The US management firm IndexIQ has announced the launch of an ETF of oil industry small caps on the NYSE Arca platform. Entitled IQ Global Oil Small Cap ETF, with fees of 0.75%. The product offers exposure to global small caps in the areas of exploration, production, equipment, and oil industry marketing services. The ETF replicates the performance of the IQ Global Oil Small Cap index, before fees.

Amundi ETF on Monday, 9 May annouced that it is extending its range of products on the British market to include 16 new ETFs on the London stock exchange (LSE). In total, 50 ETFs will be added to the LSE in the next three months, a statement says. Seven products from the first sortie are now available on the LSE. They include the Amundi ETF MSCI Nordic, Amundi ETF MSCI France, Amundi ETF MSCI Germany, Amundi ETF MSCI ItalyAmundi ETF MSCI Netherlands, Amundi ETF MSCI Spain, and Amundi ETF MSCI Switzerland. Details of the ETF funds may be found at the following address: http://public.adequatesystems.com/pub/attachment/117693/021632923196177…

NYSE Euronext on 9 May announced that it has listed two more ETFs from HSBC on the Paris exchange. The Irish-registered products were launched on 8 and 10 December, respectively, on the London Stock Exchange, and have since also been released on the Swiss market. The funds are the HSBC MSCI Turkey ETF (IE00N5BRQ873), which charges fees of 0.60%, and the HSBC MSCI World ETF (IE00B4X9L533), which charges 0.35%. The European platforms from NYSE Euronext include a total of 647 listings of 555 ETF funds, which replicate more than 360 indices. Since the beginning of the year, ETF listings on markets of the stock market business gained 106 listings, corresponding to 80 ETFs.

Open-ended securities funds in first quarter 2011 saw net redemptions of EUR4.93bn, the German BVI association of management firms reports. Among the major firms, Deka and Allianz Global Investors saw net redemptions of EUR2.85bn and EUR2.33bn, while net redemptions totalled EUR454.3m for Union Investment, and EUR286.7m for DWS/DB Advisors/DB Gruppe.Excepting ETFlab (Deka), which saw net outflows of EUR439.5m, ETF specialists continued to post net inflows, with the largest flows going to BlackRock (iShares), which took on nearly EUR1.18bn. At db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), net subscriptions totalled EUR310m, while for ComStage (Commerzbank), inflows totalled EUR139.3m.

On 9 May, BNY Mellon announced that it has created a new position for a president of its investment management division, which includes asset management and wealth management. The position will be occupied by Mitchell Harris, who had served as interim head of asset management activities, and who is also appointed as a member of the executive board. Like Larry Hughes, CEO for wealth management, with whom he will work closely, Harris will report to Curtis Arledge, vice chairman of BNY Mellon and CEO of the investment management division. Harris will retain his role as CEO of the bond, money markets and currencies group at BNY Mellon Asset Management, which manages more than USD500bn in assets, including the Pareto, Standish Mellon AM and Alcentra affiliates, as well as BNY Mellon Cash Investment Strategies (a division of the Dreyfus Corporation). Harris has previously also been CEO of Pareto and Standish, and remains as chairman of these firms.

The hedge fund manager John Paulson made USD4bn by betting against subprime mortgage, the market which precipitated the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings. Now, his fund Paulson & Co. could reap profits between USD350m and USD726m on bonds it bought up at a heavy discount from the investment bank two and a half years ago, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Bill Gross, founder and co-CIO of Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco, Allianz Global Invetors group), in April increased his bet that the price of US government bonds, including Treasurys, will fall, the Wall Street Journal reports. Exposure to bonds of this class was negative by 4% in April, where it had been negative by only 3% in March, as short positions have been increased. In February, allocation fell to zero from 12% in January for the Pimco Total Return Fund (USD240.7bn), the largest bond fund in the world.The cash allocation has been increased to 37%, compared with 31% at the end of March, while allocation to mortgage-backed securities (MBS) fell to 24%, from 28% at the end of March, and 34% at the end of February.

The management firm Bernheim, Dreyfus & Co. on Monday, 9 May announced the forthcoming arrival of Bénédicte Provost as a member of its team, in the area of risk control, operational procedure monitoring and the definition and deployment of asset allocation strategy. After spending more than 13 years as manager of the Valeurope fund, which is now the BNP Paribas Actions Europe fund, and the European sub-funds of the Inter Stratégie Sicav, now the BNP Equity Europe fund, Provost spent seven years at La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, where she managed the Saint-Honoré Euro-Opportunités, Europe Rendement and Nouvelle Europe, now known as EDRAM St-Honoré Europe, a statement says.

The German/Austrian management firm C-Quadrat Investment on 9 May announced net profits of EUR1m, compared with EUR4.7m in the corresponding period of last year, largely due to a decline in performance commission revenues, from EUR7.2m to EUR0.1m. This contraction is due to the volatility of the markets following the tsunami, and the fact that performance commissions for C-Quadrat products are based on a high watermark. However, C-Quadrat states that commission revenues increased to EUR11.5m from EUR7.6m, due to the effects of a substitution of institutional assets with higher-margin retail assets.

