Euler Hermes SFAC s’attend pour la France à une progression de 25 % du nombre de défaillances en 2009 après 15 % en 2008. Le nombre de défaillances franchirait ainsi la barre des 73.000, dépassant le niveau historique (plus de 64.800 défaillances) de la dernière récession de 1993, lorsque le PIB avait reculé de -0,8 %. En 2010, l’augmentation des défaillances pourrait revenir autour de 9 %. Dans le monde, l’augmentation des défaillances pourrait atteindre 35 % en 2009 après 27 % en 2008. Cette augmentation est la conséquence directe de la crise économique et financière. «Dans un contexte de récession mondiale majeure, c’est à un nombre considérable et historique de défaillances d’entreprises partout dans le monde que nous devons faire face, au moins jusqu’à la fin de l’année 2009. La progression de notre indice globale des défaillances est anticipée à +35 %», commente Karine Berger, directrice des études Euler Hermes SFAC. «Il est peu probable que le niveau de défaillances d’entreprises retombe en 2010 : il arrêtera sans doute de progresser mais le trop faible souffle de reprise anticipée ne permettra pas de sauver beaucoup plus d’entreprises que cette année». Après un 1er trimestre 2009 très déprimé, dans la lignée de la fin d’année 2008, la récession mondiale majeure qui se profile pour l’ensemble de l’année 2009, la plus sévère jamais enregistrée depuis l’après seconde guerre mondiale, appelle de longs et douloureux processus d’ajustements dans les entreprises. En se prolongeant dans la durée et en se propageant progressivement à la majorité des secteurs d’activité, la contraction des pays développés risque de prolonger et d’accentuer le rebond des défaillances. Celui-ci s’est déjà confirmé sur le 1er trimestre 2009 avec des hausses, en glissement annuel, dépassant 15 % (France, Autriche, Suisse), 20 % (Belgique), 30 % (Portugal), 40 % (Royaume-Uni) et des situations plus dégradées encore avec un doublement des faillites en Irlande et au Danemark, et plus qu’en triplement en Espagne.

Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management annonce le recrutement de Gwénaël Le Carvennec en qualité de gérant obligations convertibles. Il rejoint l’équipe Obligations Convertibles, dirigée par Kris Deblander. Gwénaël Le Carvennec état auparavant trader pour compte propre sur obligations convertibles pour les zones Europe, Etats-Unis et Japon d’abord chez ABC Arbitrage, puis à la Banque d’Orsay où il était en charge du desk d’arbitrage de dérivés, précise EDRAM.

Cholet Dupont Partenaires annonce le lancement, en collaboration avec Dexia Epargne Pension, d’un contrat d’assurance vie et de capitalisation à stratégies multiples, dédié à une clientèle privée. Afilium Gestion Privée 3 offre l’accès aux différents types d’enveloppes de détention que sont le contrat d’assurance vie avec option transfert de PEP et le contrat de capitalisation avec option PEA.Les souscripteurs peuvent choisir entre trois options de gestion : libre, assistée ou sous mandat. Multisupport et multigestionnaire, Afilium Gestion Privée 3 permet de choisir entre 350 OPCVM.

A fin mars, l’encours des ETF en Europe avait baissé de 5,89 % sur fin décembre, à 97,86 milliards d’euros, selon une étude réalisée par Lyxor Asset Management sur des données fournies par Bloomberg et les sociétés de gestion, rapporte Funds People. Cependant, les actifs sous gestion des ETF marchés émergents ont gonflé de 66,69 % et ceux des ETF stratégiques (inversés ou à effet de levier) de 63,76 %.Les ETF obligataires et monétaires ont augmenté en volume, mais ceux sur les actions restent le segment le plus important avec 68,4 % des actifs totaux.

Dans le cadre de la scission projetée entre Julius Baer Group (banque privée) et GAM Holding (gestion d’actifs), Julius Baer Holding a présenté des résultats 2008 revisités pro forma qui tiennent compte des coûts d’intégration et des amortissements de survaleurs liés aux acquisitions en 2005 de trois banques privées et de GAM auprès d’UBS. Le bénéfice net de Julius Baer Group se situe pro forma à 364,8 millions de francs suisses au lieu de 449 millions tandis que celui de GAM Holding ressort à 275,5 millions de francs au lieu de 382,2 millions.En ce qui concerne les actifs sous gestion de GAM Holding, ils sont affichés pour fin 2008 à 146,94 milliards de francs suisses tandis que, pour Julius Baer Group, ils ressortent à 127,59 milliards, ce à quoi s’ajoutent 63,62 milliards sous administration.

