p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Van Eck Global has announced that the board of trustees at the Market Vectors ETF Trust has approved a 1-for-3 split share split in the Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF (acronym: IDX). Shares were trading at USD75.54 on Friday, 21 January.The split will take place at the close of trading on 28 January 2011, and shares resulting from the operation will begin to be traded on 1 February.The split will allow for a lower unit price for shares, making the fund more accessible to investors. Van Eck global estimates that the move will increase liquidity, and by extension, tighten bid-ask spreads.Assets in the fund, focused on the most liquid Indonesian shares, on Friday totalled USD494.79m.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } With the Frost Diversified Strategies Fund (actonym FDSFX), Frost Investment Advisors has launched a mutual fund which offers investors access to alternative strategies which have previously been available only to hedge fund and private equity fund clients. The objective is to preserve capital and to reduce potential losses while also offering potential outperformance. About 60% of the portfolio will be allocated to traditional investments (equities, bonds, cash and publicly-traded options). The hedge fund replication portion will total 30% to 40%, and will rely on beta and hedge fund index replication strategies, using freely available products.The fund will be managed by four people: Tom Stringfellow, president of Frost, David Telling, principal portfolio manager, Brad Thompson, director of research, and Jeffrey Elswick, fixed income director.Front-end fees will be limited to a maximum of 5.75%, and TER will total 2%.

In theory, Barings has already largely covered its areas of excellence well with appropriate products. The British asset management firm, whose funds dedicated to emerging markets represent about EUR16bn, out of a total of EUR37bn, already include heavyweight players such as the Hong Kong China fund, with EUR3.36bn, Eastern Europe (EUR2.41bn), and Global Emerging Markets (EUR1.63bn), as well as Global Resources (USD1.23bn), Marino Valensise, CIO, announced on Friday.In these conditions, the need for new products is not urgent. Barings may, however, soon fill a gap in its product range with an Asian emerging market bond fund, to take advantage of appreciation of local currencies and the fact that Asian and Middle Eastern investors, including sovereign funds, are seeking local investment opportunities, which ultimately carry less risk than US Treasuries.Asset allocation mandates and funds which have been offered by Barings hitherto have aimed at returns 400 basis points higher than the Libor or the consumer price index. The management firm will also add to its range of products of this type. The British asset management firm has not ruled out the possibility of releasing a more aggressive product, which would aim to achieve returns 600 basis points higher than the Libor.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The DB Hedge Fund index gained 2.33% in December, according to the most recent statistics from Deutsche Bank. The strategies which contributed most to the performance of the index were Equity Hedge, event-driven, Systematic Macro, Global Macro and credit and convertible indices.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Aberdeen Asset Management Deutschland on 21 January announced that its fiscal year to 30 September brought gross subscriptions to EUR1bn in Germany and Austria. As of this date, assets totalled EUR8.1bn, of which EUR3.8bn were in securities funds, and EUR4.5bn in the distressed real estate branch (redemptions from two DEGI funds are frozen, while a third is to be liquidated).Since the beginning of October, Aberdeen AM has won mandates totalling about EUR300m.Among plans announced for 2011 by CEO Hartmut Leser are the launch of institutional real estate funds (see Newsmanagers of 18 January). In terms of sales, Aberden AM will emphasize emerging markets funds, global equities, European corporate bonds and pan-European institutional real estate funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Retail investors are earning “succulent yields” thanks to the ongoing pitched battle between financial institutions to get their hands on liquidity, Cinco Días reports. According to statistics from the Bank of Spain, the interest being offered by banks and savings banks for savings accounts has risen by 20.8% since the end of 2009. Banks are offering an average of 3.14% on one and two-year products.Since then, managers of about 3,200 Sicav funds registered with the CNMV did not pass up the opportunity to allocate EUR3.59bn to bank savings accounts as of the end of September. That represents 13.7% of their assets, whereas the percentage was only 6.6% as of the end of third quarter 2009. This increase has come largely to the detriment of listed bonds and investment funds, particularly money markets.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The fund management firm from Julius Baer, Swiss & Global Asset management, has sold the 31% stake it had held for seven years in the Spanish independent private bank Atlas Capital. Expansión reports that the transaction will take place at book value, while the stake was purchased for EUR3m. As of the end of 2010, Atlas Capital had assets of EUR660m, managed on behalf of 2,400 clients. Net profits totalled EUR1.14m. Following the exit of Julius Baer, the group’s capital is controlled by its 14 managing partners, with the largest shareholder being deputy director Jorge Sanz.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Société Générale Private Banking has created a new executive boards, whose mission will be to “guide strategy and development and the private bank.”The division will be led by Daniel Truchi, director of Société Générale Private Banking, and from 1 February will include Yves Thieffry, deputy director of Société Générale Private Banking, who will oversee private banking activities in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco and the Middle East; Patrick Folléa, director of Société Générale Private Banking France, who will also oversee activities in Belgium; Eric Barnett, director of Société Générale Private Banking Hambros, who will oversee activities in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States; Bruno Lèbre, director of the investment solutions department, who will oversee activities in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, continental China and Japan); and the new director of sales and marketing, who will be appointed in the coming weeks.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The French firm DNCA Finance (Banca Leonardo group) has brought all of its funds on sale in Europe together under its own brand name with immediate effect. Products on sale in Germany will drop the Leonardo Invest name, and the Luxembourg Sicav will change names to become known as DNCA Invest. Five DNCA Finance funds managed in Paris (Europe, Evolutif, Centifolia Europe, Infrastructures, and Convertibles) have been available in Germany since September 2010, says Jan Schünemann, director of sales for Germany.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Citi Private Bank will soon launch its family office in Hong Kong, to serve the north Asian region. The new activity will be directed by Richard Straus, Asian Investor reports. According to a spokesperson for the bank, plans to serve south-east Asia are also in preparation, and recruitments are underway. Earlier in the week, Citi Private Bank announced the appointment of James Holder as director for its family office for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Some of the world’s biggest investors have turned increasingly negative on government bonds from developed countries as they warn of the growing danger of inflation, according to the Financial Times. “Why would you want to be a bondholder with bond yields so low and that sort of inflationary trend,” Bill Gross, who runs the world’s largest bond fund at Pimco, asked the Financial Times. Jim Rogers, the investor based in Singapore, said western governments were concealing the extent of inflation, leading him to avoid bonds and continue his preference for commodities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Global Wealth and Investment Management unit of Bank of America has earned net profits of USD1.34bn for the 2010 fiscal year, compared with USD1.71bn the previous year. In fourth quarter alone, net profits fell by nearly USD200m compared with the previous year, to USD332m. As of 31 December 2010, assets under management totalled USD643.9bn, compared with USD749.8bn one year earlier. The decline in assets under management is due to the sale of Columbia to Ameriprise in autumn 2009.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of the end of December, Barings had assets in France of about EUR1.2bn, or about EUR400m more than one year previously; once again, assets at the French arm of the British management firm increased by nearly 50% (see Newsmanagers of 8 December 2009). Half of this increase, or EUR200m, is due to positive market effects, while the remaining 50% come from net subscriptions, while gross subscriptions totalled EUR600m, Benoît du Mesnil du Buisson, president of Baring France SAS, tells Newsmanagers. A net total of about EUR120m has been collected for the Global Emerging Markets fund (USD2.18bn as of the end of December); sales to European specialist multi-managers have been good for the German Growth fund (GBP277.4m).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } HP has decided to extend and expand the management mandate for its corporate savings plans to Fidelity Investments, which has been in place since 1991.From 1 January 2011, the management firm will also take charge of 162,500 members of the EDS (Electronic Data Systems) program, who were previously mandated to other management firms. Fidelity will thus become the single manager for HP retirement plans, including 135,000 defined-contribution and 192,000 defined-benefit clients. As of 30 November, assets un defined contribution plans totalled USD14.2bn.

