Lee Robinson, manager of the hedge fund firm Trafalgar, is raising money for a planned hedge fund in Monaco, where he resides. He has already received approval form the FSA in the UK for the new firm, Altana. The fund will use a global macro strategy, according to reports in the Financial Times. The launch is reported to have angered Goldman Sachs, which via its Petershill fund owns a minority stake in Trafalgar, which it bought at a high price in 2008.

The Hong Kong management firm Kong Quam Asset Management has recruited Simon Potter as director, to serve in the newly-created position of head of portfolio development for alternative products, Asian Investor reports. Potter previously worked at Triple A Partners in Hong Kong. Assets under management at Quam AM as of the end of March totalled about USD80m.

Mid-sized hedge funds experienced the largest net asset growth in 2010, according to a Citigroup research cited by the Financial Times. Assets under management across managers with assets between USD1bn and USD5bn rose by USD85bn in 2010, versus a net increase of USD30bn among managers with an AUM of between USD5bn and USD10bn, and a net increase of USD72bn for funds with more than USD10bn under management.

GLG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Man Group, has announced the closure, from 30 June 2011, of the GLG European Alpha Alternative Ucits fund, managed by Philippe Isvy and Pierre Valade. The temporary closure to new investors, which will involve no modification to the prospectus, follows a net inflow of USD1bn since the launch of the fund in 2009. The fund was also the first UCITS-compliant hedge fund made availabel by GLG, which has already closed two other funds since the beginning of this year.“The success of the product is largely the result of its highly readable management process (which involves a large proportion of pair trades), whose strengths are brought to the fore by the UCITS format, which offers daily liquidity. The strategy of the UCITS vehicle is also perfectly comparable to that of the offshore vehicle, which has been in operation since 2004. The performance is largely generated by stock-picking (over 90%). We aim for a performance objective of about 8% to 9% per year, with total annual volatility of about 4%,” Isvy, manager of the fund at GLG, explains.Concern to maintain performance has also been the motive for the closure of the fund. “We are not closing the fund due to questions of liquidity. But it is a good idea to keep transaction sizes under control, in order to maintain our ability to generate performance,” Isvy says.Due to institutional investors’ increased appetite for UCITS funds, the group has several new UCITS products in the works. “We are working on the launch of a UCITS long/short fund dedicated to US equities, and we are also considering creating a thematic (multi-sectoral) UCITS long/short fund. We are also considering launching a fund of house UCITS funds, whose asset allocation would be composed of all of our UCITS hedge funds. In addition to long/short equities, we might mention emerging markets (equities, fixed income, currencies), CTA, and macro,” says Olivier Dubost, managing director in charge of fund distribution for Man-GLG in France.

Deutsche Bank on 15 June launched the DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia fund, a UCITS-compliant version of its Sloane Robinson Asia Fund, as announced six months ago (see Newsmanagers of 21 December 2010).The new product, denominated in US dollars, is managed by the same team as the original fund, with Richard Chenevix-Trench and Jonathan Barnett as co-managers, with the same approach, a bottom-up construction of the portfolio with top-down risk management.Since its launch in January 1994, the Sloane Robinson Asia Fund has generated annual returns of 18.17%, with a tracking error of 19.54%, and maximal losses of 36.50%.CharacteristicsName: DB Platinum Sloane Robinson Asia FundISIN code: LU0559141501Management commission: 1.81%Performance commission: 20% with high watermark

Rothschild Private Banking & Trust has made two appointments to its investment team, both in newly created roles. The business has appointed Marco Schaller as head of service management & offering development and Andreas A. Bickel as head of strategic asset allocation and advisory, Switzerland. Andreas Bickel will head up both research operations and wealth management mandates for ultra high net worth (UHNW) clients. He will also be responsible for the management of the Rothschild Bank AG pension fund. Andreas Bickel joins Rothschild from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Portfolio Management Group, a member of the extended management committee and employee representative on the Foundation Board of the pension fund. Marco Schaller’s role was created to better address the complex and very individual needs of clients in Rothschild’s core markets. He holds an MBA from Cranfield University and is an expert on structured products. He joins Rothschild from UBS where he has held various positions in the investment and product areas.

