Veolia Environnement a très récemment vendu Eolfi Asset Management, sa société d’investissement spécialisée dans la gestion de fonds investissant dans les énergies solaire et éolienne, rapporte lundi 10/10/2011 le journal La Tribune. Eolfi AM a été rachetée par son président et fondateur Alain Delsupexhe, qui confirme l’opération mais refuse pour le moment de communiquer davantage sur le sujet, indique le journal. Sans préciser le montant de la transaction, une porte-parole de Veolia a déclaré à La Tribune qu’Eolfi, filiale du groupe de services avait bien vendu la société d’investissement, qui gère 113 millions d’euros d’actifs, Eolfi souhaitant se concentrer sur son coeur de métier, le développement de projets éoliens et solaires.

Solidarité Internationale pour le Développement et l’Investissement (SIDI), filiale de l’ONG de développement CCFD-Terre Solidaire, vient de lancer le fonds européen de financement solidaire pour l’Afrique (FEFISOL), en partenariat avec Alterfin (Belgique) et Etimos (Italie). Le fonds enregistré au Luxembourg bénéficie à la fois du soutien d’investisseurs institutionnels, d’organismes publics d’intérêt général et d’acteurs privées. Christian Schmitz, directeur général de SIDI, insiste sur l’originalité du caractère multipartite du fonds : « cette synergie débouche sur des instruments financiers innovants, qui ont à la fois un impact économique et social », précise-t-il. La Banque Européenne d’Investissement, la Caisse des Dépôts, le Crédit Coopératif, Développement International Desjardins (Canada), la Fondation Caritas ou encore Proparco figurent parmi les investisseurs. Ceux-ci se sont d’ores et déjà engagés à apporter 17 millions d’euros au fonds et l’ambition de SIDI est d’atteindre 30 millions d’euros au premier semestre 2012. Par ailleurs, l’Agence Française de Développement (AFD) a accordé un prêt de 3 millions d’euros destiné à couvrir 70% des pertes de change du fonds et ainsi apporté une garantie aux investisseurs contre le risque de change. Au-delà de ces aspects techniques, le fonds entend d’abord répondre au manque de financement des zones rurales en Afrique et des agriculteurs en particulier. En effet, le continent africain représente moins de 7% des investissements en microfinance dans le monde. Le fonds a ainsi pour objectif de cibler à la fois de petites institutions de microfinance (IMF) à fort potentiel de développement qui ne parviennent pas à obtenir des financements par le « circuit classique » et des bénéficiaires finaux eux aussi peu desservis car habitant dans des zones rurales. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, au moins 75% du fonds sera investi en Afrique Subsaharienne et ce au service de clients ruraux. Enfin, une partie du fonds servira à financer directement des associations de petits producteurs, en privilégiant l’agriculture biologique et le commerce équitable. FEFISOL s’est par ailleurs engagé à veiller aux pratiques de gouvernance, de ressources humaines et d’octroi de crédit des IMF grâce à une analyse et un suivi d’indicateurs sociaux et environnementaux (taux d’intérêt octroyés aux clients, taux de pauvreté des clients, politique RSE des IMF vis-à-vis de leurs salariés...). Créé il y a deux mois, le fonds vient de donner son accord pour des premiers investissements. Le fonds interviendra par exemple auprès d’IMF au Togo et au Mozambique, ainsi qu’en Côte d’Ivoire où il contribuera à financer deux organisations de producteurs de cacao appartenant à un réseau de commerce équitable. Source: Novethic

L’année 2011 marquera la fin des mandats d’investissement responsable (IR) lancés en 2006 par le FRR. Cette année est donc mise à profit pour tirer les enseignements de ces mandats et pour préparer un nouvel appel d’offres. A fin 2010, la valeur de ces mandats représentait au total quelques 572 millions d’euros. Selon Nada Villermain Lecolier, lors d’une intervention au Forum de la gestion d’actifs de l’Agefi, les mandats IR ne seront pas renouvelés à l’identique. Il faudra en effet tenir compte de l’intégration de l’ISR dans la gestion obligataire (notamment le dette émergente), les actions petites capitalisations (en Europe et à l’international), ainsi que les énergies renouvelables. La responsable ISR du FRR a aussi insisté sur la professionnalisation grandissante dans le secteur de la micro-finance, qui constitue à ses yeux une thématique prometteuse.

