Polar Capital va lancer un fonds Amérique du Nord pour ses nouvelles recrues Andrew Holliman et Richard Wilson, qui ont rejoint la société en provenance de Threadneedle en début d’année, rapporte Citywire.

Redemptions from the European funds industry totalled EUR25.2bn in June, reversing the inflows of EUR24.1bn achieved last month, according to the latest statistics of Lipper. However, with money market activity excluded, total industry sales kept in positive territory (EUR640m), although even this was propped up by ETF activity of nearly EUR2bn.Investors withdrew from equity funds (-EUR3.3bn when ETFs are excluded). Even sales in the bond arena hit a four month low (EUR3.8bn) as high yield products — one of the success stories of 2011 — fell into the red (-EUR3.6bn).Both equity (EUR2.1bn) and bond (EUR3bn) global emerging market funds enjoyed success, so that investor appetite looked rather like that seen last year.With appetite for bond funds from some providers remaining strong, Franklin Templeton (EUR3.2bn) and Allianz/Pimco (EUR1.8bn) topped the best-sellers list. BlackRock was the best-selling equity group (EUR860m).Over the first six months of 2011, equity sales (EUR30.5bn) have been pretty similar to the level achieved over the same period last year (EUR28.5bn). The real change has come on the fixed income and mixed asset sides, where inflows of EUR72.2bn and EUR39.4bn in 2010 have dropped to EUR26.4bn and EUR18.5bn this year. Absolute return fund sales also fell, from EUR17.4bn to EUR10.8bn over the same periods.Long-term fund sales (excluding money market funds) over the first six months of 2011 (EUR90.7bn) are 40% down on those achieved over the same period last year (EUR152.2bn).

Polar Capital will launch a North American fund for its new recruits, Andrew Holliman and Richard Wilson, who joined the firm from Threadneedle earlier this year, Citywire reports.

US open-ended mutual funds saw net outflows in July of USD17.1bn, the heaviest outflows since December 2008, once again driven by massive redemptions from mutual funds, according to the most recent statistics from Morningstar. For long-term funds, excluding money market funds, outflows totalled slightly over USD17bn in July, but in the first seven months of the year, funds have seen net inflows of nearly USD118bn. Equities funds finished the month of July with outflows of USD22.88bn, a level not seen since October 2008, a month in which, at the height of the financial crisis, outflows totalled USD27.9bn. Since the beginning of this year, outflows have totalled USD14.2bn. Bond funds, for their part, have posted a net inflow of USD8.87bn in July, and of USD102.1bn since the beginning of the year, as municipal bond funds remained unpopular with investors for the third consecutive month. Money market funds saw heavy outflows in July, totalling USD107.62bn, so that since the beginning of the year, outflows totall USD222.99bn, compared with USD476bn for the year 2010 as a whole. For ETFs, the month of July finished with net inflows of USD17.2bn, following inflows of nearly USD10bn the previous month. Since the beginning of the year, ETFs have attracted USD74.49bn over a twelve-month period, with assets up by about 25%. US equities ETFs posted a net inflow of USD6.4bn in July, and of slightly over USD30bn since the beginning of the year. ETFs dedicated to international equities also finished the month with strong inflows, totalling USD3.75bn (USD15.15bn in inflows since the beginning of the year). Bond ETFs also made another positive contribution, with net subscriptions of USD3.28bn in July. This asset class has not seen outflows since the end of 2010. Commodities ETFs last month found favour with investors once again, with net inflows of USD3.74bn, following two consecutive months of outflows (USD3.7bn in May and USD892m in June).

On Monday, Wells Fargo & Co announced that it is recruiting 25 investment bankers who had previously worked at the hedge fund management firm Citadel, based in Chicago, and that it will also be taking over the transactions that the traders worked on, the Wall Street Journal reports.The recruitments will apparently not result in any settlements to Citadel, but Wells Fargo will pay back a portion of the fees earned on the operations which it is taking over, including on a stake in the consortium responsible for the initial public offering of Groupon Inc.

According to the website ifaonline, Deborah Fuhr, who has recently left BlackRock, will be joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London, as head of the Global Delta One strategy, which includes ETFs as its primary vehicle. Fuhr will report to Piers Butler, head of the EMEA Global Equity, Macro and Events group, and may begin in her new role in September.

The Austrian Marius Dorfmeister has been serving since 1 August as head of international wholesale and institutional operations at the Swiss bank Sarasin. In this position he reports to Aris Prepoudis, head of the Institutional Clients & Wholesale unit, who has also been serving in the interim in the role now delegated to Dorfmeister, who had previously been at Falcon Private Bank in Zurich and Vienna.Markets in Benelux, Italy, Scandinavia and central and eastern Europe, and operations in Asia and the Middle East will all be included in the International Institutional and Wholesale unit, which will be led by Dorfmeister. In Vienna, Alexandra Lang became head of institutional and wholesale clients for Austria and central Europe on 1 July 2011.Operations serving institutional clients of the Sarasin group as of the end of June had assets under management of CHF28.2bn, with net inflows of CHF1.9bn in first quarter.

