The Swiss asset management firm Prosper Professional Services will advise and promote the fund Prosper Stars & Stripes, a UCITS-compliant version of a US long/short equity hedge fund. The product will be managed in Denver by the team at Independence Capital Asset Partners (ICAP) which is responsible for the original fund, Hedge Week reports. The fund will soon be registered in Switzerland, and will be aimed primarily at institutional clients.

According to statistics from BlackRock, there are two Dax ETFs in the rankings of the top five funds by net subscriptions for 2011. These are the iShares Dax ETF, which attracted a net total of USD11.6bn, and finished the year with USD13.96bn, and the db x-trackers Dax ETF, which attracted USD5.67bn, and had assets as of 31 December of USD7.55bn.The global leader remains the ETF SPDR S%P 500 from State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), whose assets under management as of the end of 2011 totalled USD95.28bn, and which has seen net inflows of USD6.57bn.The Dax ETFs from iShares and db x-trackers ranked 15th and 39th by asset volumes, respectively.

Hedge fund clients of Credit Suisse currently have leverage of 2.5 times, compared with 2.4 times at the low point just after the crisis, while their cash holdings have fallen to 22% from 25% last summer, the Financial Times reports. However, two thirds of hedge funds are still below their high watermark, and 13% have earned no performance commissions since at least 2007.

Two new funds with retail and institutional share classes managed by Parametric Portfolio Associates (USD41.9bn in assets) have been launched by Eaton Vance Corp (USD184.5bn). They are the Eaton Vance Parametric Structured Absolute Return Fund (acronyms: EPRAX and APRIX), and the Eaton Vance Structured Currency Fund (EAPSX and EIPSX). The funds are co-managed by David M. Stein, CIO of Parametric, and Thomas Seto, managing director, portfolio management, at Parametric.The first of these funds deploys a structured investment process proprietary to Parametric, with a market neutral approach. The objective is to profit from certain characteristics of the quantitative and behavioural market, to generate returns via adjustments to the weighting of a vast range of asset classes, including US and international equities, commodities, and currencies.The Currency Fund applied the Parametric investment process to investments in short-term instruments, which allow for exposure to currencies other than the US dollar. The goal is to protect funds from a falling US dollar through holding currencies from emerging and developed countries, with periodic rebalancing.

The Paris-based asset management firm Bernheim, Dreyfus & Co has selected the London-based third-party marketer Hyde Park Investment, which will seek to place EUR200m in shares in the Diva Synergy and Diva Synergy UCITS funds. Hyde Park Investment is regulated by the British FSA, while its sister firm, Hyde Park Investment International, is regulated by the Maltese financial services authority.

BlackRock is planning to launch an absolute return fund dedicated to US and Latin American equities, Fund Web reports. The Americas Diversified Equity Absolute Return fund will offer at least 70% exposure to the market via equities and equity related securities from Canada, Latin America, and the United States. The portfolio will be managed by Raffaele Savi, managing director and member of the scientific advising committee for equities. Front-end fees may range up to 5%, with an annual management commission of 1.5% and a performance commission of 20% with high watermark. The fund may be launched toward the end of first quarter.

2012 will be marked by an increase in regulatory pressure, according to the Luxembourg investment fund association (ALFI), which says that it is “particularly concerned” by the Volcker Rule and a proposed tax on financial transactions.At a press conference, Marc Saluzzi, the new chairman of ALFI, claimed that the Volcker rule, in its current form, would create market distortions, and needs to be modified. “At the least, we think that the final version of this law should put European regulated funds on an even footing with their US equivalents,” says Saluzzi. In relation to the proposed tax on financial transactions, ALFI claims the legislation may drag down sales of UCITS-compliant funds outside Europe, and significantly reduce assets in European funds. In order to limit its impact, financial institutions “will make large-scale efforts to move their activities abroad, and/or to increase costs for consumers.” ALFI insists that the proposed legislation could slow sales of UCITS-compliant funds outside Europe, and significantly reduce assets placed in European funds. The impact on the fund sector would be significant, not only due to the high level of tax proposed, “but also because the proposal assumes multiple taxation of the fund portfolio and investors.”

