In a joint statement cited by Handelsblatt, MSCI, S&P Indices and FTSE have announced that they may create a professional association of index providers, but add that discussions are at a very early stage.The organisation would in principle be open to all index providers, and would thus probably be a global association, as most actors operate internationally.

The Swiss firm Stoxx Limited has announced that from 19 December, shares in Imperial Tobacco Group will be included in the Stoxx Europe 50 index, while Axa will be removed from the index. For the Stoxx Asia-Pacific 50 and Stoxx Global 150 indices, Nissan Motor Co will replace Nippon Steel Corp.

From 5 December, ETFs will be subject to more flexible regulations in China, Asian Investor reports. The new rules published by the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges stipulate that it is not possible to adopt short positions on ETFs. The number of shares eligible for margin call operations and securities lending have been tripled, from 90 to 285. The new list includes the seven largest ETFs in the country (SSE50, SSE180, SSE Dividends and SSE Corporate Governance on the Shanghai stock excchange, and SZSE100, SZSE mid- and small-cap and SZSE Composite in Shenzhen).

There is a mismatch between long term actual and expected returns for private equity strategies, reveals bfinance in a global survey of institutional investors issued yesterday. Responses from institutional investors highlight a significant difference between expected returns from private equity strategies and the reality of realised net of fees returns in their portfolio. 93% of institutions set their private equity funds a performance target (net internal rate of return - IRR) of over 10% yet less than half generated an actual net IRR of more than 10%.However expectations and experience varies greatly by investment strategy. In terms of individual strategies, institutions considered expected returns from private debt investments as the most closely aligned with actual returns.74% expected a net IRR of over 10% and nearly 70% achieved this. In contrast investors’ sentiment on venture capital shows the largest difference between expectations and past experience with 87% of all investors expecting over 10% net IRR and only 44% of such investors having achieved 10% or above net IRR from prior venture capital investments.Also according to bfinance, 88% of investors identified «portfolio return enhancement» as the first or second most important reason to invest in private equity. A similarly important rationale for investing in private equity is the ability to obtain returns from sources not accessible through public markets: 81% of all investors say this as the first or second reason for investing. In contrast, only 24% of investors saw «risk diversification» as being amongst the first two reasons for allocating to private equity.

If one or more euro zone governments should lose their AAA rating, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) also intends to lower its rating for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), if heads of government do not reach agreement at their summit on Thursday and Friday on a solution to the crisis, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.Currently, the EFSF has a AAA rating. A spokesperson for the facility has announced that a downgrade would not mean that the facility can no longer issue debt, but would mean that financing costs would increase significantly.

The Wealth-X company, a specialist in research into the ultra-high net worth (UHNW) client segment, on 6 December announced the appointment of Steve Farrer as vice-president and head of development for activities in China. Farrer will be based in the Hong Kong offices of the firm, and will lead a strategic expansion of the company in China. Wealth-X already has an office in China, in Guangzhou. Farrer previously worked for the World-Check and Mastercard International companies, as a consultant specialised in financial services, and particularly regulatory risks and deontology. According to the most recent research by Wealth-X, China has 11,475 private individuals whose wealth totals at least USD30m, while in Hong Kong there are 3,200 such people.

UBS Wealth Management has recruited Valerie Chou for the newly-created position of head of clients for the global family office (GFO) unit, Asian Investor reports. Chou will be based in Hong Kong; she previously worked at Morgan Stanley, and will report to Amy Lo, head for high net worth clients in the Asia-Pacific region. The appointment is a sign of the importance UBS attaches to the Asia-Pacific region for this family office activity. The group has refused to give figures about assets, but says merely that staff are increasing in the region. UBS Wealth Management has also recruited Linda Kwo, previously of BNP Paribas, as country head for Hong Kong.

Van Eck Global has recently launched Market Vectors Index Solutions (MVIS), a German-registered firm which will develop, sell and license the Market Vectors range of indices. The indices are currently used as the basis for many ETF funds from the US firm. Lars Hamich has been appointed CEO of MVIS.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has sent a letter to the five major banks in the United Kingdom – HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, calling for a “significant reduction” in bonuses paid to bankers, La Tribune reports.

Schroders is preparing a contingency plan in case of a euro zone break up, the Financial Times reports. Alan Brown, chief investment officer at the British asset management firm, which has GBP182bn in assets under management, says that Schroders is avoiding banks which clear their trades in euros through the most vulnerable euro zone countries, and is favouring the ones which work with Germany. The asset management firm has also shortened the list of collateral it will accept.