Agefi reports, citing a spokesperson for the financial services firm Investec, that the firm, which is active in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom, is seeking to sell its private banking affiliate in Switzerland. The affiliate, which has offices in Zurich and Geneva, has GBP1.95bn in assets under management.

Lesley-Ann Morgan, who spent 18 years at the consultancy firm Towers Watson, most recently as senior investment consultant and head of the client delivery group, has been hired by Schroders for the newly created role of senior strategist within the global strategic solutions team.

The Financial Policy Committee, created by the British government to identify and avoid systemic risks in the United Kingdom, has asked the Financial Services Authority to “closely monitor risks” posed by opaque financing structures used by ETFs, Financial News reports, citing the minutes of the first meeting of the committee. The committee estimates, however, that it is unlikely that the ETF market as a whole represents an immediate threat to financial stability.

The central asset management firm for the Swiss cantonal banks, Swisscanto (CHF57.6bn in assets as of 31 March), announced at the end of last week that on 1 July it will open an affiliate, Swisscanto Asset Management S.A., in Luxembourg, and that it will open offices in Frankfurt am Main and Milan.In addition to the affiliate already established in London (which handles securities and fund trading, and more recently, institutional clients), the further presence in Luxembourg (the result of the merger of existing local affiliates) and in Germany and Italy will allow the firm to seek or to more intensively monitor distribution partners and institutional clients in the markets concerned. The structure in Luxembourg and the two new branch offices will initially employ six people in total, in administration and prospecting on local markets. Sales efforts will concentrate on equities, bonds, and sustainable development products.

Now that comparative recovery of the markets is moving along satisfactorily, the composition of European institutional portfolios appears more clear. According to the 11th edition of the European Institutional Asset Management Survey (EIAMS) conducted by Invesco, bonds “represent the future.” The survey, which largely covers European pension funds and insurers, finds that there has been a sustained increase in the proportion of bonds in European institutional portfolios, while the proportion of equities has been slightly reduced, and real estate has been merely maintained at constant levels in portfolios between 2009 and 2010. The overall proportion of bonds has increased from 51% in 2009 to 58% in 2010, its highest level since 2006. Equities have fallen to 27% of assets in 2010, compared with 29% in 2009, but this level remains higher than its 2008 level, at the onset of the crisis (25%). Alternative investments have held out well (about 12% of portfolios), while real estate has maintained its average proportion of 7%. Money market products, which represented 5% of portfolios in 2009 and 10% in 2008, have fallen to 2%, as investors returned to the market. It’s green lights for bond markets all the way. In Europe, the average duration for investor engagements has risen from 15.69 years in 2009 to 16.37 years presently, inverting a downward trend observed in previous editions of the survey. In addition, 22% of respondents said that they are planning to increase their allocation to bonds, while 16% are planning to reduce it. Michael Gartmann, managing director and director of institutional activity in Germany at Invesco, says that this marked refocusing on bonds may reflect caution on the part of investors about the global economic recovery, and the pressures that the Solvency II directive has placed on the insurance sector. Corporate bonds appear to be the big winners out of investors’ increased interest in bonds, to the detriment of government bonds. Although over one fifth of investors are planning to increase their allocation to bonds, 31% have decided to reduce their allocation to government bonds, and 30% prefer corporate bonds. The survey also finds that there is a growing interest in emerging market debt, which may be due to inflationary concerns, low returns on government bonds, and the increasingly widespread notion that government debt from developed countries can no longer be considered a risk-free category. However, despite the increasing dominance of bonds, “the game is not yet up for other asset classes,” explains Michael Gartmann: 19% of investors are planning to increase their allocation to equities, and 26% are planning to increase their exposure to real estate, while 15% and 7%, respectively, are planning to reduce their exposure to these asset classes. Only large investors (those with over EUR5bn in assets, largely represented in the sample by insurance companies) have reduced their exposure to equities, while strongly increasing their exposure to bonds. The survey also confirms a trend for investors to turn to external managers, with 67% of respondents doing so, compared with 64% in 2009. Investors are, however, not hesitating to change providers, and a growing number of them are ending relationships with external managers (53%, compared with 40% in 2009).

