p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Marco Wilms, head of development, has announced at a forum for clients of the WM group that Caceis Bank Deutschland will offer a fund administration service by the end of the month, the Börsen-Zeitung reports.The affiliate of the France’s Crédit Agricole would be the only actor in Germany to offer the full range of settlement services, from depository banking activities to fund administration and securities custody, order payment processing and securities settlement.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Distribution for the British management firm M&G in the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) has gained the addition of a new “sedentary” team which will be led by Stefan Winkler. The underlying concept for the new entity is to provide ongoing relationship management for each client in the IFA sector, insurance brokers and banking consultants. As investment sales team manager, Winkler will report to Annie Bennett, deputy director of advisory sales, who is based in London. Previously, he spent 11 years at Franklin Templeton Investment, including eight years in distribution to financial advisors, insurers, savings banks and co-operative banks. He joined M&G in June. Winkler will be assisted by Torsten Hansen, investment sales consultant since August, who was previously interlocutor for IFAs on the Hamburg network of Mannheimer Investment Trust, and who spent nine years at Maintrust as internal client advisor serving IFAs, banks and insurers. M&G has also announced that the team will be strengthened by further recruitments in the next 12 months.
Despite an unfavourable market environment, ETF assets in Europe have continued to increase, by 5.80% in third quarter 2010. As of the end of September, assets totalled USD197.06bn, an increase of 32.94% year on year, the most recent Lipper study finds.The ETF sector, which saw the creation of 41 products in third quarter, continues to be highly concentrated, the study finds. Five providers in Europe account for 90.76% of the market.With 260 ETFs and USD67.41bn in assets, iShares is, as last year, the largest European provider, followed by Lyxor Asset Management (Société Générale), with 203 funds and USD35.10bn, and db x-trackers (Deutsche Bank), with 184 products and USD32bn. In third quarter, their assets increased by 6.43%, 2.81%, and 7.25%, respectively. At the end of the quarter, these three promoters had market shares of 32.23% for iShares, compared with 33.45% in the previous quarter, 18.34% for Lyxor (18.45%), and 16.72% (16.13%) for db x-trackers.In terms of performance, Turkish equities ETFs earned the largest gains of the quarter, according to Lipper.
Bond funds have posted three straight weeks of outflows for the first time since March, the Financial Times wrote citing EPFR. In the week ending Wednesday, investors withdrew USD426m from globally tracked funds that buy bonds.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Asian Investor reports that UBS Wealth Management has recruited Philip Kunz from HSBC Private Bank. He was appointed director of the South-East Asian market, replacing Susan Co, who has joined the team dedicated to the ultra-high net worth (UHNW) segment at UBS. Kunz will be based in Indonesia.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Le Temps reports that, in addition to bailout measures taken by the Swiss confederation and the Swiss National Bank (BNS) in October 2008, UBS also received massive support from the US Fed. In slightly over one year, the US central bank contributed about USD65bn to the Swiss giant, which was then facing massive losses on US real estate loans, and was under fire from Washington for orchestrating tax evasion by high net worth Americans.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 3 December, UBS announced that “John Cryan, group CFP, has decided to retire from his position for personal reasons at the end of May 2011, and to pursue other interests outside UBS.” The board of directors has appointed Tom Naratil to the position of group chief financial officer and member of the board at the group, effective from 1 June 2011. Naratil, who will be based in Zurich, was promoted to CFO and chief risk officer for the Wealth Management Americas business unit in 2009. The group has also announced that Sergio Ermotti will serve as chairman and CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and will become a board member at the group, effective from 1 April 2011. He will also be based in Zurich. Before joining UBS, Ermotti worked for UniCredit, where he served as deputy chief executive officer, with responsibility for the corporate and investment banking and private banking strategic units.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The financial services provider AWD Suisse has announced the appointment of Philippe Signer as chief operations officer (COO), from 1 December 2010. He will be a member of the board for the Hanover-based affiliate of the AWD group, owned by Swiss Life. AWD Suisse has 15 branch offices and employs 400 advisers.
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } A spokesperson for Fidelity Investment Managers Hong Kong has confirmed to Fund Strategy that the management firm and the China Special Situations fund, managed by Anthony Bolton, have been granted the status of Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII), which would allow them to invest directly in Chinese “A” class equities. However, Fidelity has not yet been notified as to what the amount of the quota assigned to it is.