Banque Heritage has launched the Chilton Global Strategies fund, a UCITS long/short hedge fund managed by Richard Chilton, a star manager of the hedge fund universe, Agefi Switzerland reports. Banque Heritage and Chilton Investment Company (nearly USD7bn in assets under management) have been working together since the inception of the US asset management firm in the early 1990s, and the bank was one of its first investors. The fund is probably the first global UCITS long/short equity fund managed in the United States. It is composed of six specialised portfolios: Flagship Strategies, European Equities, Small Caps, Global Natural Resources, Asian Equities et Hedged U. S. Equities, and covers all equities worldwide: all regions (excepting Japan) are represented, as are all sectors and market cap sizes. Chilton personally manages the U.S. Equities portfolio, and ensures the coherence of allocations.

Cinco Días notes that the asset management group Capital World is the largest shareholder in McGraw-Hill (with a stake of 10.26%), which owns Standard & Poor’s (S&P), and that its stake in Moody’s is even higher (12.6%). Vanguard holds 4.58% of MacGraw-Hill, and 5.02% of Moody’s. Alliance Bernstein controls 1.67% of S&P and 3.94% of Moody’s. Intech, an affiliate of Janus Capital, has a 1.30% stake in S&P and 1.89% in Moody’s; the stakes of BlackRock International, State Street and Independant Franchiser are 2.46 %, 3.24 % and 1.86%, respectively, while their stakes in Moody’s come to 2.18%, 4.25% and 2.51%.In addition to that, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Invesco and BNY Mellon are also shareholders in the agencies, and Berkshire Hathaway, the portfolio firm for Warren Buffett, holds 12.8% of Moody’s.The situation is different for Fitch, which is an affiliate of the French Fimalac group.

BNY Mellon has announced that it has recruited Ron Bruder as managing director for its wealth management team dedicated to ultra-high net worth families and family offices. Bruder had previously been head of subscriptions to the primary market of the Chicago Board Options Exchange at the bank Goldman Sachs.

Baring Asset Management (Barings) on 6 December announced the appointment of Michael Siciliano as head of sales for North America. He will report to George Harvey, head of sales, development and client services. Michael Siciliano previously worked at Merganser Capital Management in Boston, where he was director of sales. Barings plans to increase its offerings of multi-asset class products to North American clients, strategies which Siciliano knows particularly well, Barings says in a statement.

Handelsblatt reports that Fidelity Investments has submitted a license application to the SEC to create ETFs based on equity and bond indices of both US and foreign securities. The asset management firm is apparently planning to launch ETFs based primarily on fundamental rather than cap-weighted indices, including indices from Wisdom Tree, as well as short ETFs. These plans will only be achieved after some time, as the time required to obtain licenses is a matter of months, and may be over a year.

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing on 6 December announced that Touchstone Investment Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western & Southern Financial Group, has retained it for administration, accounting and transfer agency services for its 42 mutual funds, with assets of over USD7bn in 110,000 client accounts. These services had previously been provided by JP Morgan.

In order to settle class action legal proceedings in which Merrill Lynch had been named, filed among others by public pension funds (including the Mississippi state fund), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) has agreed to pay USD315m to reimburse invetors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities, the Wall Street Journal reports. BofA had already set aside funds for the payment.Wells Fargo, for its part, had already agreed to pay USD125m to pension funds in a similar case.The WSJ points out that there is a number of similar class-action lawsuits underway against US banks. BofA is the most exposed, due to its acquisition of Countrywide Financial in 2008, and Merrill Lynch in 2009.

