Le classement 2010 publié par le magazine «Private Equity International» (PEI) a propulsé Goldman Sachs en tête des plus grands fonds d’investissement du monde, note la Tribune. Pour établir son palmarès, PEI a pris en compte la somme des capitaux levés ces cinq dernières années. Avec 54,6 milliards de dollars (41,13 milliards d’euros), Goldman Sachs a ravi la première au fonds texan TPG. Le britannique CVC Capital Partners (34,2 milliards), premier européen du classement, arrive en septième position.
Il Sole – 24 Ore a établi la liste des fonds italiens obligataires et monétaires qui sont les plus exposés à la dette grecque. Les trois premiers, en termes d’exposition totale par rapport au portefeuille, sont Amundi Funds Euro Select Bond (19,25 %), Novara Aquilone Sicav – BT Euro R (13,58 %) et Fondersel Reddito (10,08 %).
La société de gestion Carl Spängler Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, filiale de la banque privée Spängler, et l’Institut für Quantitatives Asset Management (IQM) ont décidé de créer une marque commune Spängler IQAM Invest pour des fonds et d’autres produits de gestion d’actifs. La Spängler KAG sera chargée de la clientèle «de gros» (wholesale) recouvrant les banques, les fonds de fonds et les gestionnaires de fortune tandis que l’IQAM servira les investisseurs institutionnels (assurances, entreprises, caisses de retraite et chambres professionnelles).La gamme de Spängler IQAM (la Spängler KAG avait acquis depuis un certain temps une participation dans l’IQAM) comprend des fonds offerts au public, des «solutions d’investissement» (mandats gérés par l’IQAM), des fonds institutionnels (de Spängler) et des prestations de conseil.
A fin mars, les actifs gérés par les fonds d’investissement autrichiens représentaient 142,1 milliards d’euros, contre 138,6 milliards fin février et 136,7 milliards au 31 décembre, d’après les statistiques de l’association VÖIG. En un an, le total a augmenté de 20,8 milliards d’euros ou de 17,1 % pour revenir à un niveau compris entre ceux d’août et septembre 2008 (respectivement 144,3 milliards et 138,6 milliards).
Jefferies annonce le recrutement de plusieurs personnes ces dernières semaines, qui sont venues rejoindre son équipe dédiée aux produits de taux en Asie-Pacifique. Shiran Dias et Sailesh K. Jha ont été nommés managing directors, et auront comme mission d'établir des relations commerciales avec les banques privées,, les banques centrales et les hedge funds de la region. Jun-ichi Kasakura et Philip Wen occupent le poste de senior vice président.
China Construction Bank, la deuxième banque chinoise par la taille de son portefeuille de prêts, devrait bientôt lancer la plus grande augmentation de capital jamais réalisée en Asie selon la Tribune. Le montant levé serait de 75 milliards de yuans (11 milliards de dollars) en émettant des actions à Shanghai et Hong Kong.
Le 6 mai, la société de gestion UBS-SDIC lancera son premier fonds QDII (le 16ème depuis le lancement du programme et le 6ème depuis le début de l’année). Ce sera un fonds d’actions de pays émergents du monde entier (Global Emerging Market Equity Fund) avec comme indice de référence le MSCI Emerging Market et une allocation minimum de 60 % aux actions dont la moitié d’actions de pays émergents. Les conservateurs seront ICBC pour la Chine et Standard Chartered pour l'étranger.Selon Z-Ben Advisors, ce fonds sera coté sur la Bourse de Shenzen, ce qui permettra au gestionnaire de drainer des capitaux aussi bien au travers du réseau bancaire que par le biais des courtiers. Pour chacune de ces filières, le plafond a été fixé à 2 milliards de yuans.Le nouveau produit, qui avait reçu son agrément de commercialisation à la mi-décembre, sera géré par Lu Rongqjang, qui est déjà aux commandes du CSI 300 Index Classified Fund.
On 6 May, the management firm UBS-SDIC will launch its first QDII fund (the 16th since the launch of the program, and the 6th since the beginning of this year). The product will be the Global Emerging Market Equity Fund, which will be based on the MSCI Emerging Market index as its benchmark, and which will allocate at least 60% of its assets to equities, half of them in emerging markets. The custodians will be ICBC for China, and Standard Chartered in other countries. Z-Ben Advisors reports that the fund will be listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, which will allow the management firm to attract capital through the banking network as well as through brokers. For each of these sources, investment is limited to CNY2bn. The new product, which received its sales license in mid-December, will be managed by Lu Rongqjanfg, who is already manager of the CSI 300 Index Classified Fund.
