As announced at the end of February, Gartmore on 14 April released for sale an absolute return fund focused on the United Kingdom. Hedge Week reports that the Gartmore UK Absolute Return Fund is a UCITS III compliant product, which will take long and short positions on UK equities, and which will be managed by Ben Wallace, following the same strategy as the AlphaGen Octanis Fund, which he has managed since its launch in March 2005. The new fund comes as an addition to an AR product range that already includes the Gartmore MultiManager Absolute Return and Gartmore European Absolute Return funds.

Money Marketing reports that Dan Roberts, who since August 2005 had been manager of the equity income fund from Aviva Investors (GBP148m), has joined Gartmore.

Permal, an affiliate of Legg Mason specialised in hedge fund management, has launched its first traditional investment fund, the Legg Mason Permal Tactical Allocation Fund, Funds People reports. The product invests in multiple asset classes (equities, bonds, money markets), and may invest without geographical constraints. It is authorised to acquire shares in actively- or passively-managed funds.

Fortis Investments has announced that its Chinese joint venture Fortis Haitong will become the first management firm to pay a dividend (of CNY0.2 for every 10 shares) on a fund (launched in 2008) with the status of Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) in China.

Curtis Butler will be making a comeback to fund management, after leaving Legg Mason last October, Citywire reports. The manager will sdet up an emerging markets desk at LODH in New York. He will take charge of the LODH Invest - Global Emerging Market fund, which was previously managed by Lloyd George.

At the Boao Forum for Asia, Lou Jiwei, head of the sovereign fund China Investment Corp., has announced that the fund plans to invest in Europe, now that European officials have become slightly more humble, the Financial Times reports. He also thanked European officials for saving him a lot of money by dissuading him from investing in Europe in 2008, due to the doubts they expressed about the transparency of the Chinese sovereign fund and its intentions.

More than half of managers are planning to increase their use of liquidity ?dark pools?, according to a recent survey by Liquidnet, cited by the Financial Times. The sentiment was strongest in Europe, where three quarters of managers said they were planning to do so.

Financière de l"Echiquier is merging its FCP funds Exchiquier Excelsior and Exchiquier Excelsior Europe. Through a contribution of half of their management fees, the two funds provide financing for the Fondation Financière de l"Echiquier, which was founded in 2005 under the aegis of the Fondation de France to ?campaign for insertion and education in France,? the management firm declares in a statement announcing that it will be increasing its funding of the organisation.?Financière de l"Echiquier has decided to merge the two funds Echiquier Excelsior and Echiquier Excelsior Europe in order to concentrate in a single portfolio its research and management efforts to select French and European small and midcaps. Thanks to its very large selection universe, particularly promising for investors passionate about enterprise businesses, Ecquiquier Excelsior will be likely to attract more investors, and thus generate more resources for the Foundation. With a strengthened dedicated team, Exchiquier will now be the sole and well-identified vehicle to fly the colours of the Foundation,? Financière de l"Echiquier says in a statement.The management firm is also developing a network of donors for its Foundation. ?This is constituted of provider-partners and retail investors, whether or not they are clients of the Financière de l"Echiquier, who have awareness of the ongoing actions, and who may benefit from tax deductions on their donations.?Philippe Lévêque, CEO of Care France, has also been appointed to the Engagement Committee at the Foundation. He will be in charge of selecting projects for support.?With a strong cumulative budget of over EUR2.4m, the Fondation Financière de l"Echiquier has already supported 50 projects, of which 55% are focused on labour insertion, and 27% on education, while 18% are categorised as ?core team projects,? as they emanate directly from employees of Financière de l"Echiquier,? the management firm states.

European high net worth private investors, who were the first to invest in hedge funds, were also the first to get out during the crisis, according to a study by the Bank of New York Mellon and Casey Quirk, cited by the Financial Times. Last year, high net worth individuals (HNWI) represented 80% (or more than USD500bn) of redemptions from hedge funds, though they only represent two thirds of assets in these funds. The redemptions went primarily to European clients.

On Monday, Deutsche Börse will announce the admission to trading on the XTF segment of the electronic Xetra platform of ETF and ETC products from Source, the joint venture platform from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The management firm (KAG) selected by Source for the listings is the German-registered Assenagon Asset Management.