Are we heading towards the disappearance of the shareholder? The question may be an exaggeration, but the fifteenth annual report from Proxinvest about general shareholders’ meetings raises it anyway. In France, there has been a decrease in the participation of shareholders, by number (16,309, down from 17,411, for the CAC 40), with a percentage of resolutions challenged which has fallen, but remains among the highest in Europe. For the CAC 40, thia rate comes out at 5.9%, compared with 6.3% in 2010. In the companies of the SBF 250 index, the rate is 4.79%, compared with 5% in 2010, 4.6% in 2009, and 4.1% in 2008. The number of resolutions not passed, against recommendations, which peaked at a record 64 in 2010, was only 44 in 2011, lower than the level in 2007. Shareholders have been critical of clauses to protect management in the case of a takeover (average contestation rate of 35.3%), with two such highly visible resolutions voted down at Essilor International and Publicis Groupe. Shareholders have also opposed the abrogation of their preferential subscription rights in 21 cases, including at Air France-KLM,GFI Informatique, Publicis Groupe, Rubia, Saft Groupe, and SOI TEC. They are now able to individually reject certain directors, with 7 of them rejected in 2011, including at Altran Technologies and Gascogne; they exercise serious control over the stock and option plans, with 7 such plans rejected (including Saft Groupe, Seb, Rubis and Ubisoft Entertainment), and over regulatory conventions when they include elements that concern management pay scales (Alten, César, Delachaux, Groupe Gorgé, Risk Group, Theolia). The number of external proposals or resolutions, which were seen at GDF Suez, Safran and Total, has fallen from 62 to 24 in 2010, and has fallen further in 2011, to only 12 initiatives, a level near the level in 2005 of 11. The first resolution on an environmental subject ever to be presented in France, which dealt with the operation of oil shale mines in Alberta, was not passed by the board at Total. Proxinvest deplores that it is necessary to go before the courts, as has occurred in recent years at Total, Lagardère and Société Générale, in order to present a resolution not approved by the board.

The Swiss asset management firm Partners Group (about EUR20bn in assets) on 6 December announced that it has been included in the MSCI Switzerland index since 30 November, after being included in the SMIM (Swiss Small & Mid Cap Index), which includes the 50 largest publicly-traded companies in Switzerland.The MSCI Switzerland index is a part of the MSCI World Index (developed markets) and thus in the MSCI All Country World Index, which is thus included in the MSCI All Country World & Frontier Markets Index.Partners Group has announced that its inclusion in the MSCI Switzerland index has resulted in a signifiant increase in demand from active and passive investment vehicles.

On the recommendation of the Ethics Council, the Norwegian finance ministry has removed the US firm FMC Corporation and the Canadian Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (Potash) from the invesment universe of rhte Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), the former Oil Fund, due to particularly grave violations of ethical principles. The violations are related to purchases of phosphates from the Moroccan Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), which mines the mineral in Western Sahara, a territory which has no government of its own, and no recognized sovereign administrator.In a letter dated 30 September 2011, the finance ministry instructed Norges Bank (which manages the GPFG via its affiliate NBIM) to sell shares in FMC and Potash. The sales have now been completed. As of the end of 2010, GPFG held shares valued at NOK300m in FMC, and NOK1.57bn in Potash.

On 6 December, the Norwegian finance ministry decided to place Alstom SA on a list of businesses under watch due to gross and unacceptable corruption risks in its activities.In a letter to the finance ministry on 1 December 2010, the Ethics Council recommended that Alstom be removed from the investment universe from the Government Pension Fund – Global (GPFG), the former Oil Fund.The ministry has instructed the Ethics Council to place the company under observation for a period of four years, and to monitor its efforts to fight corruption and develop corruption prevention systems. The Counsel will provide an annual update and issue a new recommendation at the end of the observation period.In his statement, the ministry states that he attaches importance to the fact that Alstom is currently facing legal actions in several countries, and that the outcome of these actions is not yet known.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the pension fund for the Norwegian government (USD550bn), would like to grant its shareholders the right to name candidates to the boards of directors at six US firms: Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, Western Union, Staples, Pioneer Natural Resources, and CME Group. NBIM submitted proposals to this end on 22 November. At the time the proposals were submitted, the fund held stakes totalling between 0.6% and 1.1% in these firms, valued at a total of about USD1.4bn.

Le portefeuille obligataire de Spirica (Crédit Agricole Assurances) représente 70% de l’actif général à fin septembre 2011, tandis que la part de l’immobilier s'établit à 16%. Les actifs de diversification ont été renforcés au cours des trois premiers trimestres 2011. Cette poche représente 11% du portefeuille à fin septembre (contre 4% fin décembre 2010). La trésorerie, investie dès que possible tout au long de l’année afin d’optimiser le rendement de l’actif, représentait 3% de l’actif en instantané au 30 septembre 2011. Nous avons renforcé nos investissements dans des obligations d’entreprises industrielles françaises (secteurs : industries - biens et services industriels, bâtiment et matériaux de construction, médias). La part des obligations émises par des entreprises représente 59% du portefeuille obligataire au 30 septembre 2011. Au cours du troisième trimestre, nous avons privilégié les maturités courtes pour bénéficier d’une plus grande flexibilité de gestion. Parmi les actifs de diversification, les OPCVM de multigestion alternative ont bien résisté au cours du troisième trimestre. Spirica s’appuie sur le savoir faire et l’expertise d’Amundi et Amundi Alyernative Investments, pour la gestion financière de ses actifs obligataires et actifs OPCVM diversifiés, et à sélectionné des acteurs majeurs de la gestion immobilière en France pour la gestion des titres immobiliers tels que: La Française AM, Amundi Immobilier, Natixis AMI, BNP REIM.

