p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Thanasis Petronikolos, who was a fund manager and head of the local currency emerging market bond component of the RAB Emerging Market Opportunities Fund, has been recruited by Baring Asset Management as director of its fixed income and currency team. Petronikolos will be based in London and will report to Alan Wilde, head of fixed income and currency, and will be in charge of the management of the exposure of all of Barings to local currency emerging market debt. This will include management of the new Baring Emerging Markets Debt Local Currency Fund (USD267m as of 31 August), the former Baring Emerging Income Fund, which has been converted in response to demand from institutional investors.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } The real estate firm Rockefeller Group International, which is controlled by Mitsubishi, has made its debut in Spain with the acquisition of a majority stake in Europa Capital, an investment fund management firm which, among other assets, holds stakes in 1,200 branches and five office buildings of BBVA, including the firm’s Bilbao headquarters, Expansión reports. For this transaction, Europa Capital teamed up with RREEF (Deutsche Bank) and Area Property Partners. Europa Capital has EUR6bn in investments in 17 countries. In Spain, Europa Capital also owns the World Trade Center Almeda Park office complex in Barcelona (95,000 square metres), also in partnership with other Spanish and international groups. Rockefeller Group International says that it now has EUR895m in liquidity to invest, following its most recent round of fundraising.

Amundi has reinforced its UK branch, Amundi London Branch, with the arrival of five investment professionals. Headed by Laurent Crosnier, CIO, and Markus Krygier, deputy CIO, Amundi London Branch’s investment business covers global fixed income, absolute return, currency, emerging debt and global equities. Christopher Morris has joined the company as senior global fixed income manager. He will also join the London-based “architects committee”, consisting of the key heads of Amundi London Branch, which meets on an ad-hoc basis to determine the team’s strategic and tactical market views. Prior to his arrival, he was the Senior London Representative of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department for six years. Anne Beaudu will join shortly in the same capacity. Before, she worked at Credit Agricole Asset Management’s Inflation & Duration investment team as a Euro Fixed Income portfolio manager focusing on duration. James Kwok has joined as head of currency management, after working ten years based in Paris at S2G. Finally, Fabio Castaldi and Alexandre Burgues have joined the company as absolute return managers (responsible for managing volatility overlays).They both come from the Amundi Group, in Paris. From October 2008 to March 2010 Fabio Castaldi worked in the volatility team. Alexandre Burgues was in charge of the management of absolute return funds.

The shift of power towards emerging markets, coupled with lower economic growth, increasing globalisation and the changing scope of banks will require European asset managers to think beyond their domestic boundaries, mainstream asset classes and traditional fund management practices, writes Fitch Ratings in a new report*. As emerging markets and Asia offer higher growth opportunities, asset managers need to expand their investment universe toward these regions. This implies not only increasing coverage and investments in these regions, but managing global equities or global credit funds, says the rating agency. Similarly, the internationalisation of the client base calls for the international expansion of distribution and client servicing. As regards the scope of their activities, some asset managers need to embrace radical evolution. For instance, a fixed income manager may need to move into equities, or an equity player may consider a transition into balanced products… But asset managers may also have an opportunity to expand their roles in areas where banks have traditionally been more active, like direct lending activities or proprietary trading business. Separately, asset allocation in the traditional sense — domestic asset classes, monthly portfolio rebalancing — may not be well suited to new market conditions. Increased volatility, correlation, changing liquidity and technical factors call for greater reactivity and diversification (by geography and asset class), says Fitch Ratings. The way in which asset allocation decisions are implemented is also potentially subject to change. First and foremost, cash has become an asset in its own right in investors’ portfolios. Calibrating and quickly adjusting the overall portfolio risk has become one of the most important investment decisions, which can be implemented through cash, derivatives, general overlays or dynamic tactical allocation bucket, explains the report. Finally, the interdependence of markets and asset classes, and the importance of technical factors, means research sources must be improved; for example merging credit and equity research teams or creating an analyst function focused on political/fiscal topics. In addition, the ability to incorporate technical/behavioural factors into research inputs is going to be a key differentiating factor between managers, concludes Fitch.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } BNP Paribas Securities Services announced on 4 October that it has launched a new service aimed at private equity and real estate investment funds, both onshore and offshore. BNP Paribas Securities Services has created a dedicated platform to meet the needs of growing real estate and private equity investment funds, direct and indirect, which are increasingly sophisticated and operate in multiple jurisdictions, a statement says. Specialised operational teams will provide clearance, fund administration and securities custody control, as well as an exhaustive range of client and regulatory account reporting services.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Les Echos reports that direct investment by sovereign funds have steadily increased since the beginning of the year. Data from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute reveal that finance remains the favourite industry for investments, with 27% of all direct investments in the past four quarters, followed by infrastructure (18%) and energy (11%).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Carnage in the investment fund markets in the past few trading periods have left 38 of the 123 Spanish fund managers in negative territory, according to CNMV statistics relayed by Cinco Días. The regulator is of the opinion that management firms need to continue to tighten up their product ranges and reduce their operating costs.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } On 4 October, Santander unveiled Santander Select, its new personal banking brand, aimed at affluent clients with financial savings of EUR100,000 to EUR500,000, Cinco Días reports. The objective is to have 300,000 clients in Spain in three years vs 200,000 right now. «Select» will rely on a network of 350 agency advisers and 50 telephone advisers. The Select brand will be used worldwide. In addition to Spain, it will be launched in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Portugal. In these countries, the Santander group has 3.5 million clients corresponding to the designated profile.