Clariden Leu, an affiliate of Credit Suisse, posted net inflows of CHF3.3bn in first quarter 2011, for an annualised growth rate of 7%. Net profits totalled CHF155m, a strong increase compared with the CHF102m posted in the equivalent period last year, according to a statement released on 15 August.Despite strong net inflows, assets under management as of the end of June totalled CHF94bn, compared with CHF99bn as of the end of first quarter 2010, due to the rising value of the Swiss franc and market volatility.

In a public letter published in the New York Times on Monday, the billionaire investor Warren Buffett has called on the “super committee” of the US Congress charged with finding means to reduce the national deficit, to increase taxes on households which earn over USD1m per year. “My friends and I have been pampered for a long time by a Congress which defends the cause of billionaires,” he writes. “The time has come for the government to get serious about sharing the sacrifices.”

HSBC Singapore has appointed Paul Arrowsmith as head of retail banking and wealth management in Singapore, Wealthbriefing reports. In his new role, Arrowsmith will be in charge of all activities related to wealth management, including insurance and asset management. He will report to Alex Hungate, general group manager and chief executive for Singapore.

The French Banking Federation (FBF) has become the next body to respond to rumours that triggered an unprecedented tailspin for French banking sector shares last week. The professional association announced in a statement on 12 August that French banks may file lawsuits in reaction to the rumours, which are vigorously denied by Société Générale and BNP Paribas. “In light of the unfounded rumours that have persistently been circulating on the markets, French banks are examining all types of recourse at their disposal, including legal means,” the FBF says in a statement, which also welcomes the decision of the AMF to forbid short-selling of financial sector shares listed in France for a period of 15 days.

Christian Pellis, a managing board member, has told the Börsen-Zeitung that LGT Capital Management will be setting up distribution in the United Kingdom and Singapore by the end of September. In Germany, where LGT AM has been present for a year, assets total EUR304m, and the business has had EUR147 in net inflows since 1 January 2011.

nabInvest (AUD51bn in assets), the asset management affiliate of National Australian Bank (NAB), has acquired Aviva Investors Australia (AUD5.5bn) for an undisclosed amount. The transaction does not include the direct real estate activities of Aviva Investors Australia, nor any resources not directly related to the activities of the group in Australia.Aviva Investors is now planning to concentrate the development of its presence in Asia-Pacific in Singapore.

The European Commission on 12 August welcomes the move to bar short-selling of financial sector shares undertaken by four euro zone countries (see Newsmanagers of 12 August), but stated that a European framework would be better adapted to managing such cases. “The European Commission … welcomes recent developments warmly. However, our policy would be even more effective and coordinated if we were to set up a European frameowrk to govern short-selling,” Chantal Hughes, spokesperson for the Commission, said in a press conference. Germany, for its part, on Friday announced that it was planning to propose an extension to the ban on naked short positions to all of Europe for equities, government bonds, and credit default swaps (CDS). According to a spokesperson for the German finance minister, Germany supports the similar measures which have been in effect since Friday in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, and adds that such a ban is the only way to confront “destructive speculation.” The British market authorities have stated that they have no current plans to forbid short-selling in the United Kingdom. The European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) is not planning to extend the ban to short-selling in other European countries, but has not ruled out such a move completely, its president, Steven Majoor, has told Reuters.

In July, Spanish securities funds underwent their fifth consecutive month of net outflows, with EUR570m, compared with EUR1.19bn in June, statistics from the Inverco association of asset management firms reveal. Assets as of 31 July totalled EUR132.15bn, 0.9%, or EUR1.19bn less than at the end of June. Assets totalled EUR138.08bn as of the end of December 2010.The seven largest asset managers in the country by asset volumes all saw net outflows last month, with the three largest seeing the heaviest outflows. Santander Assset Management (EUR22.63bn in assets under management) underwent outflows of EUR262.55m, while BBVA Asset Management (EUR20.54bn) posted outflows of EUR176.36m, and Invercaixa Gestión (EUR1618) faced outflows of EUR105.61m.However, the eighth-largest by asset volumes, Bansabadell Inversion (EUR4.49bn), saw net subscriptions of EUR76m.