La Mutuelle Générale gère 1.9 milliards d’euros à fin octobre 2011 dont 70% d’obligations à travers des mandats. Dans un article paru dans Option Finance, Denis Metzger, directeur financier de la Mutuelle Générale revient sur les grandes caractéristique de sa gestion financière: Nous nous focalisons sur les obligations de la zone euro. En revanche, nous possédons uniquement un tiers de titres d’Etats notés triple A, et deux tiers de crédit corporate. Notre allocation d’actifs est également marquée par une part significative, de l’ordre de 6% en immobilier. Nous possédons, à travers une SCI, nos immeubles d’exploitation, ainsi que des immeubles issus de nos anciens centres de vacances. Mais, depuis plusieurs années, nos investissements en immobilier se font uniquement à travers des OPCI. Nous sélectionnons ceux qui investissent en particulier dans des immeubles de bureaux, des locaux commerciaux et des établissements de santé. outre notre poche actions, qui représente 7% de nos encours et qui est gérée à travers des OPCVM, nous détenons aussi en direct des participations dans plusieurs sociétés. Sur le non coté, nous investissons essentiellement à travers des fonds de capital développement sur des entreprises françaises. Nous avons investi par exemple dans des FCPR d’Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners ou encore Xange Private Equity. Nous travaillons en priorité avec des boutiques et des maisons à taille humaine car nous trouvons que l’accès direct aux gérants y est plus facile. Pour notre gestion à travers des OPCVM, nous travaillons avec Exane, BFT, CPR AM, Rothschild&Cie, Oddo, Métropole Gestion, Efigest, ... Sur nos mandats, nous avons sélectionné cinq principaux acteurs: Rothschild&Cie, Covéa Finance (dans le cadre de notre accord avec la GMF), OFI AM, Tocqueville Finance et, historiquement, La Banque Postale AM.

Les «sherpas» européens envisageraient de permettre au FESF actuel doté de 440 milliards d’euros de poursuivre son activité en l’état, et de créer en parallèle un autre fonds doté de 500 milliards de facilités de crédit qui pourrait voir le jour mi-2012, selon le quotidien qui cite des sources officielles. L’annonce pourrait être faite demain lors du sommet européen (lire aussi page 2).

Le gestionnaire d’actifs britannique met en place des plans de secours disponibles en cas d’éclatement de la zone euro, comme l’indique au quotidien son patron de la gestion Alan Brown. Il s’agit notamment de limiter le risque de contrepartie. Les dénouements par le biais d’interlocuteurs en Allemagne sont privilégiés. Seules les obligations d’«une liste très réduite» d’Etats «les plus puissants» sont acceptées en nantissement.

Londres ne donnera son aval à un nouveau traité européen que dans la mesure où il ne nuit pas à ses intérêts, a indiqué le Premier ministre dans un entretien accordé au quotidien. Si David Cameron précise que «l’objectif le plus important de la Grande-Bretagne est pour le moment de régler le problème de l’Eurogroupe qui a des effets négatifs sur (son) économie», il met en garde les Etats membres de la zone euro. «S’ils optent pour un traité séparé, la Grande-Bretagne n’aura évidemment pas à le signer ni à l’amender, mais s’ils utilisent les institutions européennes, nous insisterons sur les précautions et les garanties dont la Grande-Bretagne a besoin».

Selon le Financial Times, le spécialiste des produits indiciels sur matières premières serait en vente pour un milliard de livres

Les autorités européennes de la concurrence sont prêtes à empêcher la fusion entre Nyse Euronext et Deutsche Börse si les deux opérateurs boursiers ne consentent pas à de nouvelles cessions d’actifs, a rapporté hier Le Monde. La direction européenne de la concurrence considère qu'à ce stade, le projet déboucherait «sur un double monopole: sur le marché des dérivés en Europe et sur celui du règlement livraison». Deutsche Börse a qualifié cet article de «hautement spéculatif».

La dégradation semble à présent acquise, et les rendements français se sont tendus hier. Les covered bonds pourraient en tirer profit