Actuellement, les fonds levés pour le capital-risque sont à un très bas niveau aux Etats-Unis. Sur base annuelle, ils ne dépassent pas 10 milliards de dollars, alors que la moyenne est de 18,8 milliards au cours des huit dernières années, a déclaré au Temps Rainer Ender, directeur d’Adveq, une société de fonds dans le private equity, à Zurich.

L’ISR se fait une place de plus en plus importante dans l’activité d’AllianzGI Investments Europe, soutenu par le développement de l’activité de conseil auprès de la clientèle institutionnelle en France et en Europe. Sur un total de 128 milliards d’euros d’encours gérés et conseillés par la plateforme européenne d’investissement d’Allianz Global Investors à fin mars, plus de 8 %, soit 10,5 milliards d’euros, le sont aujourd’hui en matière d’investissement socialement responsable (ISR), contre 6,8 milliards à fin 2010. En termes de classes d’actifs, la progression des encours a particulièrement bénéficié aux produits de taux, qui affichent des actifs de 2,8 milliards d’euros, contre 570 millions à fin mars 2010. Les encours investis en actions sont stables sur un an et représentent à fin mars 2011 un total de 2,7 milliards d’euros. L’encours du monétaire s’affiche en baisse sur un an et passe de 1,6 milliard d’euros à 1,1 milliard. La classe «diversifié» affiche à fin mars 3,9 milliards d’euros d’encours. Les fonds ouverts représentent près de 2,5 milliards d’euros de ces encours ISR, le reste étant géré au sein de mandats dédiés. AllianzGI Investments Europe propose une gamme de cinq OPCVM, qui représentent à fin mars 2011 près de 2,2 milliards d’encours. Au sein de la gamme, les deux plus importants OPCVM en termes d’encours sont Allianz Valeurs Durables (près de 1 milliard d’euros d’actif) et Allianz Securicash SRI, FCP monétaire qui pèse 1 milliard d’euros.La plateforme propose également Allianz Euro Crédit SRI, fonds obligataire euro Investment Grade investi sur le marché du crédit (114 millions d’euros d’encours), puis deux OPCVM thématiques actions. Allianz Eureco Equity mise sur la thématique environnementale, Allianz Citizen Care SRI est focalisé sur la thématique sociale de la protection du citoyen-consommateur. Ces deux fonds représentent environ 35 millions d’euros d’actifs sous gestion.

Début avril, la société de gestion britannique Henderson, qui gérait 60,5 milliards de livres fin mars, a bouclé l’acquisition de sa concurrente Gartmore, dont les encours ressortent à 15,7 milliards de livres. Cette opération qui ne devrait pas être la dernière, lui permet d’asseoir un peu plus son positionnement d’acteur international de la gestion d’actifs. En France, ce rachat permet à Patricia Kaveh, directeur du développement de Henderson Global Investors pour la France, Monaco et Genève, d’élargir l’offre de ses clients, qui représentent aujourd’hui 1,2 milliard d'euros.

Among the 12 products admitted to trading on the Xetra electronic trading platform from Deutsche Börse on May 27 is the DB Physical Rhodium ETC Euro (DE000A1KJHG8), which charges fees of 0.95% and replicates the evolution of Rhodium prices in euros. An equivalent product denominated in US dollars is available on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The product was launched by db ETC plc (Deutsche Bank). Each certificate corresponds to the price of a tenth of an ounce of the metal. It is a physical coverage ETC.

Axa Investment Managers Deutschland has announced that it has extended the redemption freeze for its open-ended retail real estate fund Axa Immosolutions (ISIN: DE000A0J3GM1) for another year, from 25 May 2011. As of 30 April, gross liquidity in the fund, which is aimed primarily at institutional investors, was 13.3%, well below the expected volume of redemption demands, says Achim Gräfen, CEO of Axa IM Germany. Properties in the portfolio of the fund currently have a 98% occupancy rate.

A survey undertaken between February and April 2011 by Greenwich Associates, covering 45 pension funds and charities as well as 25 major US wealth management firms, with total assets under management by respondents of USD7.5trn, finds that 35% of the first group and 48% of the second are planning to make increased use of ETFs by 2013, while none of the first and 9% of the second group are planning to reduce their use of this type of fund.Handelsblatt reports that wealth managers retain ETFs in their portfolios for up to one month, while pension funds and charities hold onto them for often more than one year. In both categories, ETFs are used either to park liquidity between investments, or to increase equities allocation in the short-term, or to minimise the effects on a portfolio of a change of manager.Professionals invest in ETFs largely because of their liquidity and trading volume, and also because of their low TER and faithful replication of indices.