Charlotte Walsh (ex-managing director at Ranieri Partners) and Gregory Weissman (ex-senior vice president at Old Mutual Asset Management) have been recruited as professional relations consultants at Putnam Investments, for the consultant relations team at the head office for global institutional management (GIM). Walsh and Weissman will be based in Chicago and Boston, respectively, and will report to Joseph Phoenix, head of GIM, and join a team which already includes Keith Thomas in London and Anne Lundberg in Chicago, as well as two associates in Boston. Putnam, whose total asssets under management as of the end of December totalled USD117bn, has about USD57bn in assets under management for institutional clients, including sovereign funds, government pension funds and pension plans for large corporations.

One of the largest US hedge funds, Millennium Management, with assets under management of USD14.1bn, is planning to open offices in South Korea, Hedge Week reports. Millennium Management is also reported to be the first foreign hedge fund to be active on the Korean market. The Korean authorities have recently decided to develop the onshore hedge fund sector.

Vince Sands has been appointed as deputy CEO at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, a position in which he will report to Tim Keaney, vice chairman and CEO. He will be replaced as head of Asset Servicing Ammericas by Samir Pandiri, who had been CEO of BNY Mellon Shareowner Services.For his part, Lou Maiuri, head of outsourcing, has been appointed as head of the global financial institutions business, replacing Nadine Chakar, who becomes global head of Derivatives360.Hani Kablawi will replace Frank Froud, who is leaving the business, as head of EMEA Asset Servicing. Along with Maiuri, Kablawi will report to Tim Keaney, who will continue to report to Chung Jin Leow, head of Asia Pacific Asset Servicing.

Nadine Chakar, head of the global financial institutions group at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, has been appointed as global head of Derivatives360, a derivatives trading platform. She will report to Karen Peetz, vice chairman and CEO of the financial markets & treasury services division at BNY Mellon, and succeeds Patrick Tadie, who has been appointed as business executive for hedge fund services and broker-dealer activities.

La Française REM last year posted a record increase of 20% to its real estate assets, the firm announced on 20 January in a statement. Assets under management now total over EUR7bn. Gross inflows last year totalled EUR1.2bn. The real estate asset management affiliate of La Française AM says that the past year was marked by the comlpetion of several projects using OPCI vehicles as their investment structure, for French and international clients, in the form of dedicated portfolios or as club deals. In one year, La Française REM has tripled its OPCI assets, to over EUR1bn as of the end of 2011. La Française REM is now positioning itself on the OPCI market as one of the leading providers, while retaining its position as leader in the SCPI non-publicly traded real estate fund segment (over EUR500m in gross inflows in 2011, and assets of EUR5.8bn). It is also continuing to develop multi-management in Europe, where it has increasing assets.

The Korean asset management firm Samsung Asset Management is seeking to develop its investment portfolio of real estate in the United States, the UK, and other developed economies, in order to profit from sales of distressed properties, Asian Investor reports. Samsung launched its real estate fund activity in 2009, with three funds representing assets under management of USD500m. Samsung also launched an infrastructure fund in 2011.

According to sources familiar with the matter, JP Morgan Chase, State Street and Ameriprise Financial are among the finalists to acquire the asset management activities of Deutsche Bank, Handelsblatt reports. It appears likely that the German bank will ultimately sell the division off in lots, which would be more profitable then selling them all in a single block.

Uwe Zöllner, head of Pan European equity at Franklin Equity Group, is head of the management team for the Franklin European Dividend Fund (LU0645132811), which has recently received a sales license from BaFin for Germany and the FMA for Austria. The fund is long-only, as it invests in European equities likely to pay higher than average dividends. The investment horizon for the product, which has no benchmark, is 3 to 5 years.