The Canadian financial services firm Power Corp will acquire a 10% stake in the asset management firm China AMC, in which CITIC Securities had held a 100% stake, in violation of Chinese legislation which forbids foreign shareholders from controlling more than 49% in a local asset management firm, for CNY1.78bn, or USD280m, which according to Z-Ben Advisors corresponds to 8% of assets under management by the business. As of the end of June, assets at China AMC totalled CNY221.5bn, representing a 9.5% share of the Chinese market.Once the deal is approved by the Chinese regulatory authority, the CSRC, China AMC will legally become a joint venture, as Shandong Rural Economy Development & Investment Company has already acquired a 10% stake in the management firm for USD250m (CNY1.6bn), and South Industry Asset Management Company has acquired an 11% stake in the business for USD275m, or CNY1.76bn. Z-Ben Advisors reports that two other 10% stakes in China AMC will be sold off in the near future, probably to Chinese government-controlled companies.

Joseph “Skip” Skowron, a former hedge fund manager at FrontPoint Partners, on Monday pleaded guilty before a criminal tribunal to charges that he used inside information provided to him by the French doctor Yves Benhamou to make investments for six health sector funds from FrontPoint in January 2008, which allowed him to avoid millions of dollars in trading losses, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The US market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has launched an investigation into the calculation methods used by the financial ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) for their decision to lower the solvency rating for the United States, the Wall Street Journel reports on 13 August. According to the newspaper, citing sources familiar with the matter, the SEC has launched a vast investigation of practices at the ratings agency, including the methods used in the decision to withdraw the United States’ AAA rating on 5 August. Investigators from the regulatory authority are studying the models used for the calculations, which are contested by the US Treasury, which claims that there was a Usd2trn error in the budgetary projections by S&P, the newspaper explains. Investigators are also seeking to determine which employees at the agency were aware of the decision ahead of its announcement, in order to determine if any insider trading took place, the Wall Street Journal continues.

Pour un montant non divulgué, nabInvest (51 milliards de de dollars australiens d’encours), la filiale de gestion d’actifs de National Australia Bank (NAB), acquiert Aviva Investors Australia (5,5 milliards de dollars australiens). Cette transaction exclut les activités immobilières directes d’Aviva Investors Australie ainsi que les ressources qui ne sont pas directement liées à l’activité du groupe en Australie.Aviva Investors a l’intention désormais de concentrer le développement de sa présence en Asie-Pacifique à Singapour.

HSBC Singapore vient de nommer Paul Arrowsmith en qualité de responsable de la banque de détail et de la gestion de fortune à Singapour, rapporte Wealthbriefing.Dans ses nouvelles fonctions, Paul Arrowsmith aura la responsabilité de toutes les activités liées notamment à la gestion de fortune, dont l’assurance et la gestion d’actifs. Il est rattaché à Alex Hungate, general groupe manager et chief executive pour Singapour.

Le fonds souverain norvégien, Government Pension Fund Global, a dégagé une performance de 0,3 %, soit 4 milliards de couronnes norvégiennes, au deuxième trimestre 2011, ce qui est inférieur de 0,1 point au rendement des indices de référence du fonds. Dans le détail, la poche actions du fonds, qui représente 60,5 % du total, a perdu 0,7 % sur les trois mois, tandis que les investissements obligataires, qui pèsent 39,4 % du portefeuille, ont gagné 1,8 % en devises internationales (0,1 % du fonds est investi en immobilier). Les encours du fonds ont augmenté de 9 milliards de couronnes norvégiennes à 3.111 milliards de couronnes, grâce à l’effet performance, et aux 53 milliards de couronnes injectés par le gouvernement. En revanche, l’affermissement de la couronne norvégienne face à de nombreuses devises dans lesquelles le fonds est investi a réduit les encours de 48 milliards.

Allianz Global Investors a indiqué dans un communiqué avoir fermé le fonds de fonds immobilier de droit allemand Premium Management Immobilien-Anlagen, dont les actifs étaient gelés depuis le 27 septembre 2010. Cette fermeture permettra aux porteurs de parts d’avoir accès à leur capital investi. Dès le mois d’octobre, une première tranche de 500 millions d’euros sera ainsi distribuée, précise le communiqué. La Commerzbank, qui avait l’exclusivité de la distribution de ce fonds, propose à ses 50.000 clients ayant des parts dans le fonds 43 euros par tranche de 50 euros de participation dans le produit, a indiqué fondsprofessionell. Les parts cotaient 33 euros dernièrement, précise Reuters.