KBL Richelieu Gestion announced on Friday, 27 May, that it has added to its management team with the arrival of Dominique Dequidt and Pascal Bernachon.Dequidt will co-manage the KBL Richelieu Europe fund with Nathalie Martin Pelras, and the KBL Richelieu France fund with Roland Fernet. For his part, Bernachon will manage the KBL Richelieu Flexible Sicav.Dequidt, 50, had been co-head of the European Small and Mid Caps Equities unit at Robeco Asset Management since 2007. For his part, Bernachon joined the KBC Richelieu private bank, the parent company of KBL Richelieu Gestion, in 2004, and there most recently served as director of mandated management, and then as a strategist.

Generali Investments, the management firm which manages the financial assets of the Generali Group, is launching an internal socially responsible investment (SRI) selection process. The method will initially be applied to three funds from Generali France, of which two are denominated in euros and one is unit-linked, with total assets of EUR6bn. The method will gradually be extended to the rest of the group. At the core of the method is a database known as S.A.R.A. (Sustainable Analysis of Responsible Asset), which monitors 465 European businesses. The businesses are filtered on the basis of extra-financial ratings on the basis of 34 analysis criteria (11 environmental, 11 internal social, 8 related to external social issues, and 4 related to governance), “for which we measure the financial and extra-financial impact over the mid and long term,” says Franca Perin, an ARI analyst, in a statement.

From 1 April, Denis Chasteauneuf (ex BlackRock) has joined Oyster (France) SAS as head of commercial development (see Newsmanagers of 8 April). The move is a sign of a desire onteh part of Banque Syz (about EUR20bn in assets) to shift its Oyster funds into high gear on the French market, which now represents about one tenth of assets for traditional funds from the Swiss management firm, at about EUR500m.As in Italy, with Albertini, and in Spain with N mas 1 (N+1), the group will be relying on a partnership in France to start up its local activity, and to this end has signed an agreement with the management firm of the French/Swiss PGC group, with offices on place Vendôme in Paris, to provide assistance with payroll plans and IT. Staff at Syz in France will also be set to grow in the near future, Ricardo Payro, director in charge of communication at Banque Syz, told Newsmanagers at the Oysterdays conference in Madrid. As planned, Claudia Eftimie will be joining the Paris office this Monday as chief product specialist. According to information obtained by Newsmanagers, another recruitment will be officially announced on 6 June. The Geneva-based parent company has also not ruled out a fourth person as an addition to the team dedicated to the French market in second half.

The CNMV on 24 May issued a license for the Luxembourg-registered LFP Opportunity sicav, and for B (capitalisation) shares in the Delff Euro High Return (LU0306489781), a sub-fund of the Sicav. The fund, specialised in high-yield bonds on the European market, will be available in Spain from Banco Inversis.

In a notification to the CNMV dates 25 May, the management firm Ahorro Corporación Gestión has announced that in agreement with the Spanish confederation of savings banks (the depository), it has decided to liquidate the fund of hedge funds Ahorro Corporación Alpha Multiestrategia, whose assets totalled only EUR4m as of the end of February. Funds People reports that the product earned 18% since its launch in 2007, with annual volatility of 5.25%.

The alternative management firm BlueCrest Capital Management on 13 May registered the Strategic Bond sub-fund of its Luxembourg Sicav Alignment Global Fund for sale in Spain. The product will be available in Spain from RBC Dexia Investor Services España. It is the first fund from BlueCrest to be available in the country.

Investors facing concerns related to Greek government debt and reduced growth on global markets have remained on the defensive in the week to 25 May. Equities funds saw outflows of USD9.25bn in the week under review, while bond funds saw inflows of USD4.53bn, according to statistics from EPFR Global. Money market funds attracted nearly USD8bn, as inflows to US funds largely compensated for outflows from European funds. Funds dedicated to emerging markets equities underwent their second consecutive week of redemptions, meaning that since the beginning of the year, net outflows have totalled USD8.6bn.

