Les actifs sous gestion des fonds souverains se sont accrus de 11% en 2010 pour atteindre 4.200 milliards de dollars, selon un rapport que vient de publier l’organe de promotion des services financiers britanniques TheCityUK («Sovereign Wealth Funds», avril 2011). A ce montant peuvent être ajoutés d’autres véhicules d’investissement souverains, comme les fonds de réserve pour les retraites ou les fonds de développement, pour un montant de 6.800 milliards de dollars.Selon les estimations de TheCityUK, les actifs sous gestion des fonds souverains pourraient s'élever à environ 5.500 milliards d’ici à la fin 2012 en raison de la poursuite de la croissance des excédents commerciaux et des exportations de matières premières. L’instabilité politique au Moyen Orient et en Afrique du Nord ne devrait pas avoir d’impact très marqué sur la destination des investissements ou sur la croissance des fonds souverains, les pays actuellement touchés par les turbulences ne représentant que 3% environ des actifs des fonds souverains. En 2011, les fonds souverains vont augmenter leurs allocations dans toutes les classes d’actifs, à l’exception notable des instruments de dette. Les investissements dans les infrastructures vont notamment fortement progresser, 61% des fonds souverains envisageant d’investir dans cette classe d’actifs contre 47% en 2010. La proportion des fonds souverains investissant dans les actions passe de 79% l’an dernier à 85%. La proportion passe de 55% à 59% dans le private equity, de 51% à 56% dans l’immobilier, mais 37% à 36% pour les hedge funds et de 79% à 76% pour les instruments de dette.

Dans la foulée de son acquisition du spécialiste des valeurs financières HIM Capital, la firme d’investissement Polar Capital envisage de lancer un fonds opportuniste spécialisé dans les titres de la finance internationale.Le fonds au format Ucits III domicilié à Dublin devrait être lancé courant avril. Il recherchera les opportunités d’investissement sur les marchés américain et européen, avec un intérêt pour les pays émergents.

Le britannique M&G a revu à la baisse son objectif de rendement sur le Dividend fund (528 millions de livres) afin de donner plus de flexibilité au gérant de cette stratégie, Alex Odd.En lieu et place d’un objectif de rendement de 33% au-dessus du rendement de l’indice FTSE All Share, le fonds vise désormais un rendement supérieur à celui de l’indice de référence au travers d’investissements dans des valeurs britanniques. Selon Morningstar, le fonds a dégagé un rendement global de 10% au cours des douze derniers mois contre une moyenne de 7,1% pour le secteur «UK Equity Income» de l’association britannique de la gestion IMA.

Le gestionnaire britannique Threadneedle (67,7 milliards de livres fin 2010), a indiqué avoir constitué une équipe dédiée au développement et à la distribution de produits de performance absolue sous la direction de Kris Haber, global head of absolute return strategies, qui a rejoint l’entreprise en 2009.John Mackin rejoint Threadneedle comme head of North American sales et sera chargé du développement des ventes de produits de performance absolue en Amérique du Nord, en plus de celui des produits traditonnels.Christian Trixl, qui dirige la distribution en Suisse est désormais responsable des ventes en Europe pour les produits de performance absolue. Il est assisté de George Szemere, qui est «investment specialist» pour les fonds de performance absolue actions et obligataires.Stéphane Jeannin va se recentrer en tant qu’investment specialist sur les stratégies de performance absolue alors qu’il était jusqu'à présent senior equity investment specialist.Enfin, Adrian Mackaay, head of strategic analysis, sera chargé de diriger les activités de développement pour les stratégies de performance absolue et pour la distribution en Amérique du Nord.La gamme de fonds de performance absolue couvre les matières premières (non régulé), la stratégie marchés émergents macro (non régulé et OPCVM III), le crédit (OPCVM III), l’obligataire (OPCVM III), les actions européennes (non coordonné), les petites capitalisations européens (OPCVM III), les actions américaines (OPCVM III) et les actions britanniques (OPCVM III).