Surge Trading, created out of the remnants of the stock-trading of Bernard Madoff’s business, last month entered a liquidation process, due to a failure to find a buyer or fresh source of financing, the Wall Street Journal reports. The founders of Surge paid USD25.5m for the market-making activities of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. But the operating costs related to high-frequency trading and a drop in market activity dragged the company down.

The fall of the gold markets in September brought a further deterioration to results for John Paulson, whose largest hedge funds had already taken a hard hit since the beginning of the year. Paulson’s gold specialist fund lost 16.4% last month, while the price of gold fell by only 11%, and the fund shows gains of only 1% since the beginning of the year, although the metal has gained 16%.The Recovery Fund has also lost 14% in September and 31% YTD, while the Advantage Fund lost 12.1% in the month of September, and has lost 32% in the first nine months of 2011, and the Advantage Fund Plus has lost 19.4% and 47%.Assets in the Advantage Fund from Paulson & Co, which totalled USD38bn a few months ago, have fallen below USD30bn, according to sources familiar with the matter. Investors have until 31 October to decide if they want to withdraw from the Advantage fund by the end of this year.

The head of real estate strategy at Aviva, Chris Laxton, has told Money Marketing that the Chinese residential real estate market is in a bubble market situation that may last five years. Laxton says that the Asia Pacific real estate fund from Aviva, with assets under management of about GBP318m, has no exposure to the Chinese market.

Theam, a fund management affiliate of BNP Paribas, is planning to quadruple its investments in hedge funds dedicated to Asia next year to EUR200m, to take advantage of strong growth in the region, Eric Debonnet, who has been head of the alternative management team at Theam for a few weeks, told Reuters on 7 October. “In Asia, it is really urgent for us to extend our range,” says Debonnet. Theam manages about EUR1bn in 15 funds of hedge funds, for insurers, institutional investors and private banking clients. Debonnet, based in Paris, says that Theam is planning to launch a fund of hedge funds by the end of the year or early 2012. the firm is hoping to increase its assets under management to EUR3bn in the next three years, of which 20% will be invested with Asian managers, he says.

In order to further the continued growth of institutional demand for ETF products in Asia, the Dutch ETF-specialist market maker Flow Traders has set up an office in Singapore, with a team that will initially include four to five people, Asian Investor reports. Flow Traders currently employs about 150 people, distributed between Amsterdam, New York, and now Singapore.

The co-founders of the French asset management boutique Day Trade Asset Management (DTAM), Adrien Fuchs and Thierry Dumont, both former traders, have decided to part ways. Fuchs will buy out his partner’s 50% stake in the capital, giving him complete control of the firm. The amicable separation will not lead to any changes in the activities of DTAM, which received a license in 2002 from the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). The firm, which has three staff, offers three funds, two of which are equity funds relying on the firm’s house specialty, day trading. Day trading, which literally involves buying and selling assets in the same day, exploits variations in price which equities undergo daily. The first fund invests in French equities, Day Trade Action France, while the second is a market neutral fund, Day Trade Equity Neutral. A bond fund, Saint Chamond Oblig Inter, completes the range. DTAM currently manages EUR20m, down from over EUR40m in July 2007. Negative market effects have wiped out assets, but the firm has also undergone the suspension of its fourth fund, a leveraged products, which had used Lehman Brothers as its prime broker, and which found itself caught up in the legal battle over responsibility of depositories (see Newsmanagers of 9 April 2009). The fund has not reopened, but Fuchs would like to be able to restart a fund using the same model. Among its other plans, DTAM, whose clients are mostly retail, would like to find a commercial partner. It is already working with TPM Investeam in the institutional segment.