According to the Börsen-Zeitung, Axa IM is currently in talks with institutional investors who hold 100% of the open-ended real estate fund Axa Immosolutions (EUR352m), about a potential conversion of the fund into an institutional product.Hartmut Leser, chairman of the managing board at Aberdeen Asset Management, claims that a transformation of this kind is the only way to save the DEGI German Business fund (EUR242m).However, UBS Germany has ruled out converting the 3 Sector Real Estate Europe fund (EUR348m) into an institutional fund, as it still has 20% retail shareholders, and the asset management firm is keen to stay on the good side of these clients.

EQT, the nordic private equity company with close to EUR18bn in raised capital, has decided to manage future EQT funds onshore in Europe, citing clarification of the European regulatory environment. «A number of steps have been taken within the EU to introduce a harmonized framework for the regulation of alternative investment fund managers, such as private equity. The regulatory environment has been clarified significantly and the framework will enable EQT to manage future funds onshore», explains the company in a press release.Potential new locations for management will be UK, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, but also other onshore alternatives, for instance Sweden, will be considered.

Greg Mills, Dafydd Lewis and Donatas Uzkurelis are joining the frontier markets team at Lloyd George Management (LGM), Das Investment reports. Mills will be in charge of strategy; he had previously been national director of the South African institute for international affairs, and continues to serve as director of the Brenhurst Foundation in Johannesburg, which is dedicated to economic development in Africa. Lewis had been head of frontier market research at an investment firm in Dubai, and will be a specialist in the finance sector, while Uzkurelis will focus on the consumer goods sector, after serving for six years as an analyst at a European bank in Lithuania.

Oxfam, a charity to fight poverty, is launching its first fund, the Financial Times reports. The Small Enterprise Impact Investment Fund is a joint initiative of Oxfam GB and Symbiotics, a Swiss microfinance specialist. It will invest in financial intermediaries with the goal of supporting small and mid-sized businesses in Africa and Asia.

The prospect of an end to the euro zone debt crisis with the support of the International Monetary Fund have boosted European bond and Chinese equity funds, both of which are asset classes that have been unpopular recently.In the week to 18 January, Chinese equity funds posted a net inflow for the first time since the end of April 2010, of over USD600m, largely from institutional investor clients, according to weekly statistics from EPFR Global.European bond funds have posted their highest levels of subscriptions since the second week of July 2009, EPFR Global states, without giving specific figures. Bond funds overall have attracted USD4.35bn, while equity funds have posted inflows of USD2.8bn, and money market funds have finished the week with nearly USD12bn in net redemptions.Since the beginning of the year, bond funds have posted a net inflow of USD14.2bn, compared with USD2.9bn in the corresponding period of 2011, and equity funds have made USD7.4bn compared with over USD24bn, and money market funds have taken on USD5.9bn, while in the same period last year they saw outflows of over USD49bn.

From 23 January, two new Lyxor ETF funds focused on emerging countries will be listed on the Milan stock exchange. They are the Lyxor ETF MSCI Indonesia (FR0011067511), focused on Indonesia, and the Lyxor ETF Thailand (FR0011067529), focused on Thailand. The asset management firm is the largest ETF manager on the Borsa Italiana, both in terms of contracts (68%) and exchange value (57%).

In the space of six months, the Italian asset management firm Arca Sgr has reduced its staff from 180 to 70, Il Sole – 24 Ore reports. The changes come as part of a restructuring, which has also involved a change of governance. “The firm needed to radically change in order not to be liquidated, in light of the ongoing decline in net inflows since 2001,” the chairman of the firm, Guido Cammarano, explains. As of the end of 2011, assets at Arca totalled EUR12.4bn, compared with EUR31.6bn in 2001.

The asset management firm Lazard Asset Management has created a fund based on an existing strategy dedicated to emerging markets, to be managed by Kai Jacob, Fund Web reports. The Dublin-based fund, Lazard Emerging Markets Allocation, may rely on Lazard’s offerings in equities, debt and emerging market currencies. The new fund, derived from the portfolio of the Lazard Emerging Markets Multi-Strategy fund, which Jacob has managed since 2009, places the emphasis on growth and value equities, fixed income and currencies, in order to benefit from developments in the economic environment. Currently, the fund’s largest geographical allocation is to Brazil, where nearly 12% of the fund is invested, followed by Russia (11%) and China (8%).