Aberdeen Asset Management has launched the Aberdeen Global - Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund, Aberdeen Global - Ethical World Equity Fund and the Aberdeen Global – American Smaller Companies Fund. The three funds are part of the Group’s Luxembourg-domiciled Aberdeen Global SICAV.The Scottish asset management company has secured over USD120 million of seeding for the three funds from existing clients - USD32.5 million for the emerging market corporate bond fund, USD54.5 million for the ethical world equity fund and USD41 million for the American smaller companies fund. Once authorised for sale by local regulators the funds will be actively marketed across Europe and parts of Asia.The Aberdeen Global - Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund will be managed by Aberdeen’s emerging market debt team, led by Brett Diment. Currently the team has over USD600 million invested in emerging market corporate bonds out of total assets under management of over USD5 billion.The Aberdeen Global - Ethical World Equity Fund will be based on the existing UK-domiciled, Aberdeen Ethical World Fund and will be managed by the Group’s global equity team based in Edinburgh. The 14-strong team, led by Stephen Docherty, manages over USD1 billion in Environmental, Social Corporate Governance (ESG) segregated mandates and pooled funds.The team will screen companies for involvement in alcohol, tobacco, pornographic products, gambling and weaponry. If a company’s turnover in any of these areas exceeds 10% (or 5% for pornography), it will automatically be excluded from the Fund’s investment universe. Companies will be also analysed on an ESG basis. The Aberdeen Global –American Smaller Companies Fund will be managed from Philadelphia by the Group’s 12-strong North American equity team, led by Paul Atkinson. The team will employ Aberdeen’s group-wide, disciplined, bottom-up equity investment process in managing the portfolio.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The Swiss asset management firm Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) has announced the launch of the UCITS-compliant bond fund 5Bs Bond Fund, an actively-managed Luxembourg-registered product which invests in corporate bonds with ratings of BBB and BB. The benchmark is a fundamental weighting index, which unlike indices which are weighted in terms of capitalisation, give no advantage in the weighting to businesses in sectors which have higher levels of debt. The fund will be managed by Kevin Corregan, head of credit at LOIM.Stéphane Monier, CIO for fixed income & currencies at LOIM, explains that “the potential of the cross-border universe covering BBB and BB has been neglected up to now. Many investors are required to sell bonds when their ratings are lowered, and these bonds then become available to investors who are not subject to this constraint.”The 5Bs fund aims to capture additional performance by focusing on “fallen angels” whose rating has been lowered to high yeild, and “rising stars,” whose ratings are likely to soon be raised to investment grade. “This is not a niche market, since the 5B universe of corporate bonds represents three times the volume of high yeild, and produces higher returns than investment grade, with equivalent volatility and a negligible amount of added risk,” says Monier.