AllianceBernstein on 6 October announced the launch of a blog dedicated to its clients and investors, to inform them in real time about investment issues. The “Context” blog will deal with all asset classes, and will draw on the expertise of several heads at AllianceBernstein, who will regularly post on the blog, including Sharon Fay, head of equities and chief investment officer at Global Value, Doug Peebles, head of fixed income, and Greg Singer, director of research at the Wealth Management Group.

In Bethesda, ProShares on 6 October announced the launch of the first two ETFs in the United States to offer leveraged exposure to natural gas, the ProShares Ultra DJ-UBS Natural Gas (acronym on NYSE/Arca: BOIL), with leverage of 2, and ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Natural Gas (KOLD), with leverage of -2. This leverage is invested against the daily performance of the Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Subindex, before fees. Both funds charge fees of 0.95%, and were founded on 10 April 2011.The management firm says that in the past three years, it has raised over USD2.5bn for leveraged commodities ETFs. BOIL and KOLD are the ninth and tenth funds in the series, all of which (ETFs based on gold, silver, crude oil, and commodities more generally) are products with leverage of 2, either long or short.

Hedge funds from Fortress Investment Group have not been spared from the turbulence on the markets this autumn, but credit strategies have held out particularly well, according to regulatory documents released last Thursday. Two hedge funds dedicated to credit have remained in positive territory despite losses in August. The Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP lost 1.29% in the month of August, outperforming its benchmark index, the HFRX Event Driven, which lost 4.05%. The fund shows a gain of 6.54% since the beginning of the year. The Drawbridge Special Opportunities Offshore Fund lost 0.53% in August, but has earned 9.2% since the beginning of the year. Macro strategies were the weak point in September. The Fortress Macro Fund, however, posted a slight gain of 0.29% last month, outperfoming the HFRX Macro/CTA Index, which lost 2% in the same period. Nonetheless, since the beginning of the year, the fund shows losses of 7.32%. The Fortress Asia Macro Fund, for its part, lost 2.5%, with losses since the beginning of the year totalling 1.23%.

The European covered bond council (ECBC) on 7 October announced plans for a label for covered bonds. The objective of the initiative, which is undertaken in cooperation with issuers, investors and regulators, is to promote liquidity and to strengthen the secondary covered bond market, the council says in a statement. The certification process is based on the principle of self-certification, and is placed under the supervision of the ECBC steering committee. Plans to create the label will be presented at the next plenary sesssion of the council in spring 2012. At the end of 2010, covered bonds represented worldwide assets of over EUR2.5trn, and total issues of EUR600bn.

In Europe, corporate issuers rated in the speculative category as of the end of second quarter represented 24.3% of all corporate issuers, compared with 19.2% one year ago, according to an article published by Standard & Poor’s (“A Snapshot of the Corporate Ratings Distribution for the U.S., Europe, Emerging Markets, and Other Developed Regions.”) Out of 1,218 issuers, 922 were rated investment grade, while 296 were rated speculative. The agency says that the median rating in Europe in second quarter went from A- to BBB+. The percentage of issuers rated AAA, AA and A was 29.3% as of the end of June, compared with 55.4% at the end of June 2010. The percentage of issuers rated BBB< BB and B, meanwhile, has increased to 49.3% from 46.1% previously. Worldwide, the percentage of corporate issuers rated speculative grade has increased to 44.1% of all issuers as of the end of June, from 41.6% one year previously, for a total of 2,667 businesses, up from 3,379 rated investment grade.