To “capitalise on the steep rebound of Russian equities” (a 72% rise since the beginning of this year), Julius Baer is launching the JB Russia Fund on the British market. The product is a sub-fund of the Luxembourg Sicav, launched on 20 June 2008, whose portfolio manager is Elena Ogram. Management commission is 1.60%. Russian equities outperformed the MSCI World index by 65% in the first five months of 2009.

The hedge fund Paulson & Co on Tuesday closed its short position on Barclays for a USD165m loss, the Financial Times reports.

Dans un entretien aux Echos, le président de la Société française des analystes financiers, Patrick Leguil, estime que «le modèle dominant de l’analyste «sell side» travaillant pour une société de Bourse est sans doute derrière nous. Ces dernières années ont été marquées par des concentrations entre banques et entre courtiers indépendants. Nous avons vu et nous prévoyons toujours une baisse du nombre d’analystes employés par les intermédiaires. Ils ne représentent plus que 11 % de nos membres. Toutefois, de nouvelles activités se créent, dans l’analyse indépendante ou le créneau spécifique des PME dans le cadre de la loi Tepa, ou encore dans l’ISR et l’immatériel».

In socially responsible investment in France, dedicated management has overtaken collective management. In 2008, assets under management in delegated and internal management, excluding employee savings - in other words, dedicated management - rose 76% to EUR15.5bn, compared with EUR8.8bn at the end of 2007, out of a total of EUR29.9bn in SRI assets in the French market, according to the most recent statistics from Novethic. At the same time, open-ended collective management (FCP and Sicav funds) with an SRI approach grew by only 6% to EUR11.1bn. Growth in dedicated management is largely explicable as a result of the fact that the SRI market is dominated by institutional investors, and by the fact that these investors are increasingly seeking to make use of this concept, as they adopt their own custom management criteria. The growing weight of institutional investment also explains movement in 2008 in terms of asset classes. While in 2007, equities represented half of assets, now there is a move towards fixed income on the market. In 2008, despite the crisis, SRI assets increased from EUR21.8bn to EUR29.9bn, a 37% increase.

Bob Rodriguez, manager of the FCA Capital Fund, says managers have not fully appreciated the scale of the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Whether it’s bonds or equities, it appears that the same old strategies have been used: being fully invested … and not diverging much from the index,” he says. He warns that if active managers continue to manage in this way, they will have trouble maintaining long-term prospects for their funds and keeping their jobs.

In April, the German fund management industry has registered net subscriptions of EUR3.6bn, of which EUR2.8bn went to open-ended funds (including real estate), and EUR0.8bn for Spezialfonds. Thanks to rising markets, assets increased by EUR40bn in one month, to a total of EUR1.245trn. Excluding money market funds (-EUR2.21bn), all categories of open-ended funds have posted net subscriptions in April.In the first four months of this year, open-ended securities funds have registered net inflows of EUR518.3m, compared with EUR16.64bn in the corresponding period of last year. In this category, DWS/DB (Deutsche Bank) is the only major fund management firm to show net subscriptions of EUR3.42bn, of which EUR2.72bn went to ETF products from db x-trackers; in total, DWS/DB alone has posted net inflows corresponding to 6.61 times the total for the sector. On the other hand, Allianz Global Investors (AGI, including cominvest) has posted net redemptions of EUR1.28bn, while Deka (German savings banks) has seen net outflows of EUR2.57bn (while its affiliate ETFlab has posted net inflows of EUR1.07bn), and Union Investment has seen net redemptions of EUR647.7m.

