, with about 2% of capital, will vote against a merger with Glencore, as the operation “clearly undervalues” the mining company, Investment Week reports. For his part, Richard Buxton, head of UK equities at Schroders, has told Reuters that he shares SLI’s position.

The Ethos foundation on 7 February recommended that shareholders in Novartis reject the reelection of professors William Brody and Srikant Datar at the general shareholders’ meeting to be held on 23 February 2012, due to the impossibility of voting on pay scales this year. The two men are members of the remuneration committee, which did not recommend any changes to the structure of pay scales, despite the opposition of 39% of shareholders at the general shareholders’ meeting in 2011. The foundation, which includes more than 120 Swiss pension funds and foundations, claims that the Novartis CEO, Joe Jimenez, was paid CHF15.7m in 2011. It also increased 21.7% compared with 2010, even though profits fell.The total pay for the chairman of the board of directors, Daniel Vasella, was CHF13.5m, This far exceeds the pay for other non-executive chairmen of the board at international groups comparable to Novartis, and those of other non-executive chairmen at other Swiss firms belonging to the SMI index.

TheScreener is launching a new service to evaluate directly comparable funds and ETFs, Agefi Switzerland reports. The service provides a way to exhaustively determine when passively-managed investments outperform actively-managed investments, and vice versa. The new service covers 15,000 funds and ETFs.

According to a survey by TNS Infratest on behalf of Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) of a representative sample of 1,000 people in September 2011, 77% of German investors do not know what the term “emerging markets” means (38%), or give an incorrect definition (39%). This is not surprising since only 1% of Germans have already invested in emerging markets, says Karin Kleinemas, head of marketing for northern Europe. 69% of respondents did not know that emerging markets have more potential for growth than already industrialised countries.

Although JP Morgan Chase appears to have thrown in the towel, the list of potential buyers for the asset management activities of Deutsche Bank, particularly DWS in the United States, still includes six candidates, Mutual Fund Wire reports: Guggenheim Partners is said to have joined the small remaining group of contenders which also includes Power Corp of Canada, Macquarie Group, State Street Corp, Ameriprise Financial and Apax Partners.

The Swedish SEB group has merged its London-based boutique Key Asset Management with its alternative investment team (AIT) in Stockholm, Hedge Week reports. The new merged entity will be led by Mikael Spångberg as managing director based in Stockholm, and Chris Rule as deputy CEO and CIO, in London, Key AM is specialised in funds of hedge funds, while SEB AIT has expertise in seed capital and incubation. The merger coincides with the departure of Chris Jones, who spent seven years as head of Key AM.

Dans le cadre de la diversification de son allocation d’actifs, l’Etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la fonction publique (ERAFP) lance une consultation (procédure négociée) pour l’attribution de mandat de gestion d’actifs immobiliers. L’ERAFP organise une consultation portant sur deux lots (correspondant respectivement à deux types de mandats) : un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en France et un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en Europe. En cohérence avec le choix d’un investissement 100% ISR, les nouveaux mandats intègreront le dispositif ISR du Régime. La stratégie d’investissement repose essentiellement sur l’investissement dans des actifs immobiliers générant un rendement locatif stable mais pourra également conduire les gérants à investir dans des actifs à restructurer afin d’améliorer leur performance ISR. Lot n°1 : Immobilier France ISR Ce lot porte sur l’attribution de mandats pour la gestion d’un portefeuille d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en France. Les investissements seront réalisés principalement dans les catégories d’actifs immobiliers suivantes : bureaux, commerces et habitations. Le lot n°1 aura trois attributaires, dont deux mandats dits « Standby ». Le montant total des placements sur les Mandats du lot n°1, donné à titre indicatif, sera de l’ordre de 310 millions d’euros sur les trois premières années du Marché. Lot n°2 : Immobilier Europe ISR Le lot n°2 aura pour objet principal la gestion d’un portefeuille d’actifs immobiliers non côtés situés en Europe, dans des pays membres de l’OCDE. Les investissements réalisés en France seront possibles mais ne devront être ni prioritaires ni prépondérants. Le lot n°2 aura trois attributaires, dont deux mandats dits « Standby ». Le montant total des placements sur les Mandats du lot n°2, donné à titre indicatif, sera de l’ordre de 345 millions d’euros sur les trois premières années du Marché. Les mandats seront d’une durée de 10 ans. Pour lire l’avis complet: cliquez ici

La division de gestion d’actifs de Goldman Sachs rachète Dwight Asset Management, une société de gestion détenant 42 milliards de dollars d’actifs, à Old Mutual Asset Management. La transaction doit être finalisée au deuxième trimestre. Dwight est un gérant spécialisé dans des fonds à valeur fixe pour des plans de retraite.

La filiale du LSE et le courtier ont annoncéle lancement de leur plate-forme de repo tripartite, Agency Cash Management. Un projet annoncé en septembre et destiné à profiter du développement du financement interbancaire sécurisé.

L’Etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la fonction publique a lancé une consultation pour l’attribution de mandat de gestion d’actifs immobiliers. Cette procédure négociée portera sur deux lots: un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en France et un lot d’actifs immobiliers non cotés situés en Europe. Les nouveaux mandats intègreront le dispositif ISR du régime.

Hedge Fund Research a indiqué que son indice HFRI Fund Weighted Composite, retraçant la performance des fonds alternatifs dans le monde, a progressé de 2,63% le mois dernier. Soit sa meilleure performance mensuelle depuis plus d’un an.

Elles devraient avoir la possibilité de durcir les ratios réglementaires pour gérer un risque systémique identifié localement

Alors que quarante prêts sous-jacents sont arrivés à maturité, seuls cinq ont été remboursés dans les temps selon Barclays Capital