Dans le cadre d’un contrat d’entreprise, intégré dans l’accord collectif d’entreprise du 5.7.1994, l’OPAC 38 a mis en place un régime de retraite surcomplémentaire à prestations définies (art. 39 du code général des impôts) confié en gestion à un assureur. Suite aux perspectives financièrement excessives de cet engagement, l’OPAC 38 a décidé, à partir de l’année 2004, de fermer progressivement ce régime, à échéance de 2013, et de mettre en place un régime à cotisations définies (art. 83 du CGI) destiné à assurer un régime de retraite surcomplémentaire plus maîtrisable dans le temps et dont les droits resteront attachés au salarié. En pratique, la prochaine disparition du régime à prestations définies sera très pénalisante pour les salariés disposant d’une ancienneté significative, et partant à la retraite dans les prochaines années, du fait de la montée en puissance très progressive du régime à cotisations définies. Afin d’atténuer cet effet de baisse du niveau global de rente, entre la fin des prestations du régime en cours de fermeture, et un niveau de complément significatif assuré par le régime à cotisations définies, il a été décidé de mettre en place un complément de retraite additif aux régimes existants. Ce complément s’applique à tous les salariés faisant valoir leur droit à la retraite, et disposant du régime général à taux plein. Il est à noter que le suivi de ce contrat sera assuré par adding pour le compte de l’OPAC 38. Ce suivi intégrera notamment, le calcul des rentes à chaque départ, la validation des capitaux constitutifs, la valorisation annuelle des engagements actuariels, le suivi de la gestion financière et de la revalorisation. Pour lire l’avis complet: cliquez ici

Le groupe de services financiers, qui opère notamment en Afrique du Sud, en Australie et au Royaume-Uni, songe à céder sa filiale de banque privée en Suisse, a indiqué un porte-parole de l’établissement. Investec a mandaté Fenchurch Advisory Partners afin d’être conseillé sur cette opération, selon Mail on Sunday. La filiale, qui possède des bureaux à Zurich et Genève, affiche 1,95 milliard de livres d’actifs sous gestion.

A l’occasion de la transposition de la Directive OPCVM IV, l’AMF a simplifié les programmes d’activité des sociétés de gestion de portefeuille et les a recentrés sur les éléments essentiels pour l’analyse réalisée par le régulateur : organisation, moyens, commercialisation et dispositif de contrôle.

Nicolas Gouju, gérant de taux chez Groupama AM

Eric Mijot, responsable de la stratégie actions & allocation d'actifs d’Amundi

Sur l’AIM depuis 2004, le gestionnaire affronte des retraits massifs de la part de ses clients. Il va sortir de la cote et réduire la voilure

Le support à 3.415 points devrait contenir toute baisse supplémentaire et forcer l’indice à remonter vers les 4.170 points

Jean-Louis Mourier, économiste chez Aurel BGC

Ils ne transmettront les ordres de vente qu'aux intermédiaires ayant intégré dans leurs offres la possibilité de passer par une place de marché

Vincent Chaigneau, responsable de la stratégie taux de SG CIB

Les fonds monétaires américains, qui financent en partie les prêteurs de la zone euro, pourraient être un canal de transmission du risque

La participation des créanciers privés à un «rollover» n'est volontairement pas chiffrée à ce stade, alors que la Grèce doit avaliser les réformes