L’assureur-vie Württembergische Lebensversicherung a vendu pour environ 105 millions d’euros quatre des sept immeubles de l’ensemble Friedrich Carré de Berlin à Deka Immobilien, ce qui représente 23.500 mètres carrés, dont 18.000 mètres carrés de bureaux et 3.400 mètres carrés de magasins. Cet actif est affecté au portefeuille du fonds immobilier offert au public Deka-ImmobilienGlobal, dont c’est le second actif allemand acheté par Deka en 2010, après l’hôpital Krankenhaus Süd de Cologne.

Le gestionnaire austro-autrichien C-Quadrat va fermer au 1er avril les fonds C-Quadrat Arts Total Return Global-AMI (700 millions d’euros) et C-Quadrat Arts Total Return Dynamic aux nouveaux investissements de particuliers et d’institutionnelles ainsi qu’aux nouveaux plans d'épargne en unités de compte. En revanche, les versements sur les plans d'épargne existants continueront d'être acceptés ainsi que les investissements provenant de contrats d’assurance vie de clients existants ou futurs.Ces deux fonds seront remplacés par le fonds flexible de droit allemand den C-Quadrat Arts Total Return Flexible (DE000A0YJMN7), qui a été lancé en novembre 2010 et dont l’allocation «très active» aux actions et plus exactement aux fonds d’actions peut varier de 0 à 100 % en fonction des conditions de marché. Le fonds, géré par Arts Asset Management affiche actuellement un encours de 9,63 millions d’euros

Aberdeen Asset Management Deutschland a annoncé le 21 janvier que son exercice au 30 septembre s’est soldé par des souscriptions brutes d’un milliard d’euros en Allemagne et en Autriche. L’encours atteignait à cette date 8,1 milliards d’'euros, dont 3,6 milliards pour les fonds de valeurs mobilières et 4,5 milliards pour la branche immobilière sinistrée (les remboursements de deux fonds DEGI sont gelés, et un troisième doit être liquidé).Depuis début octobre, Aberdeen AM a gagné des mandats pour environ 300 millions d’euros.Parmi les projets pour 2011 annoncés par le directeur général Hartmut Leser figure le lancement de fonds immobiliers institutionnels (lire notre article du 18 janvier). Sur le plan commercial, Aberdeen AM va mettre l’accent sur les fonds marchés émergents, sur les actions internationales, sur les obligations d’entreprises européennes et sur les fonds immobiliers institutionnels pan-européens.

Le capital-investisseur américain Lone Star tarde à trouver des acquéreurs pour la banque allemande IKB qu’il a achetée pour 137 millions d’euros à la KfW en 2007, rapporte Cinco Días. Selon les proches du dossier, les candidatures sérieuses pourraient ne se manifester que dans quelques mois. Cela dit, les garanties publiques obtenues par Lone Star pour IKB expirent en 2012.

Le hedge fund Macquarie Asian Alpha Fund de la banque australienne Macquarie a enregistré en 2010 une performance de 15,97 %, indique Hedgeweek. Investi selon la stratégie du market neutral equity, le fonds a triplé ses encours à 640 millions de dollars australiens l’an dernier.

HP a décidé de proroger pour cinq ans et d'élargir le mandat de gestion de ses plans d'épargne d’entreprise confié depuis 1991 à Fidelity Investments.Depuis le 1er janvier 2011, le gestionnaire prend en charge également les 162.500 adhérents du programme EDS (Electronic Data Systems) auparavant confié à d’autres maisons. Fidelity sera donc le gestionnaire unique des plans de retraite de HP, soit 135.000 unités pour les plans à contributions définies et 192.000 pour ceux à prestations définies. Au 30 novembre, les actifs en contribution définie représentaient 14,2 milliards de dollars.