Johan van der Ende is stepping down as chief investment officer at PGGM, the administrative organisation for collective pension schemes in the Netherlands, principally in the care and welfare sector. The decision has been made by mutual agreement. “It has become clear in recent months that the mutual expectations within the executive committee would impede successful co-operation”, says a press release. Johan van der Ende has worked at PGGM since mid-2006, for the past two years as CIO. He became a member of the newly formed executive committee on 1 January 2010. He will leave PGGM on 1 November. His duties will be assumed on a temporary basis by Jac Kragt, who has been with PGGM since 2008.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of 1 October, Dirk Zabel, who joined the sales department of the Luxembourg management firm HansaInvest in early 2009, has taken up the newly-created position of director of third-party management. He will be in charge of relations with external partners for retail as well as institutional clients. HansaInvest says the creation of the new position is a sign of its new commercial orientation and a desire to develop distribution.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } WGF AG, a German financial group based in Düsseldorf, and previously specialised in real estate mortgage lending and property trading, announced on 4 October that it has submitted an application to BaFin for a license to launch and manage institutional real estate funds. The directors of WGF are expecting a decision from the regulator by the end of first quarter 2011. The new firm would be known as WGF Immobilien Investment GmbH. The firm would be led by two CEOs, Hans-Dieter Martin, who comes from LB ImmoInvest GmbH, and Walter Jakob Helbach, who has served in management positions in the funds and asset management division at Deka Immobilien Investment. Pino Sergio, chairman of the board at WGF AG, says that the license application comes in response to demand from institutional clients, and that there are absolutely no plans to launch open-ended real estate funds.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Since 1 October, the Austrian firm Raiffeisenbank Reutte, which already controls the Austrian private bank Bankhaus Jungholz, controls 85% of the German private bank Bankhaus Bauer, based in Stuttgart, while the remaining 15% for the moment remains in the hands of the Düsseldorfer Hypothekenbank. The acquisition price has not been disclosed. The Jungholz bank is based in a village with 300 residents in Bavaria, but which legally belongs to Austria. As Johannes Gomig, chairman of the managing board at Raifeissenbank Reutte explains, the acquisition of Bauer will allow the Austrian group to serve high net worth German clients who do not want to open an account abroad, but who are interested in banking with an Austrian institution.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } According to a survey of 310 German institutional investors by the ratings agency Telos and the management and consulting firm Prof. Homburger & Partner, actors with more than EUR40bn in assets rank Universal-Investment first for customer satisfaction, followed by Union Investment (co-operative banks) and Allianz Global Investors (AGI), the Börsen-Zeitung reports. For mid-sized institutionals (EUR15bn-EUR40bn), the top two in the rankings are Bayern Invest and J.P. Morgan.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Banque Profil de Gestion (BPDG) announced on 4 October that it has appointed Gilbert Pfaeffli to the position of deputy CEO from 1 December 2010. The appointment follows the announcement that Régis Ducrey, who has served in this position for nearly three years, will be departing. With over 35 years of experience, Pfaeffli has previously served as CEO of Anker Bank, director of the Banque Cantonale de Genève (BCGE), head of the BCGE Private Banking Switzerland unit, and director, head of private banking international and member of the board of directors at the Banque de Dépôts et de Gestion (BDG).

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } ING Investment Management France has hired Aude Dhuivonroux as director of distribution clients. Dhuivonroux, who began in the new position on 1 October 2010, previously spent five years as head of insurance client distribution for France at Société Générale Asset Management (SGAM). Her arrival corresponds with the departure of Yves Drouet, head of business and distribution clients at ING IM France, who has joined Generali.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } As of 1 October, AllianceBernstein (in which Axa controls a stake of about 62.5%) acquired the alternative management operation of SunAmerica Asset Management (which managed a total of USD38bn as of the end of August) for an undisclosed amount. The transaction concerns a portfolio of hedge funds and private equity funds managed by Marc Gamsin, whom AllianceBernstein will retain in those responsibilities.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Hedgeweek reports that LaCrosse Global Fund Services has finalised its acquisition of the hedge fund administration division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. LaCrosse now has USD21bn in assets under administration.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Catherine Vialonga on 1 October joined the French additional pension fund for public sector employees (Etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la fonction publique, ERAFP) a chief investment officer and head of ALM. She succeeds Pierre Perreaux, who died last year. Vialonga was previously CIO for the Carac savings and retirement mutual.

