ETF Securities Ltd lance ETF Exchange (Europe), une plate-forme d’ETF de «troisième génération», en partenariat avec BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, et Rabobank International. Ces banques, qui devraient être rejointes par d’autres acteurs, sont à la fois partenaires de distribution, participants autorisés et fournisseurs de swaps. ETFX propose un total de 21 ETF actions dont des ETF investis dans des actions de sociétés de ressources naturelles, des ETF à double effet de levier et des ETF «double short». Ces fonds sont cotés sur cinq Bourses (London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Borse, NYSE-Euronext Amsterdam, Borsa Italiana et Irish Stock Exchange) et se négocient dans trois devises (dollar, euro et livre sterling).
La société de gestion suédoise East Capital dispose, sur la dernière décade, du fonds le plus performant ouvert au public dans le monde. Investi sur le marché russe, il a enregistré une performance en dollars de 1.524 %, rapporte Financial News L'équipe de gestion de l’East Capital Russian est pilotée par Jacob Jacob Grapenjisser en association avec le directeur des investissements Peter Elam Hakansson. «Nous avons été traditionnellement sous-pondéré dans le secteur des exportations de matières premières au profit des entreprises exposées à la demande intérieure», a expliqué Peter Elam Hakansson.
D’ici à 2013, le groupe ING doit se séparer de sa branche assurance et gestion d’actifs. Pour Jan Straatman, Global CIO d’ING Investment Management, qui s’exprime dans le Financial Times Fund Management, ce changement comporte un risque. En effet, en lui retirant les avantages en termes de distribution que lui confère une banque retail, ING IM pourrait devenir trop dépendante de la division assurance. «Le très gros risque de cette évolution est que nous pourrions finalement redevenir un gestionnaire d’actifs captif. Cela aura une influence négative, en réduisant la pression concurrentielle et notre capacité à attirer et retenir des talents», indique Jan Straatman. "(…). Nous pouvons uniquement survivre sur le long terme si nous sommes capables de prouver que nous pouvons développer cette organisation, que nous ne sommes pas uniquement un gestionnaire d’actifs captif d’une compagnie d’assurance. Nous devons travailler dur pour attirer des actifs dans le retail», poursuit-il.
Les dirigeants du gestionnaire de fortune Sal. Oppenheim vont démissionner d’ici à la fin de l’année, rapporte l’Agefi qui cite des sources proches du dossier. Une décision qui s’explique par les pertes de l’établissement, devenu propriété de Deutsche Bank, et des prêts consentis aux quatre principaux managers de Sal. Oppenheim. Sal. Oppenheim, qui gère des fortunes depuis 1789, a enregistré en 2008 sa première perte de l’après-guerre, en raison d’investissements malheureux.
En Italie, le capital risque, qui était pratiquement moribond en 2000, représente aujourd’hui une dizaine de fonds et des engagements d’environ 1 milliard d’euros, indique Il Sole – 24 Ore, citant la première étude Venture Capital Monitor. En 2009, le nombre d’opérations devrait être stable par rapport aux 23 de 2008.
Selon Investment Week, Henderson a procédé à la dernière vente d’actifs qui lui permet de réouvrir le New Star International Property fund, est suspendu depuis le 25 novembre 2008. Le fonds, d’un encours de 295,7 millions de livres, devrait avoir plus de 90 % de la liquidité nécessaire pour rouvrir.
Legal & General Investment Management ferme son hedge fund acheteur/vendeur sur les actions japonaises, Japan Alpha, rapporte Investment Week. Le produit avait été lancé en 2004 et était géré par Andrew Nagele. D’autres gestionnaires ont aussi liquidé leurs long/short japonais ces 18 derniers mois, comme Odey Asset Management, Baring Asset Management et Asia Genesis Asset Management, rappelle Investment Week.
Le gérant actions britanniques Simon Brazier a quitté Schroders pour prendre des responsabilités au sein d’une autre société de gestion, rapporte Money Marketing. Le fonds Schroder UK Equity qu’il gère sera repris par Ed Meier et Errol Francis. D’après Citywire du 22 décembre, Simon Brazier rejoint Threadneedle en tant que co-responsable des actions UK en début d’année prochaine.