RBC Dexia Investor Services has appointed Mauro Dognini as managing director for Italy. He replaces Paride Amiotti who retires from RBC Dexia in May and will report to Tony Johnson, global head, sales & distribution. Mauro Dognini will be responsible for local market strategy, leading the company’s integrated sales, relationship and strategic client management model in Italy. He will also chair RBC Dexia’s Italian management committee and oversee local regulatory relationships.Mauro Dognini joins RBC Dexia from BNP Paribas Securities Services where he was global head of asset managers & asset owners solutions, based in Paris. Prior to this, he was deputy general manager for BNP Paribas Securities Services Italy for more than a decade.

In keeping with an agreement signed in November, when the Japanese group acquired 3 million shares in BlackRock, the US asset management firm on 31 March signed an alliance with Mizuho Financial Group, to promote strategic cooperation in Japan and Asia.Steering committees including representatives of the two parties will meet regularly to develop solutions to meet the needs of their clients worldwide, with a particular emphasis on Asia, and more extensive cooperation in the development of retail products in Japan. Mizuho will offer its clients access to the investment capacities of BlackRock. The Japanese group is also planning to adopt the Aladdin risk and investment system developed by BlackRock.

According to reports in portfolio institutionell, Hauck & Aufhäuser Asset Management (HAAM) has recruited Wolfgang Kirschner and Reiner Beutler, managing directors at Pioneer Investments KAG, as additions to its institutional distribution in Germany. The two men left their jobs at Pioneer on 31 March, and will not be replaced, meaning that the board at Pioneer will now have only four members: Evi Vogl, chair, John Burns, Jürgen Rauhaus and Hans-Joachim von Werthern.HAAM is aiming for net inflows this year of EUR1bn, as in 2010. The distribution team is growing from two to five specialists. As of the end of January, HAAM had EUR3bn under management for institutional investors.

Allianz Global Investors (AGI), which last year posted net subscriptions from third parties of EUR113bn worldwide (see Newsmanagers of 25 February), on 31 March announced that its assets last year increased by EUR31.5bn to EUR259bn as of the end of December, while its market share has increased to 21% from 20.6%.For open-ended funds, net subscriptions totalled EUR13.7bn, compared with EUR4.2bn in 2009 (see Newsmanagers of 10 March 2010), due to bond funds (from Pimco) and diversified funds, while equities funds saw slight outflows, and money market funds saw “significant” outflows. In the institutional area, AGI claims that its share of the German market has increased to 23.6%.James Dilworth, CEO of AGI Germany, says that since the beginning of the year, net subscriptions in the institutional segment represented EUR8.4bn, but that open-ended funds saw net redemptions of EUR2.2bn.He also says that AGI is planning to leverage its expertise as a leader in the German corporate pension market to develop this activity throughout Europe, taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the introduction of the UCITS IV directive.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that 21 advisors and analysts specialised in high net worth client management are leaving UBS Germany to join Harald Quandt Trust (USD10bn) this autumn, while other employees are leaving but have not been recruited by the family office.Two different explanations are offered for the massive exodus. Some say it is due to former employees of the wealth management firm Sauerborn, which was acquired by UBS in late 2004 (and in which Harald Quandt Trust held a stake), never fully integrated into the business culture at the Swiss group. UBS, for its part, says that the departing employees did not adhere to the new strategic orientation for the operation, announced a few months ago.

On 1 July, Armin Eiche, a member of the executive board for Germany in the private wealth management (PWM) division of Deutsche Bank, will take over as director of private wealth management for Germany at Pictet. He has been appointed as head of the executive committee for Germany, private wealth management ,at the Pictet group, which also includes Andreas Müller and Michael Lepach. He will report to Heinrich Adami, group managing director at the Pictet group.