The manager of the LFP Long Vol fund, Brice Perin, has joined a member company of the UFG-LFP group, Acropole AM, where he will assist in the management of a wider range of volatility products.Perin will also continue to manage the LFP Long Vol fund via an outsourcing agreement.UFG-LFP has also entered a recruitment phase for a manager for the direct management team within the alternative management unit, led by Olivier Ramé. After the recruitment, the direct management team will have three members.

Cotizalia relays reports in El Confidencial that 15 international funds, including AES Solar, Ampere, Elemento Power, Hazel Capital, HgCapital, Hudson Clean Energy, Impax, NIBC Infraestucture, Platina and 9/Ren, have filed suit in a London arbitral tribunal against the Spanish government. They are seeking about EUR400m, for failure to respect the European energy charter, as the Madrid government has decided to reduce its tax credits for solar energy by 30%, retroactively for the past three years. The funds concerned had invested more than EUR3bn in projects which will be affected by the move.

Skandia Investment Group (SIG) has awarded a GBP20m mandate in its Skandia Global Best Ideas Fund to Mark Fleming at Tiburon Partners, a specialist Asian fund management firm. Fleming’s appointment to the fund sees him taking over the mandate from Peter Sartori from Treasury Asia.The Skandia Global Best Ideas Fund is managed by Lee Freeman-Shor, Francois Zagame and Ryan Hughes.

In the week ending on 4 May, at a time when macroeconomic data were showing a marked slowdown in growth in first quarter, commodities and energy sector funds saw a major exodus of investors, according to the most recent statistics from EPFR Global. Despite this deterioration in outlooks, equities funds absorbed USD3.7bn, of which USD1.2bn went to emerging markets equities funds, while bond funds in the same period attracted USD4bn. The most recent statistics confirm that investors have currently lost interest in the BRIC theme, with net redemptions in 16 of the past 18 weeks, and a cumulative outflow of over USD2.4bn. For US equities, ETFs, particularly those dedicated to large caps, represented more than 95% of inflows, as engagements from institutionals largely offset redemptions to retail investors. Since the beginning of the year, net inflows to US equities funds total over USD35bn, compared with slightly less than USD19bn in the corresponding period of 2010.

Prudential Real Estate Investors has announced that it has raised GBP492m (about USD800m) for its Pramerica Real Estate Capital 1 Fund. The fund, which is aimed at institutional investors, will invest in commercial real estate transactions.

The head of British smidcaps from Collins Stewart, Martin Stewart, is leaving the firm in order to join MAM Funds, Money Marketing reports. At MAM Funds, Stewart will co-mange a similar fund of British small and midcaps, with Gervais Williams.

Having failed to obtain the support of the Spanish Cosmen family, which controls 17.2% of National Express, the US hedge fund management firm Elliott Advisors, which owns 17.4% of the British transport firm, has relented in its efforts to elect three candidates to the board of directors at the firm’s general shareholders’ meeting on 10 May, Expansión reports. Elliott will finally nominate only Chris Muntwyler (former head of DHL in the UK), as an independent administrator, and will agree not to criticise the strategy of National Express for one year. In other words, the hedge fund has accepted that National Express will not sell its Spanish affiliate Alsa to Cosmen.

The trustee for investors hurt by Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Irving Picard, has reached a settlement with the liquidators of the Fairfield Greenwich Group funds, the biggest feeders of money into the fraud, the Wall Street Journal reports. The two sides have resolved claims against each other and reached an agreement to join forces to sue the fund owners, including Walter Noel. They also have agreed to share future sums recovered from fund operators and others.

“In order to strengthen its product offerings in the area of health sciences,” BlackRock has decided to place its range of healthcare funds in the hands of a single team. Effective from 29 April, Erin Xie and Thomas Callan will become co-managers of the BGF World Healthscience Fund, which was previously managed by Bob Hodgson. The objective and benchmark index for the fund will not change. The new managers will have the support of a dedicated team of healthcare analysts within the larger global opportunities at BlackRock. Xie, managing director and portfolio manager, belongs to this global opportunities team; she is the main portfolio manager for the health sector, product manager for health sciences equities, and a member of the team’s investment strategy group. She joined State Street Research & Management (SSRM) in 2001; the firm was later taken over by BlackRock in 2005. Callan, managing director, joined the global opportunities team in 1996, and is now its director and architect of the investment process. He is also head of the investment strategy group, and supervises portfolio and risk management for all products managed by the team.

The British firm Northern Trust on 5 May announced that it has won a mandate for custody services from Legal & General Investments Unit Trust, for assets of about GBP25bn.

Olaf Huth, a board member at HSBC Trinnkaus & Burkhardt, has told the Börsen-Zeitung that net inflows continued in the first four months of 2011, at the same pace as in 2010. These inflows are now the only factor contributing to increase asset levels, as market effects have completely flattened out. The private bank last year posted a record increase (of EUR3bn) in its assets under management, to a total of EUR22bn, half of which was due to net inflows, and half to performance.