The investment committee at CalPERS, which is meeting on Monday, will vote on a motion to launch a multi-strategy fund of hedge funds as part of its incubator ?Sprout Program.? The fund of funds would give managers in the process of starting up 2 to 3 years to establish a performance track record. Those who post the best results will be granted a spin-off fund, created through an acquisition of the shares in the fund, which they could then continue to manage, Global Pensions reports. CalPERS, which has assets of USD5.9bn in shares in hedge funds and funds of hedge funds (and lost 19.% on this portfolio in 2008), is seeking to reduce its spending on management commissions for these funds, but it is prepared to pay more in performance commissions.Global Pensions also reports that as of the end of March, assets under management in the pension fund totalled USD171.6bn, 6.7% less than three months previously.

ETFlab has launched a new fund entitled DAXplus Maximum Dividend. The ETF tracks the evolution of share prices for the 20 companies which pay the highest dividends on the Hdax index. Management fees for the fund are 0.30% per year.

Dave Dudding, manager of the Threadneedle European Select Fund, is sticking to a defensive approach to the management of his portfolio. Given the high volatility of the markets, he is staying concentrated on defensive sectors, such as basic consumer goods and health care, the management firm says in a release. The fund is still considerably underweight on the financial sector, while Nestlé is currently one of the manager’s top picks.

The Credit Suisse/Tremont hedge fund index has at last posted positive returns of 0.65% in March, lower than the 0.85% previously announced on the basis of results for 55% of the sample (see Newsmanagers of 9 April). The index lost 0.88% in February. For first quarter as a whole, the index shows gains of 0.85%.In March, dedicated short bias funds posted average losses of 5.47%, while emerging markets funds showed returns of 2.24%. In January-March, the most lucrative strategy was convertible arbitrage, with gains of 7.72%, while the least lucrative strategy was equity market neutral, with losses of 3.49%.

The Inverco association of management firms on Friday published its annual study of management commission levels, including administration and distribution fees. The study shows that as of the end of December, the average level of fees was 0.97%, which represents a 6.7% decrease from a level of 1.04% twelve months earlier. The decline has been constant over the past 14 years. At the end of 1994, average commissions were 1.63%, and the decrease since that time represents 40.5%.The least expensive products as of the the end of 2008 were short-term bonds (0.62%), which represent 25.7% of total assets, and money market funds (0.72%), which account for 20.3%.Management commissions are legally limited to 2.25%, and Inverco points our that the average charge for funds comes in at 43% of this amount. Subscription and redemption commissions, for their part, represent about 0.01% by weighted average, though the theoretical legal limit is 5% for each type of fee.

Citywire reports that Franck le Franc, who left Neuflize Gestion at the beginning of this year, will manage the Sominter mixed fund at his new firm, Somangest-Vesigest.

According to Citywire, César de Brito has left LODH, where he managed the Clean Tech fund. The product will now be managed by Bolko Hohaus.

Source, an open architecture platform created by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, on Monday launched thirteen Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs, or trackers), and 22 Exchange Traded Commodities (T-ETC).?One of the key elements for Source is liquidity. In the United States, daily trading volumes on the stock market are over USD90bn (of which 17% is for ETFs/Trackers), while in Europe the volume is about USD2bn (less than 2% for ETFs). Source is hoping to reduce this difference by centralising asset flows on a single stock market, Deutsche Börse, offering total return products and offering investors multiple choices of counterparties to create healthy competition which benefits the final investor. These elements represent significant improvements from as compared to existing products,? according to a press release.

According to a survey by two researchers at the European institute of business administration (Insead), Lily Fang and Joel Peress, and Lu Zhang of the University of California - Irvine, American managers tend to buy or sell shares featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In the period 1993-2002, managers focused more attention on firms which are mentioned more frequently in these newspapers, more in their purchases and than in their sales of securities.

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Selon les données d’Europerformance-SIX Telekurs publiées par Les Echos, les actifs des fonds français sont restés stables en mars. Seuls les OPCVM monétaires traditionnels ont enregistré des souscriptions significatives (3,6 milliards d’euros). Côté performances, un fonds monétaire a rapporté en moyenne 0,41 %, contre 0,84 % pour un fonds investi en obligations de la zone euro.

Selon Citywire, Franck le Franc, qui a quitté Neuflize Gestion en début d’année, va gérer le fonds diversifié Sominter dans sa nouvelle société, Somangest-Vesigest.