LGT Capital Management has added to its range of funds with three new “Dynamic Shield” strategies, including a bond fund, an equities fund, and a multi-asset class fund. The objective of the new funds is to participate in upward trends, while limiting potential losses in downward movements. LGT offers three variants, according to the risk profile of investors. The three new funds, the LGT Fixed Income Dynamic Shield, LDE Multi Asset Dynamic Shield and LGT Equity Dynamic Shield, are all available in three currencies each: Swiss franc, euro and US dollar. LGT Fixed Income Dynamic Shield (CHF) B LI0121391937 LGT Fixed Income Dynamic Shield (EUR) B LI0008231933 LGT Fixed Income Dynamic Shield (USD) B LI0121391945 LGT Multi Asset Dynamic Shield (CHF) B LI0121391994 LGT Multi Asset Dynamic Shield (EUR) B LI0121391986 LGT Multi Asset Dynamic Shield (USD) B LI0121392000 LGT Equity Dynamic Shield (CHF) B LI0121392133 LGT Equity Dynamic Shield (EUR) B LI0121392125 LGT Equity Dynamic Shield (USD) B LI0121392158

The US management firm Vanguard became the top vendor of European retail SRI funds in January, according to the most recent statistics compiled by Lipper FMI on behalf of Responsible Investor. Overall, the “RI screened” fund sector, which includes funds filtered for ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria, saw outflows of EUR742m in January, following subscriptions of EUR623.8m in December. The most popular fund was the SRI European Stock fund from Vanguard, which attracted EUR225.4m, followed by the Court Terme ISR fund from Macif, which took in EUR115.5m, and the LO Funds-Generation Global (EUR66m). However, “RI Extended” funds, which include funds which practice exclusion, normative funds, climate change funds and microfinance funds, saw a net inflow of EUR1.48bn, following EUR841.3m in December.

The British Schroders group has launched its fifth UCITS-compliant mutual fund based on an alternative strategy, Citywire reports. The Schroder Gaia CQS Credit Fund, available on the group’s Gaia platform, is an unconstrained long/short credit strategy, which will be managed by an external team at CQS, which manages EUR10bn. Gavin Ralston, international head of products, says “the long/short credit strategy is an underrepresented strategy in the UCITS universe.” The fund will invest in the investment grade and high yield segments in Europe and the United States.

Natixis Asset Management announced on Thursday, 31 March that it has launched the Natixis Euro High Income Fund, a Luxembourg-registered fund which will aim to profit from the potential performance of high yield bonds. The selection of issues is undertaken by Philippe Berthelot and Vincent Marioni, the two co-managers of the fund. As a complement to the bottom-up approach used for the portfolio, the management team has set internal maximal criteria per sector and issuer, in order to insure good diversification of the portfolio. Since its creation in November 2010, the portfolio of the Natixis Euro High Income Fund has been composed of 60 to 80 positions, with total assets of EUR104m as of 25 March 2011. Characteristics of the fund ISIN code: LU0556616935 (I shares)/ LU0556617156 (R shares)/ LU0556617313 (S shares)/ LU0556617586 (RE shares) Management and operating fees: 1% / 1.65% / 0.75% / 2% maximum Maximal front-end fee when shares are not purchased by a mutual fund: 3% / 3% / 3% / None Front-end fees when shares are purchased by a mutual fund: 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 Maximal exit fee: no Smallest fractional unit of shares: one one-hundredth Minimal subscription: EUR100,000 / EUR1,000 / EUR15m / EUR250 Net asset value per share at launch: EUR100 Daily valuation

Some Spanish managers have recently been deciding to launch bond funds, Funds People reports. One such firm is Inverseguros, which is launching the Segurfondo Renta Fija Flexible fund of funds, with a performance commission of 9%, aimed primarily at institutional investors. Management commission is set at 0.5%.

According to preliminary estimates from VDOS Stochastics, pending figures from the Inverco association of management firms, assets in Spanish funds increased by EUR777m in March, despite a negative market effect of EUR227m. For the first time in a long time, the sector has seen net subscriptions higher than EUR1bn, with EUR1.004bn, following EUR74m in February, the first positive result in 16 months.

After slightly over one year, the Luxembourg fund Assénagon Credit Basis II has now reached EUR1.1bn in assets, a volume which requires high-performance investment opportunities that exceed the current capacities of the market. The German firm Assénagon Asset Management has therefore decided to provisionally close the credit fund to new subscriptions, from 4 April. This applies both to the I share class (LU0462885301) and the P share class (LU0462885483). Since its launch, the fund has generated returns of 5.7%, with volatility of 0.62%.