Christoph Butz and Laurent Nguyen argue in a study entitled “How to Survive the Next Crisis,” published by Pictet, that environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria neither provided superior protection during the financial crisis, nor did they reveal the financial and economic factors which aggravated it. In other words, eliminating ESG risks is certainly a necessary precondition, but it is not enough for a genuinely sustainable investment strategy.For socially responsible investment (SRI) to survive and become a top choice investment strategy, rather than stagnating as a niche area for investment as it is now, these funds need to offer higher risk-adjusted returns, as well as sustainability, in the future.In other words, rather than seeking financial performance in extra-financial criteria, Pictet recommends doing exactly the opposite, and seeking sustainability in the financial fundamentals of businesses. In order to do that, the authors of the study try to identify and test the factors which make businesses more stable over the long term, more able to resist market draw-downs, and which thus help to make the financial markets and the economy as a whole more stable. Pictet focuses on the factors which show superior risk/return tradeoff characteristics: this formula is referred to as “financial sustainability.”The researchers construct portfolios which optimally reflect these financial sustainability characteristics. These factor portfolios are assembled to create a global portfolio and three regional equities portfolios with enhanced sustainability characteristics. The relative performance of the portfolios is then backtested against their traditional MSCI benchmark indices for the past decade. The results are encouraging, and confirm the hypothesis that optimising portfolios with a filter for financial sustainability could make them more resistant to losses, and more likely to outperform in most market conditions, excepting periods of rapid recovery.

BaFin has awarded a license to Natixis Global Associates, a distribution affiliate of Natixis Global Asset Management, to release the Natixis Euro High Income Fund (ISIN: LU0556616935), a sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav Natixis International Funds, in Germany. The fund was launched more than a month ago in France (see Newsmanagers of 1 April).

In first quarter 2011, net subscriptions for member firms of the BVI association of German management firms totalled EUR9.37bn, compared with EUR31.6bn in the corresponding period of last year. Although institutional funds (Spezialfonds) show net inflows of EUR14.36bn, compared with EUR14.76bn in January-March 2010, open-ended funds have seen net redemptions of EUR4.63bn (compared with net subscriptions of EUR10.71bn), of which EUR3.36bn were in March.

Man Group on 9 May announced that its UCITS format fund range now offers daily liquidity. The funds affected, Man AHL, Trend and Man AHL Diversity, which allow retail investors access to the flagship strategy AHL Diversified PLC, were originally launched with weekly liquidity. The funds have attracted more than USD750m since their launch in July 2009.

According to estimates by BarclayHedge and TrimTabs, the hedge fund sector in March attracted USD15.7bn in inflows. Assets in the sector reached USD1.8trn, a level not seen since October 2008.CTA strategies attracted USD6bn, while funds of hedge funds took on USD3.4bn. Continuing a trend observed in previous months, funds dedicated to emerging markets earned inflows of USD3.4bn, while bond funds attracted USD3.3bn. The latter two strategies have accounted for about 50% of inflows to the sector since the beginning of the year.

In April, funds on sale in Italy saw net redemptions of EUR2.16bn, according to the most recent statistics from Assogestioni (the Italian association of asset managers). Outflows were driven by bond and money market funds, which categories saw outflows of more than EUR1bn each. Flexible funds and hedge funds are also in the red, to the tune of EUR100m and EUR258m, respectively. Only equities funds and balanced funds show a positive flow, with net inflows of EUR411m and EUR48m, respectively. As of the end of April, assets in funds on sale in Italy totalled EUR448bn, down slightly compared with March. The asset management firms which saw the largest net subscriptions in April are Mediolanum (+EUR166.6m), JPMorgan Asset Management (+EUR76.7m), and Azimut (EUR61.8m). At the other extreme, the companies which had the largest net outflows were Pioneer (-EUR837.1m), Gruppo Intesa Sanpaolo (-EUR374.7m), and BNP Paribas (-EUR341m).

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of the Templeton Emerging Markets Group, and Michael Hasenstab, portfolio manager and co-director of the international bond department, will join forces to direct a team which will manage the Luxembourg-registered diversified fund Templeton Emerging Markets Balanced Fund. The product will invest in equities as well as bonds from emerging markets. Minimal subscription is set at USD5,000, and management commission is 2.14%.

Elles semblent légèrement surévaluées, mais l'écart par rapport à leur tendance de long terme est modeste

L’hypothèse croissante d’un rééchelonnement de la dette de la Grèce a amené hier S&P à baisser les notes du pays de «BB-» à «B». D’après ING, une extension de 3 ans des maturités, sans décote, permettrait à Athènes de diminuer ses besoins de 20 à 30 milliards d’euros par an.

Une extension de 3 ans des maturités, sans décote, permettrait à Athènes de diminuer ses besoins de 20 à 30 milliards d'euros