Financière de l"Echiquier fusionne ses FCP Echiquier Excelsior et Echiquier Excelsior Europe. Grâce au versement de la moitié de leurs frais de gestion, ces deux fonds permettent de financer la Fondation Financière de l"Echiquier. Cette dernière a été créée en 2005 sous l"égide de la Fondation de France pour «agir en en faveur de l"insertion et de l"éducation en France», précise la société de gestion dans un communiqué où elle annonce qu"elle renforce les moyens de cet organisme. «Echiquier Excelsior et Echiquier Excelsior Europe. Financière de l"Echiquier a décidé de fusionner ces deux fonds afin de concentrer, au sein d"un portefeuille unique, son travail de recherche et de gestion sur une sélection de petites et moyennes valeurs françaises et européennes. Grâce à son univers de valeurs très large et particulièrement prometteur pour l"investisseur passionné de l"entreprise, Echiquier Excelsior sera susceptible d’attirer plus d’investisseurs, générant ainsi plus de ressources pour la Fondation. Doté d"une équipe dédiée et renforcée, Echiquier Excelsior sera désormais le véhicule unique et bien identifié pour porter les couleurs de la Fondation», indique la Financière de l"Echiquier dans son communiqué. Parallèlement, la société de gestion développe un réseau de donateurs pour sa Fondation. «Celui-ci est constitué de fournisseurs-partenaires et de particuliers, clients ou non de Financière de l"Echiquier, sensibles aux actions soutenues et qui bénéficient de la fiscalité avantageuse des dons». Enfin, Philippe Lévêque, Directeur Général de Care France, vient d"entrer au Comité d"Engagement de la Fondation, dont le rôle est de sélectionner les projets à soutenir. «Forte d"un budget cumulé de plus de 2,4 millions d"euros, la Fondation Financière de l"Echiquier a déjà soutenu une cinquantaine de projets. 55% d"entre eux sont axés sur l"insertion par l"emploi, 27% sur l"éducation et 18% sont qualifiés de «projets coups de c?ur de l"équipe» car ils émanent directement des salariés de Financière de l"Echiquier», précise la société de gestion.

Selon Money Marketing, Dan Roberts, qui gérait depuis août 2005 l’equity income fund d’Aviva Investors (458 millions de livres) a rejoint Gartmore.

ETF Securities indique avoir enregistré au premier trimestre des souscriptions nettes record pour ses ETC spécialistes des métaux précieux, l’encours total atteignant fin mars 6,8 milliards de dollars. Les souscriptions nettes ont gonflé de plus de 400 % en janvier-mars par rapport à la période correspondante de l’an dernier. Les deux ETC spécialistes de l’or, ETFS Physical Gold (PHAU) et Gold Bullion Securities (GBS), notamment, ont enregistré une augmentation 1,3 million d’onces de leurs actifs (soit 1,1 milliard de dollars) à 7,4 millions d’once ou 6,5 milliards de dollars. Les souscriptions ont augmenté à 3,7 fois la vitesse constatée pour le T4 de 2008.

Comme annoncé fin février, Gartmore a lancé le 14 avril la commercialisation d’un fonds de performance absolue focalisé sur le Royaume-Uni. Hedge Week rapporte que le Gartmore UK Absolute Return Fund est un produit conforme à la directive OPCVM III qui peut prendre des positions longues et courtes sur des actions britanniques et qui sera géré par Ben Wallace selon la même stratégie que l’AlphaGen Octanis Fund, qu’il gère depuis le lancement en mars 2005. Le nouveau fonds vient compléter une gamme de performance absolue comprenant déjà les fonds Gartmore MultiManager Absolute Return et Gartmore European Absolute Return.

ETFlab a lance un nouveau fonds, baptisé DAXplus Maximum Dividend. L’ETF suit l'évolution des 20 sociétés présentant le rendement de dividendes le plus élevé parmi les valeurs de l’indice Hdax. Les frais de gestion s'élèvent à 0,30 % par an.

La Deutsche Börse annoncera ce lundi l’admission à la négociation sur le segment XTF de la plate-forme électronique Xetra d’ETF et d’ETC lancés par Source, la plate-forme commune de Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs et Morgan Stanley. La société de gestion (KAG) choisie par Source est l’allemand Assenagon Asset Management.

Les riches européens, qui étaient les premiers à investir dans les hedge funds, ont aussi été les premiers à sortir pendant la crise, selon une étude de Bank of New York Mellon et Casey Quirk citée par le Financial Times. Les personnes fortunées (HNWI) ont représenté l"année dernière 80 % (soit plus de 500 milliards de dollars) des rachats des hedge funds, alors qu"ils ne détenaient que les deux tiers des actifs. Les retraits ont principalement été européens.

Fortis Investments a annoncé que sa joint-venture chinoise Fortis Haitong est la première société de gestion qui va verser un dividende (de 0,2 yuan pour 10 parts) sur un fonds (lancé en 2008) bénéficiant du statut de Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) en Chine.