On 31 March, the Deutsche Börse admitted the UBS ETFs plc - HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index SF - (CHF) A-acc (IE00B5280Y01) and UBS ETFs plc - HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index SF - (GBP) A-acc (IE00B53B4246) Irish-registered ETF hedge funds to trading on the XTF segment of its Xetra electronic platform. Both funds charge fees of 1.50%. They replicate the performance of the global hedge fund index from Hedge Fund Research in Swiss francs and pounds Sterling, respectively. With these two new products, the XTF segment now lists 806 ETFs.

Schroders France has released the European Small & Mid Cap Value sub-fund of its Luxembourg Sicav Schroder ISF for sale. The product, launched on 30 November 2010, replicates a Swiss fund created in 2003 and acquired by the British management firm in 2008. The manager of the new sub-fund is the same as for the Swiss fund: Caspar Benz, who will now be assisted by Daniel Lenz. The philosophy is also the same. The only difference, aside from the country of domicile, is that the Luxembourg sub-fund has a cash allocation limited to 10%, where it is 33% for the Swiss product, and liquidity is daily and not monthly. The co-managers insist, however, that this will not lead to major divergences in the composition of the portfolios (the objective excluding cash is to limit the differences to 5%). The European Small & Mid Cap Value invests, as its name indicates, in European small and midcaps, i.e. shares in companies whose capitalisation ranges from EUR500m to EUR10bn. “Caspar Benz and Daniel Lenz will seek out businesses which distribute dividends over the long term. The managers may this exclude the growth segment from their investment universe, but at the same time they ensure some protection of capital.” Assets in the sub-fund total EUR81m, while the Swiss fund has EUR274m. With the Luxembourg product, Schroders hopes to boost assets for the strategy, up to a limit of EUR1.5bn.

BNY Mellon Asset Management has announced the appointment of Jack Malvey to the newly-created position of head market strategist. Malvey will also serve as director of the new BNY Mellon Center for Global Investment & Market Intelligence, where he will be responsible for a research team focused on economic and market trends.

Olivier Renard, who was head of the Paris office of DWS Investments, has left the Deutsche Bank group to pursue “other opportunities,” a statement says. He will be replaced by Philippe Goettmann, who has been appointed as head of sales for France and Monaco, from 1 April. Goettmann, a Frenchman, had been head of the distribution department at DWS in Belgium since 2007, and was also one of the top directors of distribution for DWS in Luxembourg. He was previously head of institutional sales at Evli Bank, from 2005 to 2006. He was also deputy director of the Business Development department at ING Luxembourg for four years (from 2001 to 2005), and was in charge of the legal service at Société Générale Bank & Trust in Luxembourg from 1996 to 2000. “Philippe Goettmann allowed us to accelerate our development on the Belgian market. I am certain that his international professional experience and his expert knowledge of client relationship management will allow us to achieve our ambitious objectives in France, one of our key markets in Europe,” Marnix van den Berge, head of distribution for northern Europe at DWS, says in a statement.

Sub-prime and other categories of mortgage-backed bonds, which were one cause of the financial crisis, are regaining the affections of long-term investors, the most recent in a series of signs that the US credit markets are recovering from their hardest crash in a generation, the Wall Street Journal reports.Values for a representative sample of the sub-prime bond market have doubled, from 30% at the height of the crisis to about 60% currently. This shows that investors once again have the courage to take risks, because the economy is recovering.The attraction of the bonds backed by subprime mortgages is the high returns, at a time when the Fed has lowered the yields on the safest investments to all-time lows.

Nasdaq OMX and NYSE cancelled trades in 10 ETFs after their prices sank on Thursday morning, raising questions about measures adopted to protect investors against sharp market swings after last year’s “flash crash”, writes the Financial Times. Prices plummeted by as much as 98 per cent after a human error at Knight Capital Americas, a market maker.