Since 16 April, NYSE Euronext Paris has listed the exchange-traded note product Lyxor ETN Gold (XS0416722857), which debuted in London the previous month. Lyxor has nonetheless waited for the first “in vivo” results for the product before announcing its release. It becomes the first of a new range of products for which ten products are planned by the end of this year, including at least one short gold product. All the products will necessarily have an underlying which is available for sale in France. As the experimental Gold product, which reproduces the evolution of the price of one ounce of gold, has proven successful, its two younger siblings were also unveiled to the media on Thursday. They are ETN (exchange traded notes) based on oil, entitled Lyxor ETN Oil (XS0416703808) and Lyxor ETN Short Oil (XS0416714599). The bonds, similar to ETFs, are issued by a dedicated segment, and are housed exclusively within the Luxembourg-registered Codeis Securities fund, underwritten by Société Générale. The products are listed on NYSE Euronext Paris. Their value is 100% covered by Euro zone debt or co-ordinated funds containing a minimum of 90% of these bonds, and rated AAAf by Standard & Poor’s. The two oil ETN products are based on “intelligent” indexes denominated in US dollars, developed by Société Générale, entitled SGI Smart WTI Long Invest and SGI WTI Short Invest, with set fees of 0.60% per year for the former, and 0.75% per year for the latter fund. Variable fees, which are directly tied to the guarantee offered by the collateral mechanism, are both set at 0.05% as of 3 June.

Heinz Bednar, CEO of Erste Sparinvest, on Thursday announced several mergers of funds whose investment targets are similar. This cleaning of the product range from the asset management firm of Erste Bank and the Austrian savings banks (EUR23.2bn in assets) has resulted in the merger of the Espa Stock Europe-Growth into the Espa Stock Europe-Active fund on 26 May. On 2 June, the Espa Best of Innovation and the Espa Stock Internet-Infra were merged with the Espa Stock Techno. Lastly, on 1 July, the Espa Select Stock-Plus will be absorbed by the Espa Select Stock. All the funds concerned are registered in Austria.

The Belgian asset management company Petercam has registered the Petercam L Bonds EUR Corporate 06/2014 fund with the CNMV, Funds People reports. The fund is a Luxembourg-registered product which will invest exclusively in 30 high quality corporate bonds (with an average rating of A). Maturity is set for June 2014. This is the 17th product which Petercam has registered in Spain.

The association of bank, savings bank, and insurance clients (Adicae) has filed a complaint with the CNMV against Banif, the private bank from Santander, accusing it of having apparently given preferential treatment to more than 9,000 subscribers to the real estate fund Santander Banif Inmobiliario, Expansión reports. These investors received redemptions in December, at a time when redemptions from the fund were frozen. The fund declared 51,432 shareholders at the end of December, but only 42,309 in March, Adicae claims.The association adds that 15% of subscribers, theoretically representing EUR614m in assets, got out just before audited figures were published which revised the value of the fund’s assets downward.

A general shareholders’ meeting for the Franklin Technology Fund held on 18 May, shareholders did not give majority approval to a proposal to merge with the Franklin US Opportunities Funds (see Newsmanagers of 21 April), and Franklin Templeton Investments will consequently be calling off plans to merge the funds, fondsweb reports.

200 of the 550 Cominvest staff will have to leave the company now that Commerzbank’s asset management arm has been taken over by Allianz Global Investors (AGI). This is a harbinger of the changes that are in store for the fund management industry in Germany where AUM at open-ended funds plummeted by more than 20% last year at EUR576bn while the EUR70bn inflows of 2007 converted into EUR13bn outflows.Changes in business models are overdue, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, since cost-income ratios have risen strongly (to 70% from 60% for one of the leading companies). Boutiques and big players like DWS, Deka, Union or AGI will survive, but middle-sized companies will have to struggle. According to an asset management professional, the BVI association presently has 90 members. 30 to 40 would be more than enough to adequately serve the German market.

As part of the planned partition in Julius Baer Group (private banking) and GAM Holding (asset management), Julius Baer Holding has released revised pro forma results for 2008 which take into account integration costs and goodwill related to the acquisitions in 2005 of three private banks and GAM from UBS. Pro forma net profits for Julius Baer Group total CHF364.8m, rather than CHF449m, while pro forma net profits for GAM Holding come out to CHF275.5m, down from CHF382.2m.Assets under management for GAM Holding at the end of 2008 totalled CHF146.94bn, while for Julius Baer Group, these assets totalled CHF127.59bn, in addition to which there are CHF63.62bn under administration.

Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management has announced the recruitment of Gwénaël Le Carvennec as a convertible bond manager. He joins the convertible bonds team led by Kris Deblander. Le Carvennec was previously a trader operating on owners’ equity in convertible bonds in Europe, the United States, and Japan, first at ABC Arbitrage, and then at Banque d’Orsay, where he was in charge of the derivatives trading desk, EDRAM states.