Avec la baisse de la demande, l'économie américaine sera beaucoup plus dépendante du cycle des investissements et du commerce mondial

Le projet de création de fonds d'indemnisation préfinancés hérisse l'industrie de la gestion

Au deuxième trimestre, les fonds de pension ouverts italiens ont enregistré de nouveaux souscripteurs pour 431,5 millions d’euros, selon les dernières statistiques d’Assogestioni, l’association italienne des professionnels de la gestion. Les contributions versées par les travailleurs indépendants et autonomes ont représenté 54,6 % des adhésions, soit 235,4 millions d’euros. Le solde vient des opérations de transfert d’autres fonds de pension.Les souscriptions nettes se sont élevées à 194 millions d’euros et ont permis à l’actif net d’approcher les 6,7 milliards d’euros. Le nombre d’adhérents est aussi en hausse, au 30 juin, et s’établit à 893.000 personnes.S’agissant de l’allocation d’actifs, les investissements dans les compartiments diversifiés (26,9 %) et diversifiés obligataires (23,9 %) ont été choisis par plus de la moitié des souscripteurs. Les deux catégories représentent plus de 50 % de l’actif net. Les compartiments actions, sélectionnés par environ un cinquième des adhérents, ont recueilli 37,5 millions d’euros et représentent 1,5 milliard d’euros.Les compagnies d’assurances, avec 215 des 310 compartiments recensés, sont les principaux acteurs du secteur des fonds de pension ouverts. Ils regroupent 48 % des adhérents et un actif net de plus de 3 milliards d’euros. Viennent ensuite les produits gérés par les sociétés de gestion de portefeuille, avec 66 compartiments et 96 millions d’euros. Après, on trouve les banques et les sociétés d’intermédiation de valeurs mobilières.

Pour août, les fonds couverts par les statistiques de l’association allemande BVI des fonds d’investissement ont affiché des souscriptions nettes de 7,95 milliards d’euros, les sorties nettes des mandats avec 2,44 milliards d’euros étant surcompensées par les rentrées nettes de 2,7 milliards pour les fonds offerts au public et de 7,68 milliards pour les fonds institutionnels.Sur les huit premiers mois de l’année, les souscriptions nettes des fonds offerts au public se sont montées à 15,33 milliards d’euros contre des remboursements nets de 273,2 millions pour la période correspondante de l’an dernier tandis que celles des fonds institutionnels ressortaient à 36,22 milliards contre 6,41 milliards. En revanche, les mandats ont affiché des sorties nettes de 130,7 millions contre des rentrées nettes de 15,93 milliards.L’encours total à fin août se montait à 1.794,12 milliards d’euros contre 1.767,71 milliards fin juillet et 1.625,37 milliards douze mois auparavant.

En matière de fonds de valeurs mobilières offerts au public, les souscriptions nettes, en Allemagne, ont porté sur un total de 12,76 milliards d’euros sur les huit premiers mois de cette année. Sur ce total, 11,75 milliards ont été au compte de Pimco Europe, filiale d’Allianz Global Investors, qui, au total a engrangé 11,71 milliards (donc moins que Pimco).Parmi les grandes maisons, l’ensemble DWS/DB Advisors et DB Gruppe affiche lui aussi des souscriptions nettes, mais pour 847,5 millions seulement, et cela grâce aux 1.887,4 millions collectés par db x-trackers, la filiale ETF.Au demeurant, deux autres spécialistes des ETF enregistrent des rentées nettes : BlackRock, avec les iShares, a drainé 698,4 millions d’euros et ComStage (Commerzbank) a attiré 565,1 millions. En revanche, ETFlab Investment -groupe Deka), accuse des sorties nettes de 338,6 millions d’euros.A noter par ailleurs que Deka (caisses d'épargne) a subi des sorties nettes de près de 4,36 milliards d’euros, tandis qu’Union Investment (banques populaires) enregistrait des rachats nets de presque 2,66 milliards d’euros.

Durant le quatrième trimestre 2010, le britannique Schroders va commercialiser en Allemagne et en Autriche des parts à distribution trimestrielle fixe de 4 % pour le fonds Schroder ISF1 Asian Equity Yield et de 3 % pour le Schroder ISF Global Corporate Bond et le Schroder ISF US Dollar Bond.Auparavant, le fonds Asian Equity Yield pratiquait une distribution trimestrielle variable tandis que les deux autres versaient des coupons sur une base annuelle et trimestrielle variable.

