Barclays is about to sell iShares, the Wall Street Journal reports. As of Friday, there were several candidates to acquire the business: Bain Capital and Colony Capital, Apax Partners and Hellman & Friedman, CVC Partners, and lastly, Goldman Sachs. The sale will fetch an estimated USD5bn.

In February, the HFR global hedge fund index posted a gain of 0.38%, which brings performance since the beginning of the year to 0.71%. For 2008 as a whole, the index posted losses of 23.25%, compared with gains of 4.23% in 2007 and 9.26% in 2006.

?This year, we wil set up a socially responsible investment practice,? said Pierre Bougeard, director of financial management at Maif, in a session at the GI Forum dedicated to SRI. ?There will be a charter distributed to all employees to inform them, and we will also inform our members,? he says. Maif previously established a plan to place 15% of its investments in equities OPCVM funds with SRI management, which has now been achieved. The plan now is to introduce SRI management in other asset classes, particularly bonds.Bougeard says that for SRI, there is now a ?plethora? of product offerings, and, he says, these investments are defined ?not in terms of a product range which an institutional investor can choose from, but the criteria? of the investor itself.

Following in the footsteps of the Banif Inmobiliario fund about two months ago, the Segurfondo Inversion fund from Inverseguros is suspending redemptions from 31 March 2009 to 31 March 2011, Expansión reports. The fourth-largest Spanish real estate fund is unable to keep up with redemption demands totalling EUR585m, or 96.8% of its assets. The Segurfondo has 478 subscribers, of whom the largest are Mapfre, Aegon, Allianz Zurich, Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros (CCS) and Nacional de Reaseguros. The fund will redeem 10% of its assets at the end of March in two rounds, one in April and the other in June, after selling off assets from its portfolio.

Citywire has tested the performance of 1,200 professionals at the helm of 2,300 funds available in France. The top three places in both France and Europe belong to Andrzej Kawalec, Romain Burnand and Thomas Perrotin, all managers at Moneta AM, La Tribune reports. Slightly further down in the rankings are Pascal Riégis of Oddo AM, Lucile Loquès of Covéa Finance, Philippe Desurmont of SMA Gestion, and Frédéric Leroux of Carmignac Gestion.

CalPERS is demanding better conditions from hedge funds, including lowered fees. The demands are contained in a letter sent to 26 hedge funds and 9 funds of hedge funds which work with the pension fund on 11 March, of which a copy has been obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

The British Serious Fraud Office suspects that Madoff Securities International Ltd. of London was involved in Madoff’s fraud network, the Wall Street Journal reports. In 2008, the US firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities transferred GBP698m to its London affiliate, which in return wired GBP1.1bn to the US parent company. The payment allowed Madoff to convey the impression that London was a centre of profit. The Serious Fraud Office may in the next few months charge several people related to the UK operation, which employed 25 staff and appears to have had real operations. But declared operating profits in 2007 were limited to GBP7.6m.

Antigua is planning to open a criminal investigation into the activities of Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan businessman accused by US regulators of a USD8bn fraud, the Financial Times reports. The investigation would concentrate on Sir Allen’s takeover of Guiana, the largest of Antigua’s offshore islands.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to the quarterly survey of financial services published this monday by the Confederation of British Industry and PwC, 55% of businesses surveyed have reported a fall in net revenues from interest and revenue on their trading activities; 53% say their commission revenues and premiums fell in first quarter. In both cases, these are the worst results since the beginning of the data series 19 years ago. To compensate for the fall in profits, financial sector businesses have cut their staff at the fastest pace since 1993.

L’Agefi reports that SG Private Banking (SGPB), the private banking affiliate of Société Générale, will cut its staff in Asia (excluding Japan) by slightly under 10%. ?50 jobs will be affected, out of staff of 600 in China, India, Hong Kong and Singapore, and 2,900 personnel worldwide,? the news agency reports.

The Financial Services Authority has single out asset management firms for criticism of their lack of organisation and riak analysis, the Financial Times reports. These lacunae may compel the regulator to impose stricter owners’ equity requirements. Alain Grisay, CEO of F&C Asset Management, says that ?after New Star, the UK regulator is looking at the balance sheets of asset management firms. It doesn’t want the segment to implode.?

Eric Bourguignon, directeur général adjoint de CCR Gestion

Hugues de Montbel, gérant actions européennes chez Credit Suisse AM France

Stefan Isaacs, gérant des fonds crédit européens chez M&G Investments

Alexandre Bourgeois, chef économiste adjoint chez Natixis

Catherine Garrigues, responsable de la gestion actions européennes chez Allianz Global Investors France

Si une refonte du FMI est possible, les pays sont en désaccord sur les plans de relance

Le scénario le plus probable reste celui d’un retour au point de départ à 1.765 points et de la cassure de ce support

La liste des catastrophes s’allonge, chez AIG. Ainsi le suisse AIG Private Equity Ltd, qui est détenu à 41 % par AIG et qui verse des commissions de gestion à AIG sur les investissements dans des fonds de capital-investissement, se traite à 87 % en dessous de la valeur liquidative, rapporte The Wall Street Journal. Le problème est que cette société, créée en 1999 par AIG Private Bank Suisse, accuse une dépréciation importante de son portefeuille placé dans des fonds de private equity gérés par Terra Firma Capital Partners, Blackstone, Carlyle ou CVC Capital Partners. A présent, AIG Private Equity Ltd vend des actifs pour réduire son endettement.