The French additional retirement establishment for public sector employees (ERAFP) on Thursday, 31 March announced that it has awarded 6 active financial management mandates as part of a renewal of is Euro zone publicly-traded mid and large cap equities mandates, and a diversification of its small and mid-sized business publicly-traded equities allocation. The managers selected for index-based management will be required to replicate the SRI Best in Class index, developed by Erafp with the support of Edhec. With the call for proposals, Erafp sought to put in place complementary management strategies, while reducing its exposure to traditional market indices, whose weighting is related directly to the share prices of businesses, a statement says. For the No. 1 Euro zone small and mid-sied businesses publicly traded equities – index-based management (diversification of assets) allocation, the EUR45m initial mandate was awarded to BNP Paribas Asset Management. A stand-by mandate was awarded to State Global Advisors France. For the No. 2 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – index-based management (renewal of mandate) allocation, the EUR300m initial mandate was awarded to Amundi. BNP Paribas Asset Management and AXA Investment Managers Paris are the stand-by managers for the allocation. For the No. 3 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – active benchmarked management (renewal of mandate) allocation, management will be an active SRI approach benchmarked against the MSCI EMU benchmark index. The total initial allocation to this mandate will be about EUR500m. The mandates were awarded to AXA Investment Managers and BNP Paribas Asset Management, with stand-by mandates for Amundi and Allianz Global Investors France. For the No. 4 Euro zone publicly-traded mid to large caps equities – non-benchmarked management (renewal of mandate) allocation, from an SRI investment universe defined and provided by ERAFP, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management and Rothschild & Cie Gestion won the main contracts on the allocation of an initial EUR500m. Tobam and AXA Investment Managers Paris have been appointed as stand-by managers for the mandate.

John Hancock Financial on 30 March unveiled the results of its first quarterly survey of investment choices by retail clients. In first quarter 2011, the investor sentiment index came in at +22, a good result, largely due to investors’ optimism about equities. A majority of investors estimate that the time is right to invest in equities (59%), equities mutual funds (55%), or diversified mutual funds (54%).

In a notification to the Spanish regulator, the UK hedge fund management firm Otus Capital Management (EUR350m in assets) announced that it will invest EUR2.5m in the acquisition of nearly 6.33 million shares from Service Point, equivalent to 17% of the shares created in a capital increase at the Spanish reprography company.

In the aftermath of its acquisition of the financial sector specialist HIM Capital, the investment firm Polar Capital is planning to launch an opportunity-driven fund specialised in the international finance sector. The UCITS III-compliant fund, domiciled in Dublin, is slated for launch in April. It will seek out investment opportunities in the US and European markets, with an interest in emerging countries.

The British management firm M&G has lowered its performance objectives for the Dividend fund (GBP528m), in order to give more flexibility to the manager of the strategy, Alex Odd. Instead of a performance objective of 33% above the performance of the FTSE All-Share index, the fund will now aim for returns higher than the benchmark index, through investments in UK equities. Morningstar reports that the fund has earned overall returns of 10% in the past twelve months, compared with an average of 7.1% for the UK Equity Income sector of the British Investment Management Association (IMA).

The UK asset management firm Threadneedle (GBP67.7bn as of the end of 2010) has announced that it has assembled a team dedicated to development and distribution of absolute return products, led by Kris Haber, global head of absolute return strategies, who joined the firm in 2009.John Mackin joins Threadneedle as head of North American sales, and will be in charge of development of sales of absolute return products in North America, in addition to traditional products.Christian Trixl, head of distribution in Switzerland, is now in charge of European sales for absolute return products. He is assisted by George Szemere, an investment specialist for equities and bond absolute return products.Stéphane Jeannin will now focus on his role as an investment specialist for absolute return strategies; he was previously senior equity investment specialist.Adrian Mackaay, head of strategic analysis, will be in charge of directing development activities for absolute return strategies and distribution in North America. The range of absolute return products includes commodities (unregulated), the macro emerging markets strategy (unregulated and UCITS III), credit (UCITS III), bonds (UCITS III), European equities (unregulated), European small caps (UCITS III), US equities (UCITS III), and UK equities (UCITS III).

UBS is losing the director of its ultra high net worth segment, Riccardo Petrachi, who on 1 October will be joining the Zurich-based private bank Rothschild Private Banking & Trust, Rothschild announced on 31 March in a statement. Petrachi will take responsibility for clients with wealth of over CHF25m (ultra high net worth clients) and family offices, Rothschild says in the statement released on Thursday.