René Kappaun a rejoint au 1er octobre Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) en tant que senior sales manager IFA. Il vient de KanAm Grund. Subordonné à Selina Sezen, il sera chargé de développer la distribution de fonds offerts au public auprès des prestataires indépendants de services financiers comme les pools de courtiers, les réseaux de CGPI et les gestionnaires de fortune.

Thomas Brand, country executive Germany de BNY Mellon, a indiqué que le groupe américain aspire à devenir le numéro un de la conservation en Allemagne d’ici à trois ans (le leader actuel est State Street), rapporte la Börsen-Zeitung. Actuellement BNY Mellon est le numéro deux du secteur.Thomas Brand voit des chances de croissance externe dans la situation financière de plusieurs Landesbanken qui seront obligées de se séparer de cette activité pour des raisons de coûts.Depuis l’acquisition de BHF Asset Servicing, l’encours sous conservation de BNY Mellon en Allemagne se situe à 569 milliards d’euros, dont 122 milliards d’euros comme banque dépositaire pour des sociétés de gestion.

Le 1er octobre, Aberdeen Immobilien KAG a annoncé avoir vendu «légèrement en dessous de la dernière valeur d’expertise indépendante» la tour de bureaux CB16 de La Défense à un «investisseur institutionnel international» qui n’a pas souhaité que le montant de la transaction soit communiqué. Cet actif figurait dans le portefeuille du fonds immobilier offert au public DEGI Europa, dont les remboursements sont gelés depuis deux ans (lire notre article du 26 octobre 2009).Cette cession augmente d’environ 4 points le taux des liquidités du DEGI Europa, à 33 %. D’après Hartmut Leser, directeur général d’Aberdeen Allemagne, cela permet d’envisager une réouverture du guichet des remboursements du fonds pour le 30 octobre 2010, avec une liquidité suffisante.

Au 1er octobre, Nomura Asset Management Deutschland KAG ( NAM Deutschland) a lancé la distribution de six fonds de droit irlandais chacun disponible en parts A et I. Il s’agit du Japan Strategic Value Fund, de l’India Equity Fund, du Asia Pacific ex Japan Fund, du Global Emerging Markets Fund et du US High Yield Bond Fund. Ces fonds affichent déjà un encours total supérieur à 1 milliard de dollars.

Mark Rodino, directeur des ventes d’ETF de HSBC pour la région EMEA, a indiqué que le groupe britannique a l’intention de faire enregistrer l’ensemble de sa gamme d’ETF actions, soit onze produits, en Espagne. Dix d’entre eux, ceux qui répliquent les indices FTSE 100, Euro Stoxx 50, Cac 40, S&P 500, MSCI Europe, MSCI Japan, MSCI USA, MSCI Brazil, MSCI EM Far East et MSI Pacific ex-Japan ont en fait déjà été enregistrés auprès de la CNMV, précise Funds People.L’objectif est d’attirer une clientèle aussi bien retail qu’institutionnelle. En fonction de l’accueil réservé à ces ETF à réplication physique, HSBC pourrait envisager de faire coter ces produits sur la Bourse de Madrid.D’ici à la fin de 2011, HSBC envisage de disposer d’une cinquantaine d’ETF comprenant aussi des fonds répliquant des indices d’obligations d’Etats et d’entreprise, des indices immobiliers et des indices de marchés émergents.

Selon les différentes estimations de l’association espagnole Inverco des sociétés de gestion, de VDOS Stochastics et d’Ahorro Corporación, les fonds espagnols de valeurs mobilières ont encore subi en septembre des sorties nettes comprises entre 1,5 milliard et 2,2 milliards d’euros, ce qui porte le total des neuf premiers mois de l’année à environ 17 milliards d’euros, rapporte Expansión.A ce rythme, 2010 promet de rentrer dans les annales comme le plus mauvais exercice pour les fonds espagnols après 2008, où les remboursements nets avaient atteint 57 milliards d’euros.Quant à l’encours, il est tombé, avec 146,5 milliards d’euros, à son niveau le plus bas depuis treize ans.Les deux gestionnaires les plus éprouvés par cette hémorragie sont BBVA Asset Management, avec des sorties de 7,5 milliards et Santander AM avec 3,1 milliards. Ils ont été victimes de la concurrence de dépôts bancaires rémunérés entre 4 et 5 %, ce qui a fini par pénaliser aussi InverCaixa, qui a subi des sorties nettes de 239 millions en septembre après une collecte nette de 1,6 milliard entre juin et août.