Natixis Asset Management a annoncé lundi 21 décembre, par voie de presse, qu'à compter du 29 décembre, le fonds commun de placement Ecureuil Sécuripremière changera de nom et subira quelques modifications en matière de tarification et de mode de fonctionnement. A partir de cette date, le fonds s’appelera Sécuripremière FCP et ses frais de gestion annuels seront ramenés de 0,45 % à 0,30 %. En outre, la méthode de l’engagement de l’actif du fonds sera modifiée. «Il s’agira d’un fonds de type B. La méthode de calcul de l’engagement utilisée sera la méthode probabiliste telles que définie à l’article 411-44-5 du réglement général de l’AMF en lieu et place de la méthode d’approximation linaire», précise l’avis financier de la société de gestion.
Natixis announced on Friday, December 18, that it has become the 100% owner of Natixis Global Asset Management, which includes the asset managers of Natixis, after buying a 11.34% stake which CNP Assurances has held in Natixis Global Asset Management by CE Participations. The transfer of shares in Natixis Global AM from CNP Assurances to CE Participations was approved by the board of directors of CNP Assurances on October 20, 2009, and was undertaken in the form of an exercise of a sell option in which CE Participations was the receiving party. Natixis Global AM had assets totalling EUR494bn as of September 30, 2009.
Fidelity has appointed Arne Lindman as president and CEO for the Asia-Pacific region, following the departure of Brett Goodin, who held the same position, in May, Asian Investor reports. Lindman, who has recently left the British Prudential group, will join Fidelity in his new role on 19 April next year. He had previously been chief executive of asset management activities at Prudential, since May 2008.
The Irish government has passed legislation to make it easier for hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens to move to Dublin, says the Financial Times.
Jupiter Asset Management is to launch a UCITS III fund for investors seeking to capture returns from investing in pan-European equities. The Jupiter European Absolute Return (Sicav), which launches in January, will seek to generate an absolute return independent of market conditions. In seeking to meet the objective, the manager will aim to limit volatility. The Fund, a sub-fund of the Luxembourg-domiciled Jupiter Global Fund, will be managed by two of Jupiter’s fund managers - Cédric de Fonclare and Stephen Pearson. This marks the first time that the long/short investment capabilities of Stephen Pearson will be made available to investors in a regulated environment. The managers’ investment process will be based upon fundamental ‘bottom up’ stock-picking. They will look to build a portfolio of 50-80 long and short positions in individual companies in the European markets. Directional exposure to the equity markets will therefore be more a function of decisions taken on individual companies rather than top down positioning based on macro economic views.
According to estimates by Edhec-Risk, all hedge fund strategies generated positive returns in November, except dedicated short bias strategies, which lost an average of 2.16%. The largest gains were for CTA global funds, at 3.54%, and distressed securities, which gained an average of 2.32%. Since the beginning of the year, convertibles arbitrage has earned the best results, with gains of 43.8%, ahead of emerging markets (34.9%). Dedicated short bias is once again the red light, with losses of 17.4%. Since January 2001, the highest average annual performances have been 12.4% for emerging markets, and 10.8% for distressed securities.
Credit Suisse has entered exclusive negotiations with Fortis Bank Nederland to buy Prime Fund Solutions, a unit specialised in prime brokerage and fund administration for hedge funds and sovereign funds, Agefi reports.
The French national pension fund, the Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), at the end of last week announced the results of its third round of a restricted call for tenders to renew a portion of its bond mandates. In the third round, which covered investment grade securities denominated in US dollars (active management), the FRR has selected the following three asset management firms: Axa IM Paris, BlackRock International, Conning AM, Deutsche AM International, Schroder IM. The mandates will be awarded for a 5-year period. The indicative total amount of funds allocated to management in this round is estimated at EUR1.5bn.
Allocation to liquidity for the Total Return Fund (USD199.4bn) from Pimco, a fund managed by Bill Gross, has been increased to 7%, its highest level since the Lehman crisis in 2008. The level was negative by 7%, via derivatives, futures and short strategies, in November. To increase this allocation, the Pimco homepage states, Bill Gross lowered exposure to government bonds (govies) to 51%, from 63% in November, as the management team shares the opinion that United States GDP in 2010 will increase sufficiently to allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. The Pimco star manager has also lowered exposure to mortgage-backed securities to 12% from 16%, bringing them to their lowest level since 2000.