Van Eck Global a annoncé que le board of trustees de Market Vectors ETF Trust a approuvé une subdivision d’actions sur la base de trois nouvelles pour une ancienne du Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF (acronyme : IDX). La part cotait 75,54 dollars vendredi 21 janvier. La subdivision interviendra à la clôture du 28 janvier 2011 et les titres issus de cette opération commenceront à être cotés le 1er février.Cette subdivision permettra d’abaisser le prix unitaire de l’action pour rendre le fonds plus accessible aux investisseurs. Van Eck global estime qu’elle devrait augmenter la liquidité et, par extension, réduire les spreads acheteur/vendeur.L’encours de ce fonds focalisé sur les valeurs les plus liquides d’Indonésie se situait vendredi à 494,79 millions de dollars.

Le pôle Global Wealth and Investment Management de Bank of America a dégagé un résultat net de 1,34 milliard de dollars pour l’exercice 2010 contre 1,71 milliard de dollars l’année précédente. Au cours du seul quatrième trimestre, le résultat net a chuté de près de 200 millions de dollars par rapport au même trimestre de l’année précédente à 332 millions de dollars.Au 31 décembre 2010, les actifs sous gestion s'élevaient à 643,9 milliards de dollars contre 749,8 milliards de dollars un an plus tôt. La baisse des actifs sous gestion est liée à la cession, à l’automne 2009, de Columbia à Ameriprise.

La banque d’affaires franco-américaine Lazard a annoncé le 21 janvier dans un communiqué que Peter Mandelson, l'éminence grise du parti travailliste britannique, devenait un de ses «conseillers senior», pour fournir «des avis stratégiques indépendants à la firme et à ses clients». «Lord Mandelson a une expérience et une sagacité exceptionnelles dans le domaine des affaires et du service public», asouligne le PDG de Lazard, Kenneth Jacobs.

Avec le Frost Diversified Strategies Fund (acronyme : FDSFX), Frost Investment Advisors vient de lancer une mutual fund offrant aux investisseurs des stratégies d’investissement alternatif jusqu'à présent réservées aux clients des hedge funds et des fonds de private equity. L’objectif consiste à préserver le capital en réduisant le potentiel de perte tout en offrant des possibilités de surperformance. Environ 60 % du portefeuille seront alloués à des investissements traditionnels (actions, obligations, cash et options cotées). La partie réplication de hedge funds se situera entre 30 et 40 % et utilisera des stratégies de beta et la réplication d’indice de hedge funds sur la base de produits librement disponibles.Le fonds sera géré par quatre personnes, Tom Stringfellox, président de Fros, David Telling (principal portfolio manager), Brad Thompson (directeur de la recherche) et Jeffrey Elswick (fixed income director). Le droit d’entrée est plafonné à 5,75 % et le taux de frais sur encours se situe à 2 %.

La gamme d’ETF de Charles Schwab s’est enrichie de deux nouvelles références et compte désormais treize produits. Les nouveaux ETF sont le Schwab U.S. REIT ETF (acronyme SCHH) et le Schwab U.S. Mid-Cap ETF (SCHM), tous deux chargés à 0,13 %. Comme les autres ETF de la gamme, ils peuvent être acquis et vendus sans commission en ligne sur des comptes Schwab.

Avec effet immédiat, le français DNCA Finance (groupe Banca Leonardo) a fait passer tous ses fonds commercialisés en Europe sous sa propre marque. Les produits vendus en Allemagne abandonnent l’appellation Leonardo Invest et la sicav luxembourgeoise prend le nom de DNCA Invest (voir Newsmanagers du 20/09/2010). Cinq fonds DNCA Finance gérés à Paris (Europe, Evolutif, Centifolia Europe, Infrastructures, et Convertibles) sont disponibles en Allemagne depuis septembre 2010, a précisé Jan Schünemann, directeur de la distribution outre-Rhin.

HSBC annonce la nomination de Ronald Tham au poste de responsable de son family office à Hong Kong, une fonction nouvellement créée par la banque, indique Finance Asia. Par ailleurs, HSBC a recruté Roger de Basto en tant que head of transaction management for equity capital markets pour la région Asie Pacifique. Il sera également basé à Hong Kong, tout comme Rajeev Sahney, qui devient head of the corporate sector group pour l’Asie Pacifique.

Selon les proches du dossier, le fonds RREEF Infrastructure de la Deutsche Bank a acquis pour un montant non divulgué une participation de 49 % dans trois sociétés espagnoles qui possèdent cinq fermes éoliennes dans la province de Castille-Leon, rapporte Cotizalia.Le vendeur est le promoteur immobilier Rafael González Vallinas, patron d’Inversiones Empresariales Vapat, qui va ainsi céder jusqu'à 200 mégawatts de puissance installée au fonds allemand.