Three recruitments for London, five for Munich, two for Luxembourg: Invesco Real Estate (IRE) is scaling up its Euoropean personnel with ten recruitments for product management, management of funds investing in hotels, asset management, finance, and fund accounting.Andrew Hills (ex Corestate) joins IRE in London as director of client portfolio management in the European Product Management team. He will focus on development and client relationships in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.The team specialising in funds investing in hotels has gained Hans-Peter Hermann (ex ArabellaStarwood Hotels) as its senior asset manager in Munich, and Erik Jacobs (ex Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing) as transactions manager in London.Christian Freundl (ex KGAL) and Neehar Pattni (ex IPD) have been recruited as director of asset management in Munich and asset management analyst in London, respectively. Freundl will be head of a retail asset portfolio covering all of Germany for French institutional clients, and the German assets in a European pooled fund.Daniel Köhler (ex Landesbank Berlin and BayernLB in London) joins the Finance Department at IRE in Munich, where he will be in charge of financing structuring and debt-based financing for all real estate assets in the United Kingdom and continental Europe.IRE has also recruited two new account managers in Munich for the fund accounting unit of its asset management division. Verena Lorena has just finished her studies, while Dieter Zieser joins from Taurus Investment Holdings. They will be in charge of fund administration and reporting for investors in funds and pan-European mandates at IRE.In Luxembourg, the IRE team has gained the addition of two former employees of AIG Global Real Estate Luxembourg. Fabrice Coste joins as General Manager, and Marion Geniaux joins as Senior Fund Finance Manager.

BlackRock has announced Al Denholm has joined BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Client Solutions (BMACS) team in the newly created role of managing director and regional head of BMACS’ business in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In this role, he will be responsible for leading BMACS EMEA activities working closely with Michael Huebsch, managing director and global head of BMACS, in the oversight of the group’s four main functions: Client Strategy, Solutions Portfolio Management, Active Asset Allocation and Research, and Business Management. He will also assume the direct responsibility for the active asset allocation and research team and serve on the BMACS management committee. Al Denholm joins BMACS from ING Investment Management (ING IM), where he was a member of the four person leadership team responsible for overseeing ING IM’s investment management activities in more than 20 countries.

According to statistics from the Geneva-based firm Alix Capital, the UCITS Alternative Index Global which measures the performance of UCITS-compliant hedge funds, lost 1.33% in September, after losses of 1.81% in August. Total losses for the first nine months of the year total 3.85%. The eleven sub-strategies are all in the red for last month, and only commodities show positive returns (0.10%) for the first three quarters of the year. The strategies showing the heaviest losses in September are emerging markets (-6.67%) and commodities (-4.01%). Emerging markets also show the heaviest losses by far in January-September (-11.69%), followed by long/short equity (5.42%) and funds of funds (-4.08%).

At the Responsible Investor conference in Amsterdam, Alex van der Velden, head of equity strategy at the Netherlands management firm PGGM, has announced that the group’s responsible investment portfolio of EUR3bn has outperformed its benchmark by 17% since its launch three years ago, IPE.com reports. The portfolio aims for long-term financial returns, integration of ESG criteria, and shareholder engagement in a small number of firms.

Manulife Asset Management has appointed James Chen, formerly of Goldman Sachs AM, as head of institutional sales for Asia, Asian Investor reports. He will be based in Hong Kong, and replaces Avere Hill, who left the firm in late January.

ATP, the largest Danish pension fund (USD122bn), has announced that it has renegotiated its swap contracts, in order to avoid having to accept French government bonds as collateral, though these continue to have good ratings, according to the Bloomberg Risk Newsletter. The renegotiation also affects Italian bonds and bonds from other countries of Southern Europe. The fund will now only accept German, Danish and US government bonds.

The former managing director of Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities, Alexandre Konmont, head of the Japanese equities strategy, will launch a fund dedicated to Japan, Bloomberg reports. Konmont, who left Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in July this year, has since founded his own firm, Milestone Asset Management, which already offers a long-only fund. The recent volatility on the market, however, has led to plans to create a long/short hedge fund dedicated to Japanese equities, at a moment when Japan is inexpensive for the first time in a very long time.

GSO Capital Partners, the global credit platform from the Blackstone Group (EUR34bn in assets) has announced the acquisition of the Irish management firm Harbourmaster Capital Management, a leveraged loan manager with assets advised and under management of EUR8bn, for an undisclosed amount.The team at Harbourmaster in Dublin will continue to be responsible for Harbourmaster funds, and will form a joint platform with the European activities of GSO in the area of leveraged loans to create new funds aimed at European investors. The platform thus created will have assets of EUR11.5bn, with a team of 40 professionals in Dublin and London.