Standish Mellon Asset Management Company LLC, an affiliate of BNY Mellon Asset Management specialised in fixed income, has announced that in early July, it will launch products which allow its clients to invest in assets related to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF). Ideally, the first subscribers to ABS in the TALF program will be the ones to earn the largest gains, says Desmond MacIntyre, president & CEO of Standish (USD55bn in assets as of 1 April). In theory, the larger the amounts invested, the further the spreads will diminish.Standish will construct a product which will focus on new issues of consumer ABS and CMBS, while a second product will specialise in non-agency CMBS, consumer ABS, and non-agency RMBS.

As of the end of March, assets in ETFs in Europe were down 5.89% from their levels at the end of December, to EUR97.86bn, according to a study by Lyxor Asset Management on the basis of data provided by Bloomberg and asset management firms, Funds People reports. Assets under management in emerging markets ETFs, however, were up 66.69%, and strategic ETFs (inverse or leveraged funds) were up 63.76%. Bond and money market ETFs also increased in volume, but equities remain the largest segment, with 68.4% of total assets.

In a press release, the nordic asset management firm Alfred Berg, owned by Fortis Investment Management, has announced the launch of a Luxembourg-registered fund called Global Alpha, “based on its quantitative stock-picking process.” The fund will be available on nordic and European markets. Citywire reports in an article dated 3 June that the asset management company is planning to register the product for sale in France. Alfred Berg has assets under management of EUR16bn.

According to statistics dating from 2007, the Chinese wealth management market had doubled since 2000, to a total of USD350bn. At the end of 2007, there were about 415,000 high net worth investors (HNWI) with financial assets of over USD1m, and 6,038 ultra-high net worth investors (UHNWI) with more than USD30m, according to a Celent study (http://www.celent.com/124_1600.htm). Hua Zhang, an analyst at the Asia Research Group at Celent, says the major challenges for the wealth management industry lies in the fact that products are undifferentiated, and a prevailing ignorance about global asset allocation. In addition to this there is a lack of protection of clients’ personal information and genuine risks in need of management. Lastly, the sector is suffering from a lack of high quality professionals.

Clients of major LBO funds are in a favourable position to renegotiate management fees and manager pay scales, L’Agefi reports. The newspaper quotes a monthly study of investors conducted by AltAssets, which finds that 31% of respondents estimate that managing partners at vehicles such as Blackstone, KKR, TPG, Carlyle, and others, need to reduce their management fees by 2% of assets under management to a total of 0.5% to 0.9%. 13% of respondents feel that an alternative solution would be if fees were linked to performance.

La banque ne semble plus prête à faire évoluer ses politiques monétaire et non conventionnelle

La banque ne semble plus prête à faire évoluer ses politiques monétaire et non conventionnelle

Les gérants de hedge funds retrouvent un peu d’optimisme en la fidélité de leurs clients. Après avoir atteint 25 % des actifs des fonds au dernier trimestre 2008, les demandes de rachat ne devraient en effet plus représenter que 10 % des encours en 2009, indique Barclays Capital dans son étude " Picking up the Pieces», menée auprès de 300 investisseurs institutionnels (fonds de pension, banques privées, fondations etc) et 100 gérants de hedge funds.

Les investisseurs particuliers sont revenus dans les fonds aux Etats-Unis, au Royaume-Uni et en Europe en avril, rapporte Financial News (cité dans le Wall Street Journal). Par exemple, en Europe, les sociétés de gestion ont enregistré des souscriptions nettes de 11 milliards d’euros au T1, soit le triple des flux enregistrés sur l’ensemble de 2008.

Kristin Halvorsen, ministre des Finances, a annoncé mercredi lors du «sommet sur la stratégie d’investissement» du fonds de pension Government Pension Fund - Global que le gouvernement norvégien a sélectionné le cabinet Mercer comme consultant pour coordonner un important projet de recherche destiné à déterminer l’impact du changement climatique sur les marchés financiers ainsi que les implications de ce phénomène sur l’allocation d’actifs stratégique.Oslo encourage d’autres investisseurs institutionnels ainsi que des groupes industriels du monde entier à se joindre à ce projet.

Selon L’Echo, le fonds KKR va céder une partie de sa participation dans le sud-coréen Oriental Brewery (OB) à Affinity Equity Partners, basé à Hong-Kong, qui pourrait selon Bloomberg débourser jusqu'à 400 millions de dollars.