With the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold fund, ETF Securities is launching an ETC which replicates the evolution of the price of gold, backed by a stock of the metal held in Zurich by the custodian JP Morgan Chase Bank. Each lingot is packaged, individually labelled, and deposited with the Trust. The product, denominated in US dollars and domiciled in Jersey, has been listed on the London Stock Exchange under the acronym SGBS since December 16, but is not subject to British stamp tax, and is also listed as Sharia-compliant. Management commission is 0.39%.
BNY Mellon has announced the appointment of two new heads for the United States and Europe. For the United States, Frank Froud, executive vice president, has been appointed head of client management. He was previously head of client management for Europe. In his new role he will be based in New York. For Europe, Hani Kablawi, executive vice president, will become head of client management. He will retain his role as chairman for the Middle East and Africa, and will relocate from Dubai to London. Frank Froud and Hani Kablawi will both report directly to Tim Keaney, senior executive vice president and head of Global Client management.
In an ad-hoc market statement, Deutsche Telekom announced on Friday that it had been informed on 15 December by BlackRock that the asset management firm owned a state of 3.34% in its capital as of 1 December (when its acquisition of BGI was completed), equivalent to over 145.76 million shares.
BNY Mellon Asset Management is seeking to enlarge its investment capacities in Japan through new recruitments and the possible acquisition of a asset management boutique in 2010, Reuters reports, citing David Jiang, CEO for Asia-Pacific at BNY Mellon.
The fund of hedge funds industry in Switzerland has suffered a steep decline of 70% in assets under management between May 2008 and October 2009, according to estimates by Eurekahedge, cited by Le Temps. Swss specialised institutions managed USD203bn in funds of funds as of the end of 2007, and now manage USD61bn. The market share for Switzerland has fallen to 13.9% of the global market, compared with 24.9% in 2007.
China Investment Corp, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, is expected to receive another injection of capital from the country’s foreign exchange reserves in the coming months, according to government officials and people familiar with the fund cited by the Financial Times. CIC will likely receive a similar amount to the initial USD200bn it was given on its establishment in 2007.
AP6, one of the Swedish national pension funds, has been rocked by a scandal involving a company, Xeratech, held in its portfolio, says IPE.com. The fund has accused the two founding brothers of “plundering” the company and is now also considering suing the firm’s auditors, Ernst & Young. Ulf Lindquist, spokesman for AP6, said he was unwilling to reveal how much money the fund has been lost in the scandal but said it threatens the company’s existence.
The American private equity firm Apollo has offered GBP250m to the board at Gala Coral for a 50% stake in the firm, which has debt of GBP2.6bn, the Sunday Times reports. Blackstone is already in the running to acquire Gala Coral, which operates 2,000 betting shops, 148 bingo clubs and 227 casinos, as is a group of junior creditors to the group.
Funds People reports that José Caturla has announced that the team at Aviva Gestión is aiming for EUR500m in assets under management in Spain within a two-year time frame. As of the end of October, the asset management firm had assets of EUR225m, according to Inverco. The new objective for the firm comes following a reshuffle of the management at Aviva Gestión last year, and a decision to release Aviva products for sale in Spain, beyond portfolio management on behalf of the firm itself, as previously. Aviva funds are now available on the Inversis platforms, and have more recently become available on Allfunds. The product range on offer includes five funds (short-term bonds, bonds, Aviva valor Preferente, Spanish equities, and Euro zone equities), and José Caturla, who is also chief investment officer at Aviva España, says this range is enough for the time being.
In an interview with Cinco Días, Guillaume Poli, chairman of the executive board, explains that Edmond de Rothschild Investment Managers (Edrim) has opened an office in Serrano street in Madrid, because, after four years of serving the Spanish market from offices in Paris, clients demanded more direct service. Edrim predicts that Spain will transition from an open architecture to a guided architecture market, and hopes to be one of the 10 to 12 providers relied on by the major networks. Its product range consists of controlled risk and low-volatility products, which are in demand for Spanish clients. Currently, Edrim already has 12 products on offer in Spain, and its objective is to reach 30 products in the short term. Though the range includes a wide variety of products, Edrim is only planning to register those products in Spain which sell best there.
According to Money Marketing, Skandia Investment Group has laid off Steve Kowal, head of open architecture, and Tom Berger, head of investment research. Two others are reported to have been laid off from the open architecture team. Investment Week reports that COO John Tomlins and CFO Simon Lloyd have also been laid off.
Samir Patel, former manager of the Polar Capital Latin American fund, has resurfaced at Hermes as director of emerging markets, Financial News reports.