In the past twelve months, assets in hedge funds overall have increased at twice the rate of funds of hedge funds, largely because major institutional investors are increasingly tending to make their investments directly, Randal Goldsmith, a principal analyst at S&P Fund Services, finds.The phenomenon is leading a growing number of hedge fund management firms to reformat their product ranges in order to aim more precisely at small institutional or retail investors, who are increasingly moving toward this type of diversification. The French firm HDF is an example: it has lowered the minimal subscription level to make its products more accessible. Permal has also made major efforts to transform its portfolios into managed accounts.The most recent industry report from S&P Fund Services finds that most managers asked about the most promising strategies now are expecting a much wider diversification to come in the area of equities, in order to optimise generation of outperformance. But that is not yet being seen on the ground. Several fund of hedge fund managers like GAM, HDF and Olympia have reduced their allocations to hedge fund managers who practice low beta or market neutral strategies, and have instead invested in beta flexible managers. The complete study is available at www.fundsinsights.com.

Thomas Neiße, head of Deka and the new president of the BVI association of management firms, has confirmed to the Börsen-Zeitung that rumours that Stefan Seip would like to leave his position as CEO of the BVI, which he has held for nearly ten years, at the end of June, are true.The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that the two men didn’t get along very well from the start and that Seip’s successor could be Thomas Richter, who recently joined the board at the BVI from DWS.

Bankia, the bank born of the merger of Caja Madrid, Bandaja, La Caja de Canarias, Caja Ávila, Caixa Laietana, Caja Segovia and Caja Rioja, at the end of last week announced the launch of the management firm Bankia Fondos, which will manage products from the management firms Gesmadrid (Caja Madrid), Bancaja and Caixa Laietana.The new firm has EUR7.4bn in assets, making it the fourth-largest Spanish asset manager, with a market share of over 5%, based on statistics from the Spanish Inverco association of asset management firms. The number of subscribers comes to about 350,000.In the next few months, Bankia Fondos will create a new range of fund products, which will carry the Bankia brand name. Bankia will be depository for the funds, instead of Caja Madrid, Bancaja and Caixa Laietana.

Man Group on 27 May announced that it has doubled its personnel in Hong Kong, in its quantitative managed futures activity at AHL, making it one of the largest CTA to create an autonomous trading activity in Hong Kong. The team is being enlarged from five to eleven, and the new Hong Kong trading platform will cover 49 Asian markets. Man Group has been present in Hong Kong since 1995, and has three other offices in the Asia-Pacific region, in Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney. Currently, 25% of international assets under management at Man Group are in the Asian region. As of 26 May 2011, assets under management at AHL, which has offices in London and Oxford as well as Hong Kong, totalled USD22.7bn.

Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the president of the French financial market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), just before the weekend denounced high-frequency trading’s impact on the wider economy. “The impact of ‘high-frequency trading’ on trading macrostructures has not been adequately studied to date,” Jouyet said in a speech given at the ICMA’s annual general conference.“High-frequency trading leads to rapid changes to order books, at such a pace that between the time when investors make an order and when it is executed, the order has already been changed. This constant instability is a source of concern to investors,” Jouyet explains, and warns that circuits breakers should be put in place, so that processes could be halted to prevent a domino effect from gathering pace. A mechanism “which would allow for moving trading from an autopilot to a manual pilot whenever the pilot wants to take back control of the market seems necessary to me, as has been decided in the United States as well,” the AMF president announced.

In early April, the British management firm Henderson, which managed GBP60.5bn as of the end of March, completed its acquisition of its rival Gartmore, whose assets totalled GBP15.7bn. The operation, which is not expected to be the last of its kind, gives Henderson a slightly more solid positioning as an international actor in asset management. In France, the acquisition will allow Patricia Kaveh, director of development for France, Monaco and Geneva, enlarge the firm's range of clients, who currently represent GBP1.2bn in assets.

According to VDOS Stochastics, relayed by Funds People, assets in Spainish funds fell by EUR1.111bn between 2 and 20 May, to a total of EUR143.577bn. This 0.77% decline is due to net redemptions of EUR725m, and a negative market effect of EUR385m.