From the month of July, ETFs based on Korean assets will be taxed at a more attractive rate than ETFs with foreign underlying assets, which will be required to pay a tax of 15.4%, Asian Investor reports. Bae Jae-Kyu, chief investment officer for ETF activities at Samsung AM, says the tax will damage the development of ETF funds in Korea.
Elliott Associates has confirmed that 18 more funds have joined the first 17 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Porsche for share price manipulation, and the demands for damages and interest now exceed USD2bn, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The funds accuse Porsche of knowingly misleading investors and lying about its true intentions concerning Volkswagen. At the end of October 2008, the firm cornered the market for shares in Volkswagen, whose share price at one point topped EUR1,000.
For the sixth consecutive month, Spanish securities funds have seen net outflows in April, totalling EUR1.26bn (compared with EUR913m in March), and bringing total net redemptions in the first four months of the year to nearly EUR4.47bn. Assets, for their part, have declined by EUR1.46bn, to a total of EUR158.93bn, which represents a decline of 0.9% compared with March, when they were up 0.6%.
Rafael Siruelos, director of wealth management products at Banca March, has announced to Cinco Días that the management firm has launched a fund entitled March Solar, aimed at high net worth private clients, and which will aim to raise EUR130m-EUR140m by investing in solar power installations able to generate a total of 30 megawatts (MW), in five or six locations. Banca March has already convinced 220 clients to invest in the fund, offering them 12% returns per year if they agree to remain invested for six years. Minimal subscription is set at EUR50,000, and the product is aimed at investors who have at least EUR45,000 in financial savings. The March Solar fund will be advised by Vita Renovables, and Banca March is planning to retain a stake of about 15% in the fund.
RREEF, the real estate fund management affiliate of Deutsche Bank, has repositioned its open-ended real estate fund grundbesitz invest, which is now known as grundbesitz Europa, with EUR2.6bn in assets, while the grundbesitz Global now has EUR615m, and has had the largest volume of net subscriptions in the category since the beginning of this year, Handelsblatt reports. Georg Allendorf, CEO of RREEF, expects investments this year of EUR500m for the open-ended real estate fund operation, and another EUR500m for the institutional real estate fund division, with the objective of becoming one of the top five management firms in the latter category. The competition is not idle, however: IVG, the top firm in the sector, is making a major effort to recruit new clients, while iii, the number two provider, is refocusing on institutional funds as its open-ended fund operations have gone awry. The number three asset management firm, Hansainvest, is planning to raise EUR300-400m by the launch of up to four new institutional real estate funds by the end of the year.
For several weeks, Pimco (Allianz Global Investors) has been offering its all-terrain Global Multi-Asset fund (USD2.11bn in assets as of the end of March), managed by Vineer Bhansali, Mohamed El-Erian and Curtis Mewbourne. For sale in Spain. The objective is performance of 8-10%, with volatility of about 10%. Since the fund’s launch on 29 October 2008, the fund has earned 22.3%, with volatility of 8.6%. Performance over one year has totalled 23.52%,, while it comes to 3.02% for first quarter of this year.
From May 5th, GLG Partners will close its newcits UK Alpha Select to new subscriptions, since this vehicle has already reached the USD300m (GBP195m) mark it had been assigned at the time of the launch, on February 19th. The fund is et UCITS III compliant version of the long/short equity market neutral fund managed by John White.
Les Echos reports that a survey undertaken in mid-April by MultiRatings of 50 professional treasurers who manage assets of over EUR200bn finds that “long term money market” funds are returning in force to the allocations of French institutional investors. Within the new classifications of money market funds, the “long terme” category includes diversified funds with volatility of less than 2%. These funds have less risk and aim to outperform the Eonia rate through various strategies. Most institutional investors surveyed were planning to increase (45%) or maintain (41%) their allocation to these products. Only a minority (14%) were planning to reduce the weight of these funds in their future allocations.
From 1 May, Thomas Mueller has taken over as chief financial officer of Banque Sarasin (Rabobank group), replacing Matthias Hassels, “who has decided to leave the firm after 12 years there, to take on a new professional challenge.” Mueller, who for the past three years had been CFO and Chief Risk Officer at Swiss Life, will be in charge of investor relations, corporate development, and enterprise financing, and will oversee the Legal & Compliance, human resources, group finance, Controlling, Risk Office, credit and tax departments at the group. Mueller will report directly to Joachim H. Straehle, CEO of Banque Sarasin.