Skandia Investment Group (SIG) has awarded Tim Steer of Artemis a mandate in the Skandia Global Best Ideas Fund worth GBP38 million and a mandate within the Skandia UK Best Ideas Fund worth GBP24 million. His appointment to the two Best Ideas funds sees him taking over the reins from Audrey Ryan of Kames Capital.Tim Steer is well known to SIG having managed a mandate for UK Best Ideas when at New Star. Additionally, he currently manages a mandate in UK Strategic Best Ideas.

Invesco Perpetual is offering a new fund dedicated to financial sector equities, the Global Financial Capital fund, which will be managed by the co-heads of fixed income, Paul Causer and Paul Read, and CIO Nick Mustoe. The fund will seek to earn returns over the mid- to long term through investments in banks and other financial institutions across the globe, in order to benefit from regulatory developments such as Basel III and ongoing structural reforms. The fund will be launched on 25 January, with initial capital of GBP2m. Initially, the fund will be primarily a bond vehicle, with a total equities allocation of 0% to 5%, but allocation to equities may increase up to 40%.

The range of MyFolio profiled funds on offer from Standard Life Investments (SLI), which has already attracted GBP9000m since October 2010, has gained two families of five products, the multi-managed MyFolio Multi Manager Income I to V funds, and the income funds MyFolio Managed I to V. The Multi Manager products are by definition composed of funds from throughout the market, while Managed funds are largely built from SLI funds. The MyFolio range offers subscribers active or passive management, which is always weighted in terms of risk.

Porsche, which is facing lawsuits seeking damages and interest of EUR2bn from several US hedge funds which accuse the firm of misleading communications policies during a takeover bid by Volkswagen, has proposed to settle present and future cases for a sum in the hundreds of millions of euros, manager magazin reports. However, the plaintiffs are reported to have rejected the offer as too low. The heirs of Adolf Merckle are also seeking EUR250m in damages and interest from Porsche.

In the 12 months to the end of November, net subscriptions to Luxembourg-registered funds have totalled nearly EUR17bn, and the number of funds has increased 4.8%, to 3,833. However, according to statistics from the Luxembourg investment fund association (ALFI), assets as of the end of November totalled EUR2.05952trn, which represents a decline of EUR101.45bn year on year, due to falling markets. ALFI states in its annual report that “a rise in net issues and the number of funds has allowed Luxembourg to continue to create jobs in 2011.”