According to the 2010 reports from the insurance and retirement Directorate General, since unemployed persons have been allowed to withdraw money from their retirement savings plans (under a royal decree of July 2009), they have withdrawn a total of EUR219m in 2009, and EUR320m in 2010, for an average of EUR4,797 per person, as 112,560 people, and 70,373 people in 2010 (+67.6% compared with the previous year) have availed themselves of the opportunity, Expansión reports.Despite the strong increase in redemptions, the impact on total assets in retirement savings plans represented only 0.63%. Total assets in pension funds as of the end of March totalled about EUR85bn, in 10.7 million accounts.

The British management firm Legal & General (L&G) is planning to offer retail clients some of its bond tracker products, which had previously been reserved for institutional clients, FundWeb reports.

UBS has received approval from regulators to rename the UK Select fund as the UBS UK Opportunities fund. The decision will be effective from 10 June. Edward Peter-Hoblyn, who has managed the fund since November last year, as modified several of its underlyings in that time.

Investment Week reports that GAM is launching a series of equities funds on the Cofunds platform, with the objective of entering the retail market. The management firm will offer nine funds, from 1 Fund, including its flagship fund dedicated to North America. The nine products on offer are: GAM UK Diversified (UK All Companies)GAM Global Diversified (Global Growth)GAM North American Growth (North America)GAM Star Continental European Equity (Europe ex UK)GAM Star Japan Equity (Japan)GAM Star Technology (Technology and Telecoms)GAM Star GEO GBP (Global growth)GAM Star Global Equity Inflation Focus (Global growth)GAM Star Trading (Absolute Return)

The solutions provider SimCorp on 27 May announced the launch of a portal dedicated to bringing companies into compliance with international regulations, aimed at investment management professionals. With the updating of existing standards and the adoption of new regulations in Europe (IFRS 9, Solvency III, UCITS IV and the AIFM directive), and the Dodd-Franck law in the United States, investment management firms need to know what the best ways are of bringing themselves into compliance with the new requirements imposed on the sector, SimCorp says. To help financial institutions more easily measure the extend and the implications of all of the various regulations, SimCorp has brought together several information resources on the subject via a single dedicated portal. The compilation includes articles, online talks, videos, and links to websites in the sector. “Regulatory obligations are not negotiable,” Peter L. Ravn, CEO of SimCorp, says in a statement. “Investment management companies need to prepare to comply with them without considering it a burden, but rather an advantage to exploit to become more competitive.” SimCorp also offers investment management professionals a way to evaluate the impact of new regulations on their IT systems online. The results of the test will be sent as a personalised report, also containing advice on measures to consider for each regulation.

The New York-base asset management firm Global X Funds (USD1.8bn in assets as of 29 April) on 26 May announced the launch on the NYSE Arca platform of the Global X Fertilizers/Potash ETF (ISIN code: US37950E4998; acronym: SOIL), which charges fees of 0.69%. The fund replicates the Solactive Global Fertilizers/Potash Index, which covers the largest caps in the fertilizer and potash sector worldwide. As of 23 May, the three largest positions were CF Industries Holdings Inc., Yara International ASA and Incitec Pivot Ltd.

The director of marketing at Fidelity International for Austria, Nicky Schada, is joining BlackRock in London to become co-head of retail marketing for Germany and Austria.

The Financial Times reports that the BlackRock group, the largest investor on British stock markets, last week sent a letter to the major investment banks to denounce their “increasingly aggressive” approach to commissions on initial public offerings. BlackRock says that commissions are structured in such a way as to maximise revenues on the first day of trading, without regard to the long-term success of the offering.

The British Financial Services Authority (FSA) on 27 May announced that it is toughening regulations governing client complaints. The FSA has decided to discontinue its two-stage processing for complaints, which had given financial establishments an opportunity to initially reject them. The FSA has also issued a warning over two funds on sale from Connaught Asset Management. The two funds in question, high yield products, had been presented as “very low risk” or “low risk.” Information distributed to clients did not explain that quarterly payments depend on the performance of investments in the fund, either.

In a statement, the Luxembourg financial sector surveillance commission (CSSF) announced on Friday, 27 May that it has been informed by the Belgian regulator, the financial services and markets authority (FSMA), that shares in Dexia (BE0003796134) and derivatives thereof have been suspended from trading on Euronext Brussels from 27 May at 10:32 AM, in advance of a forthcoming press statement, the Luxembourg regulator says. The notification came according to article 9 (3) of the financial market instruments law of 13 July 2007, which requires that financial instruments be suspended from trading on the regulated Luxembourg market until the market has been duly informed.