L’Autorité des marchés financiers a lancé deux consultations publiques sur le livre II du règlement général (« Emetteurs et information financière »). Elles portent surla publicité des droits de vote, des opérations de cession temporaire d’actions et du rachat sans annulation de titres de créance, ainsi que sur les offres publiques d’acquisition. Les réponses doivent être retournées au plus tard le 5 janvier 2011.
Compte tenu d’un risque accru de liquidité et de coûts de refinancement en hausse, l’agence de notation a décidé de lancer un examen qualitatif sur ces points des programmes d’obligations sécurisées européens. Cette procédure pourrait conduire à un différentiel plus bas entre les notes de défaut émetteur d’une institution et ses notes d’obligations sécurisées.
L’Islande est proche de conclure un accord avec la Grande-Bretagne et les Pays-Bas en vue de rembourser plus de 5 milliards de dollars versés aux clients de Landsbanki Icesave après la faillite de la banque, a rapporté une chaîne de télévision islandaise samedi soir. Selon Channel 2, les fonds seraient remboursés avec un intérêt de 2,78%.
La Compagnie Financière Tradition (CFT) et CM Capital Markets Holding (CMH) ainsi que ses dirigeants ont prévu d’acquérir respectivement 30 % et 15,2% du capital de CMH auprès de Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS, qui était actionnaire minoritaire de CMH depuis 1990 aux côtés des fondateurs, de la direction, et des salariés de CMH, en cédant les 45,2% qu’elle détient aujourd’hui dans CMH, se désengage ainsi totalement de la société.
Dans une interview accordée au programme télévisé américain «60 minutes», Ben Bernanke a envisagé que la Fed aille au-delà des 600 milliards de dollars d’injections prévues entre novembre et juin dans le cadre du programme d’assouplissement quantitatif, afin de faire baisser rapidement le taux de chômage aux Etats-Unis. «Au rythme où nous allons actuellement, cela pourrait prendre, quatre ou cinq ans avant que le taux de chômage ne revienne à un niveau normal» de 5% à 6%, a expliqué le président de la Fed.
Berlin serait en passe de l’emporter sur le futur mécanisme permanent de gestion des crises dans l’Union européenne. Celui-ci reposera dans le cadre de la révision du traité européen qui sera proposée mi-décembre sur une base légale intergouvernementale et non communautaire, a rapporté l’agence Reuters de source européenne.
Selon une source au fait du dossier citée par Reuters, «Deutsche Börse veut coopérer avec MICEX et RTS (les deux premières Bourses de Russie, ndlr) pour que les clients étrangers aient un accès direct à ces places». L’opérateur boursier allemand n’a fait aucun commentaire à ce sujet, se contentant de dire qu’elle entretenait une certaine forme de coopération avec MICEX depuis 2006.
La société de gestion Apollo Global Management a annoncé hier avoir scellé une alliance avec la société d’investissement Lighthouse Investment Partners, qui a 4,5 milliards de dollars d’actifs sous gestion.
Les 39.000 créations d’emplois aux Etats-Unis pour le mois de novembre annoncées par le département du Travail ont été très inférieures aux attentes. Avec la remontée du chômage, passé de 9,6 % à 9,8%, elles témoignent de la faiblesse de la reprise américaine.
Le gouvernement algérien freinerait le plan de cession de deux champs gaziers de BP dans le pays à son partenaire russe, TNK-BP Holding, pour une valeur de 3 milliards de dollars, selon le quotidien qui cite une source bancaire. Le gouvernement souhaiterait ainsi favoriser la compagnie nationale algérienne, Sonatrach, qui souhaite racheter les champs de BP.
La Compagnie Financière Tradition ( CFT ) et CM Capital Markets Holding ( CMH ) ainsi que ses dirigeants, ont convenu d’acquérir respectivement 30 % et 15,2% du capital de CMH auprès de The Royal Bank of Scotland NV, anciennement ABN AMRO Bank NV. RBS NV, qui était actionnaire minoritaire de CMH depuis 1990 aux côtés des fondateurs, de la direction, et des salariés de CMH, en cédant les 45,2% qu’elle détient aujourd’hui dans CMH, se désengage ainsi totalement de la société.