According to Les Echos, war, terrorism, and elections sometimes cause disturbances to the markets. Between 1974 and 2004, there were 112 conflicts (including wars, coups and others), of which 84 were national and 28 international, which affected the financial markets. Only 1 out of 5 of these had a significant effect (positive or negative) on global equities (MSCI World index), according to a study by two economists at the Federal Reserve in Saint Louis; 11.2% of these conflicts had a negative impact on the global stock markets, while 6.7% had a positive effect. The least affected markets (negatively) are the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and the United States. Wall Street is also the market which gains least often (12.4% of the time) on conflicts.
Jefferies has announced the recruitment of several people in the past few weeks, who will join the team dedicated to fixed income products in the Asia-Pacific region. Shiran Dias and Sailesh K. Jha have been appointed as managing directors, and will aim to establish commercial relations with private banks, central banks and hedge funds in the region. Jun-ichi Kasakura and Philip Wen will serve as senior vice presidents.
In the first three months of the year, Agefi reports, Barclays has earned net banking proceeds of GBP8.1bn, compared with a predicted estimate of GBP9.4bn advanced by analysts at KBW. This decline in revenues is particularly severe for the investment banking unit, where net banking proceeds fell by 26% to GBP3.8bn, compared with analysts’ expectations of GBP5bn. The bank has not profited as much as its rivals from trading in fixed income, currencies and commodities, the newspaper adds.
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing has been selected by UOB Asset Management (UOBAM) to provide custody and administration services for its fund United Asia Bond Multi Currency Fund, domiciled int he Cayman Islands. The product has assets of about CNY5bn (USD50m).
On Thursday evening, the Carlyle Group announced that it will be taking over the management mandates of Stanfield Capital Partners, a specialist in bond management. These mandates represent USD5.1bn in the form of CLO (USD4.2bn) and other credit assets (USD950m); including these assets, total assets at Carlyle in alternative credit come to USD18.1bn, of which USD14.4bn are in CLO assets. The financial terms of the transaction have not been made public.
The management firm Carl Spängler Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, an affiliate of the Spängler private bank, and the Institut für Quantitatives Asset Management (IQM) have decided to create the joint brand Spängler IQAM Invest for funds and other asset management products. Spängler KAG will handle wholesale clients, including banks, funds of funds and wealth managers, while IQAM will serve institutional investors (insurers, businesses, pension funds and professional organisations). The product range from Spängler IQAM (Spängler KAG acquired a stake in IQAM some time ago) will include open-ended funds, investment solutions (i.e., mandates managed by IQAM), institutional funds (from Spängler) and investment advising.
In first quarter, mutual fund activities at The Hartford posted net subscriptions of USD1.5bn, and assets totalled USD97.7bn as of the end of March, compared with USD69.4bn twelve months previously.
The alternative management firm Gottex Fund Management on Thursday evening announced the recruitment in Boston of Debra Tothman as managing director, head of North American sales & marketing. She was previously head of business development at SCS Financial, where she contributed to the commercial development of the fund of hedge funds range. Gottex has also recruited Mark Ostergaard as marketing director in London. He will be in charge of developing and assisting North American clients. He was previously in charge of relations with Scandinavian establishments at London & Capital.
Agefi reports that, following an announcement on Wednesday by Nasdaq OMX Europe that it will be closing Neuro, its alternative trading platform (MTF) on 21 May, the trading platform Equiduct on Friday announced that it is in exclusive talks with the operator to offer Neuro clients an opportunity to connect the two systems without interruption to trading flows.
The Association of European Development Finance Institutions, a group of 15 government bodies investing in emerging markets, wrote to the EU to criticise its plans to regulate hedge funds and private equity, says the Financial Times. The move highlights growing opposition to the EU’s planned regulations from private equity groups based in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which are worried about being cut off from European investors, who provide at least a quarter of their funding.
The European Commission has decided to follow the recommendations of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) and introduce a proposed directive in October on short-selling, the Börsen-Zeitung reports. The bill will be specific to the issue of short-selling, as the European Commission concluded that it would be counter-productive to integrate rules on this subject into the new version of the market abuse directive.
As of the end of March, assets under management in Austrian investment funds represented EUR142.1bn, compared with EUR138.6bn as of the end of February, and EUR136.7bn as of 31 December, according to statistics from the VÖIG association. In one year, total assets increased by EUR20.8bn, or 17.1% to a total which measures in between the levels observed in August and September 2008 (EUR144.3bn and EUR138.6bn, respectively).
On Thursday, ProShares launched four leveraged ETFs on the NYSE Arca platform, which aim to double the daily performance of foreign indices which are already available as underlying assets for ETF products, with leverage of 2, but inverse. The products are the ETF Ultra MSCI Europe, Ultra MSCI Pacific ex-Japan, Ultra MSCI Brazil and Ultra Mexico Investable Market. Management fees are 0.95%. The ProShares range now includes 19 long and short leveraged ETFs.