Lundi 15 août HSBC Global Asset Management (Deutschland) a annoncé la commercialisation en Allemagne du compartiment Asian Currencies Bond (ISIN: LU0210635255) de sa sicav luxembourgeoise HSBC GIF (lire notre dépêche du 8 juin). Il s’agit comme son nom l’indique d’un fonds investissant en obligations asiatiques libellées en monnaies locales et donc susceptibles de bénéficier du potentiel d’appréciation de ces devises. La monnaie de référence pour ce nouveau produit est le dollar américain.Le fonds, dont le benchmark est le Markit iBoxx ABF Pan Asian ex China and HK Index, est géré par Cecilia Chan, qui est également Fixed Income CIO Asia Pacific de HSBC Global AM, ainsi que par Alfred Mui.

Selon un proche du dossier cité par la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Credit Suisse Allemagne intensifie les préparatifs pour une réouverture des remboursements du fonds immobilier CS Euroreal (environ 6 milliards d’euros) : le gestionnaire aurait revendu deux immeubles commerciaux situés à Dresde et Leipzig à RREEF (Deutsche Bank), pour 140 millions d’euros. En début de mois, il avait déjà annoncé la cession de trois autres actifs pour augmenter sa liquidité.

En septembre 2010, la Commerzbank avait dû geler les remboursements du Premium Management Immobilien Anlagen (PMIA), qui investissait dans des fonds immobiliers offerts au public dont les remboursements avaient eux-mêmes été suspendus. A présent, rapporte le Handelsblatt, la banque propose pour les quatre prochaines semaines aux souscripteurs du PMIA un montant de 43,38 euros pour chaque part émise à 50 euros.Ce montant correspond d’après la Commerzbank à 92 % de la valeur liquidative alors qu’en Bourse les parts se traitent actuellement aux alentours de 33 euros l’unité.

Citi a annoncé le 11 août le lancement d’une activité de services à destination du marché des ETF dans la région Asie-Pacifique.Citi ETF Services fournira aux émetteurs d’ETF dans la région des solutions intégrées comprenant notamment la tenue de marché, l’administration, la conservation et la comptabilité. L’activité dans la région sera co-dirigée par Bob Simon et Jeff McCarthy. Le premier est actuellement responsable du «programme trading» de Citi Global Markets à Hong Kong, le second étant basé à New York où il est responsable mondial des produits ETF pour la partie «securities and fund services».

Christian Pellis, membre du directoire, a indiqué à la Börsen-Zeitung que LGT Capital Management se dotera avant la fin septembre d’une distribution au Royaume-Uni et à Singapour. En Allemagne, où LGT CM est présent depuis un an, l’encours atteint 304 millions d’euros, dont 147 millions de rentrées nettes depuis le 1er janvier 2011.

L’Autrichien Marius Dorfmeister exerce depuis le 1er août les fonctions de directeur des opérations internationales wholesale et institutionnelles de la banque suisse Sarasin sous l’autorité d’Aris Prepoudis, qui dirige le pôle Institutional clients & Wholesale et qui a exercé par intérim ces derniers mois les prérogatives à présent confiées à Marius Dorfmeister, lequel était auparavant chez Flacon Private Bank à Zurich et Vienne.Les marchés du Benelux, d’Italie, de Scandinavie, d’Europe centrale et orientale ainsi que les opérations en Asie et au Moyen-Orient sont regroupés au sein de l’unité Institutional et Wholesale International sous la direction de Markus Dorfmeister. A Vienne, Alexandra Lang a pris en charge les clients institutionnels et wholesale en Autriche et en Europe centrale depuis le 1 juillet 2011.Les opérations avec la clientèle institutionnelle du groupe Sarasin représentaient fin juin des actifs sous gestion de 28,2 milliards de francs, avec des rentrées nettes de 1,9 milliard de francs durant le premier semestre.

Filiale de Credit Suisse, Clariden Leu a enregistré une collecte nette de 3,3 milliards de francs au premier semestre 2011, soit une croissance annualisée de 7%. Le bénéfice net se monte à 155 millions de francs, en forte hausse par rapport aux 102 millions enregistrés à la même période que l’an dernier, selon un communiqué publié le 15 août.Malgré la forte collecte nette, les actifs sous gestion s’inscrivaient à fin fuin à 94 milliards de francs, contre 99 milliards à la fin du premier semestre 2010, en raison de l'évolution du franc et de la volatilité du marché.

Ten Cate vient de rejoindre BNY Mellon AM en qualité de managing director pour les Pays-Bas, rapporte le site IPE. Dans ses nouvelles fonctions, Ten Cate sera l’avocat des différents services proposés par le groupe américain aux fonds de pension néerlandais. BNY Mellon assure des services d’administration de fonds pour environ 30% des fonds de pension néerlandais et il traite la gestion d’actifs pour près d’une douzaine d’entre eux.Ten Cate travaillait précédemment chez le britannique Insights Investments (150 milliards d’euros d’actifs sous gestion) qui a été récemment racheté par BNY Mellon.