The list of countries planning to create government investment funds is growing on all continents, despite the market crises of this summer, Les Echos reports. Ratings agencies are encouraging the trend. Despite the falling markets, assets in sovereign funds have increased moderately, by 1.7%, in third quarter, to USD4.737trn, according to estimates from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. This is largely due to significant inflows of capital which some funds received (particularly in the Middle East).

According to a quarterly bulletin from the CNMV (see Newsmanagers of 7 October), “reduced liquidity” investments by Spanish funds as of 30 June 2011 represented EUR9.192bn, or 6.6% of total assets, compared with EUR10.561bn and 7.4% as of the end of December 2010, and 8.7% as of the end of 2009.The two largest components of these investments are bonds rated AAA/AA, at EUR4.391bn in reduced-liquidity assets (compared with EUR4.374bn as of 31 December), bonds rated below AA, at EUR2.384bn (compared with EUR2.798bn), and securitisations below AAA, at EUR1.636bn, compared with EUR1.831bn.

According to annualised statistics from VDOS, relayed by Funds People, total assets in Spanish funds fell by nearly EUR1.84bn, or 1.34% in Spetember, due to EUR982m in net redemptions, and negative market effects of EUR857m. Ahorro Corporación, for its part, estimates the net outflows at EUR1.07bn, not counting the liquidation of the BBVA Patrimonio fund for EUR1.38bn.VDOS estimates the decline in assets under management in the first three quarters at about EUR8.4bn (-5.83%), due to EUR2.44bn in negative market effects, and EUR5.96bn in net redemptions. Ahorro Corporación estimates that net redemptions have totalled EUR7bn.

In January-September, trading volumes on the SIX Swiss Exchange are up 1.2% compared with the corresponding period of 2010, at CHF931.07bn.The ETF segment has done particularly well since the beginning of the year, as in September, for the second consecutive time, it has topped 100,000 transactions, with 106,164 trades. In the first three quarters of the year, the number of transactions is up 54.4% to 762,936, while the volume of these trades is up 51.8% to CHF79.22bn.

In third quarter, hedge funds had their worst three months since the financial crisis began in 2008. On average, they suffered losses of 2.8% in September, bringing losses for the quarter to 5.5%, according to statistics from Hedge Fund Research, cited by the Financial Times. The funds which performed least well were those focused on equities in the energy and natural resources sectors, which lost more than 9% in September.

Das Investment reports that the third-party marketer (TPM) and consultant Accelerando Associates, which has locations in Germany and Spain, will open a branch office in London by the end of the year, and will recruit new staff in Frankfurt and Valencia from January 2012. The announcement was made by Philip Kalus, founder and managing partner.

Almost one in two Britons (45%) are unable to say whether they opted for the default option when they last reviewed their pension, according to new research conducted by Baring Asset Management.Over a third (35%) say they choose the default investment option. However, one in five (20%) say they have chosen the fund allocations of their pension, the highest percentage Barings has recorded since 2008, showing some increased engagement with pension fund allocation.The survey also found that men are more likely than women to choose the fund allocations of their pension plan (21% and 18% respectively).Overall, people are less likely to consult a financial adviser for advice on their pension than in previous years, with the number decreasing year-on-year from 40% in 2008 to 31% in 2011. People are now more likely than previous years to turn to friends and family for pension advice (15%). Indeed 5% of non-retired adults are inclined to go to their employer for advice, up on last year’s 3%.Marino Valensise, chief investment officer at Barings, comments: “This research highlights a worrying apathy towards pension investment amongst Britain’s population. Far too many people do not know how their pension hasbeen invested and many are happy to accept the default setting which may not necessarily offer the best fit in terms of risk and reward”.Of those who have chosen the default option, the majority (50%) said that the advice that they had received was “good”, with 18% of saying that it was “very good”. This figure was highest amongst those aged over 65, with 67% feeling that the overall explanations were “good”.

Christian Parisot, responsable de la recherche économique chez Aurel BGC