Les actionnaires de Wesco Financial se prononçaient vendredi sur l'achat des 19 % que Berkshire Hathaway ne possédait pas dans sa filiale

La nouvelle régulation ouvre la porte aux banques étrangères et devrait dynamiser un secteur en pleine mutation

Dans son rapport annuel, la Banque s’inquiète des pressions inflationnistes et remet la pression sur la Fed alors que le dix ans américain est à 2,86%

Une dégradation de la note souveraine des Etats-Unis à AA ou A conduirait à une hausse de respectivement 2% ou 3,2% du taux 10 ans américain qui contraindrait le Trésor à payer de 2,3 à 3,75 milliards de dollars supplémentaires en intérêts annuels, et une perte pour les investisseurs en obligations souveraines pouvant aller jusqu’à 100 milliards, indique le quotidien qui cite une analyse de la maison mère de Standard & Poor’s.

Pour se préparer à Solvabilité 2, la Mutuelle Générale a d’abord procédé à une analyse prospective aux fins de mettre en place une allocation stratégique d’actifs votée par son conseil d’administration. Jean-Paul Bourrillon, Secrétaire général opérationnel à la Mutuelle Générale explique cette stratégie: « Notre allocation d’actifs est aujourd’hui davantage argumentée techniquement mais elle n’a pas introduit une révolution; elle a un peu modifié l’allocation d’actifs en termes de grandes classes d’actifs ». Globalement, l’allocation d’actifs de la mutuelle est très largement dominée par les poches obligataires de bonne qualité, c’est à dire AA ou AAA. Sa poche action est assez réduite et elle possède différents compartiments sur des produits mixtes. De la sorte, si l’allocation stratégique résulte d’un travail beaucoup plus raisonné et quantitatif, la Mutuelle n’a pas changé fondamentalement l’allocation d’actifs mais s’est donnée les outils pour la faire évoluer de manière logique et rationnelle avec les outils de contrôles. « En fait, nous avons renforcé nos poches obligataires et on a un peu renforcé nos positions en termes d’objectifs, notamment sur l’immobilier, souligne Jean-Paul Bourrillon. Ensuite, nous avons réduit nos lignes dans un certain nombre d’OPCVM mixtes nous avons donc réduit notre exposition sur des produits complexes qui étaient consommateurs de capitaux en favorisant les obligations et un peu l’immobilier ». Pourtant, ces choix n’ont pas réellement bouleversé l’allocation préexistante car la Mutuelle Générale avait déjà une politique sécuritaire. Il s’agit davantage d’aménagements.

L’indice Ifo du climat des affaires en Allemagne a progressé pour la première fois en quatre mois en juin, à 114,5, ce qui semble suggérer que la première économie de la zone euro va toujours de l’avant. Le consensus des économistes était de 113,5 pour cet indice.

Mario Draghi a été nommé comme prochain président de la BCE par les dirigeants de l’UE après que Lorenzo Bini Smaghi s’est engagé à quitter ses fonctions au sein du conseil des gouverneurs de l’institution. L’actuel gouverneur de la Banque d’Italie, âgé de 63 ans, succèdera donc à Jean-Claude Trichet, qui quittera son poste fin octobre après huit années passées à la tête de l’institution. La France avait fait peser une incertitude au cours des dernières heures en mettant en avant la règle non écrite selon laquelle le directoire de la BCE comprend un représentant de chacun des quatre grands pays de la zone euro et qu’elle n’y serait plus représentée après le départ de Jean-Claude Trichet. Le gouvernement italien a demandé à Lorenzo Bini Smaghi de démissionner pour laisser sa place à un Français, en contrepartie du soutien de la France à la candidature de Mario Draghi. Les noms d’Ambroise Fayolle, administrateur pour la France au Fonds monétaire international, et de Benoît Coeuré, directeur général adjoint du Trésor français, sont parmi les plus cités pour rejoindre Francfort.