Dans un entretien à L"Agefi suisse, Pascal Boris, directeur général de BNP Paribas (Suisse), confirme l"objectif de la banque de faire progresser les actifs sous gestion de 10% par an, avec l"ambition d"atteindre 100 milliards de francs d"ici à 2012. L"an dernier, les actifs ont fondu de 15,4% à 36,7 millards de francs à cause de la déconfiture boursière et du repli des devises par rapport au franc mais l"établissement a récolté 2,9 milliards de francs d"argent frais, alors qu"il n"avait glané que 1,7 milliard un an plus tôt. Pascal Boris indique par ailleurs que « Paris ne nous impose aucune pression sur le secret bancaire ». « Nous respectons la surveillance consolidée envers notre maison-mère française, mais aucune information individuelle sur les comptes en Suisse n"a jamais été transmise et ne le sera pas davantage à l"avenir », souligne au quotidien Pascal Boris. Sur le handicap que pourrait constituer l"assouplissement du secret bancaire en Suisse, Pascal Boris répond que « le secret bancaire n"est qu"un élément parmi d"autres, comme la sécurité, l"Etat de droit, l"expertise qu"offre la Suisse. Si le secret devait effectivement être assoupli, l"expertise de la place financière suisse ne serait pas éliminée pour autant. De plus, un éventuel assouplissement serait également accepté par les autres pays pratiquant une forme ou une autre de secret, donc la compétitivité suisse ne serait pas remise en cause. Enfin, le renforcement des règles de coopération internationale ne concerne que les pays de l"OCDE. Or, la clientèle hors-OCDE représente une part importante des fonds déposés en Suisse ». Pascal Boris estime enfin que l"impact de la reprise de Fortis sur l"activité de BNP Paribas Suisse « serait considérable, car Fortis gérait en Suisse plus de 15 milliards de francs d"actifs fin 2007, ce qui doit probablement représenter entre 12 et 13 milliards actuellement. Fortis emploie également plus de 300 personnes dans la gestion de fortune et dans d"autres activités en Suisse ». L"an dernier, l"établissement basé à Genève a inscrit un bénéfice net avant impôts de 626 millions de francs, en baisse de 29,2% par rapport à l"exercice précédent et les recettes ont diminué de 12,6% à 1,21 milliard de francs.

The new Paris office of BNY Mellon Asset Management will begin offering US equities products from May, Ignites Europe reports. Anne-Laure Frischlander, managing director and head of French activities at BNY Mellon AM, estimates that French investors, who are currently 60% invested in cash, will begin returning to equities in late June.

HSBC has lent financial support to several of its money market funds, Ignites Europe reports in its 26 March edition. The bank took the ?commercial decision? to inject USD687bn into a number of its money market funds in October 2008.

Michael Queen, the new CEO of 3i, has warned that further write-downs are to be expected on the group’s private equity portfolio in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, the Financial Times reports. The firm has set itself the goal of reducing its net debt to GBP1bn in the next 12 to 15 months.

The list of catastrophes is growing at AIG. The Swiss management firm AIG Private Equity Ltd, which is 41% owned by AIG, and which pays management commissions to AIG on investments in private equity funds, is trading 87% below its net asset value, the Wall Street Journal reports. The problem is that the firm, founded in 1999 by AIG Private Bank Switzerland, has suffered a significant depreciation of its portfolio invested in private equity funds managed by Terra Firma Capital Partners, Blackstone, Carlyle and CVC Capital Partners. Currently, AIG Private Equity Ltd is selling the assets to reduce its debt.

The Austrian alternative management firm Salus Alpha has announced the launch of Salus Alpha Multi Style, which replicates the ABRX (Absolute Return Index) from its affiliate Alterantive-Index GmbH, a multiple manager, multiple strategy index, which in 2008 outperformed the FTSE Hedge Index Euro by 20.11 points, and the CSFB/Tremont index by 27.78 points (with losses of only 0.67% last year). The objective is to generate performance of 8-10% per year with low volatility. Until 1 April, Salus Alpha will charge no front-end fee.

Julius Baer has announced the launch of an agriculture and commodities fund in the United Kingdom, which will be invested 75% in equities and 25% in indexes and commodities. The product will be co-managed by Sabre Mayhugh and Belinda Cavazos at Wellington Management, where assets in agricultural portfolios total about USD1bn.The Julius Baer Agriculture Fund is a replica of an existing Luxembourg fund launched in June 2008; management commission is 1.6%.

Mutuactivos, the fund management affiliate of Mutua Madrileña, has launched Mutuafondo España, its first fund to invest primarily in Spanish equities, although its portfolio may include up to 25% Portuguese equities, Cinco Días reports. Management commission is limited to 0.5%, says Juan Aznar, CEO of Mutuactivos.

Toughening regulation of hedge funds will eliminate some, and cause attrition from the sector, according to Peter Clarke, CEO of Man Group, the Financial Times reports. The smallest hedge fund managers, who lack the means to adapt to increased demands of regulators, will be the hardest-hit.

An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into fraud at the Stanford companies is gaining pace, thanks to the cooperation of James Davis, CFO for the group, the Financial Times reports. Davis has spent the last two days with the SEC, the FBI, and the Justice Department.

The three top directors of GLG Partners have cut their own salaries, the Financial Times reports. Noam Gottesmann, Pierre Lagrange and Manny Roman, have agreed to receive a salary of 1 US dollar from April until the end of the year.