Pictet Asset Management has ambitions to develop on the high yield market. The firm, which is now offering its expertise on the European market in the form of the Pictet-Eur High Yield fund, with assets under management of abut EUR420m, is planning to add to its range in 2012 with the launch of the Pictet-Eur Short Term High Yield, first in Luxembourg and then in France in the next few weeks.The fund operates on a model similar to that of the Pictet-Eur High Yield fund, with at least one difference in the area of maturities, which are an average of 1 to 3 years, compared with two thirds of maturities totalling 3 to 10 years for the Pictet-Eur High Yield.In the context of the current market, with German rates below 2% and high volatility on the markets, investors are seeking returns and visibility. “We are convinced that the new fund meets this need,” Roman Gaiser, manager of the fund and head of the High Yield team at Pictet, said at a press conference on 20 January. Average returns for the asset class are about 8% per year. Historically, for the period from 2003-2011, the asset class has earned returns of near 8.5%, with volatility of 6%, compared with very slightly higher returns for the high yield asset class, but two times higher volatility (13%). The fund is also expected to be less sensitive to changes in the mood of investors, as the business selection process provides a three-year estimate of the evolution of corporate profits. “We have more visibility over two or three years. Unless there is a major crisis, the market element is in the foreground,” says Gaiser. Gaiser also states that the European short-term high yield market has achived critical mass. The number of bonds with short maturieis has increased strongly in the past ten years; it doubled between 2008 and 2011. There are now 108 bonds from 72 issuers, maturing in less than four years, totalling over EUR55bn, and this trend is rising.Main characteristics of the fundISIN code: LU0726357527Daily valuationMaturity: 1 to 3 years, maximum 4 yearsSimple positions: maximum 2 1/2 yearsWeight per sector: maximum 20%Senior and financial sector debt: maximum 10%No subordinate financial sector debtBB & B ratings: maximum 4%CCC: Maximum 2%Benchmark: Merrill Lynch Eur High Yield 1-3yr ExFin BB-B ConstrainedManagement fee: 0.90% vec des taux allemands en dessous de 2%et une forte volatilité des marchés, les investisseurs sont à la recherche de rendement et de visibilité. «Nous sommes convaincus que le nouveau fonds répond à ce besoin», a souligné le 20 janvier à l’occasion d’un point de presse le gérant du fonds et responsable de l'équipe High Yield chez Pictet, Roman Gaiser. Le rendement moyen de classe d’actifs est de l’ordre de 8% par an. Historiquement, sur la période 2003-2011, la classe d’actifs affiche un rendement proche de 8,5% avec une volatilité de 6% contre un rendement très légèrement supérieur pour la classe high yield mais une volatilité deux fois plus importante (13%). En outre, le fonds devrait être peu sensible aux variations des humeurs des invesitsseurs dans la mesure où le processus de sélection des sociétés permet d’estimer sur trois ans l'évolution de l’activité et des bénéfices des entreprises. «On a de toute façon davantage de visibilité sur deux ou trois ans. A moins d’une crise majeure, l'élément marché passe à l’arrière-plan», remarque Roman Gaiser. Par ailleurs, estime Roman Gaiser, le marché européen du high yield court terme a atteint la masse critique. Le nombre d’obligations à maturités courtes s’est fortement accru au cours des dix dernières années; il a même doublé entre 2008 et 2011. On compte désormais 108 obligations émanant de 72 émetteurs qui arriveront à maturité dans moins de quatre ans, pour un montant de plus de 55 milliards d’euros. Avec tendance à la hausse. Principales caractéristiques du fonds Code ISIN LU0726357527 Valorisation quotidienne Maturité entre 1 et 3 ans, maximum 4 ans Positions simples maximum 2 ans et demi Secteurs poids par secteur : maximum 20% Dette senior et financière : maximum 10% Pas de financière subordonnée Rating BB & B : max 4% CCC : max 2% Indice de référence Merrill Lynch Eur High Yield 1-3yr ExFin BB-B Constrained Frais de gestion 0,90%

AG2R La Mondiale préfère se charger lui-même de la gestion de ses immeubles de bureaux, principalement localisés à Paris et en Ile-de-France. « Le portefeuille est stable, année après année. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que nous ne faisons rien, affirme Jean-Louis Charles, le directeur des investissements. Nous arbitrons des lignes, réhabilitons des immeubles. Nous avons vocation à entretenir notre patrimoine. » Deux axes sont privilégiés: « Ces trois dernières années, nous avons vendu des biens matures à des family offices et à des gestions de fortune, très friands de petits immeubles sur Paris », fait-il remarquer. En deuxième lieu, le groupe cède des immeubles en bout de course. « On ne peut pas tout restructurer. 5 % de notre portefeuille sont en cours de rénovation », explique Muriel Aubry, directrice de l’immobilier, qui indique que la moitié de l’enveloppe annuelle des investissements, qui se chiffrent entre 80 et 100 millions d’euros, est consacrée à ces travaux. L’autre partie est destinée aux acquisitions. Quant à la délégation de gestion ? « Uniquement lorsque nous ne connaissons pas, répond Jean-Louis Charles. Nous n’avons à ce jour investi que moins de 50 millions d’euros en immobilier commercial. » « Et via des club deals ou des OPCI », précise Muriel Aubry. Source: Les Echos