The 2007 accounts for the lead hedge fund from Weavering Capital, audited by Ernst & Young, do not mention British Virgin Islands, the offshore company controlled by its founder, Magnus Peterson, which it has recently emerged was the fund’s largest underwriter, the Financial Times reports. BVI’s inability to fulfil its obligations caused the collapse of Weavering and its fund.

The US authorities have no other choice but to avoid the catastrophic bankruptcy of large financial institutions in the current market environment, Ben Bernanke stated on Friday, the Financial Times reports. The chairman of the US Federal Reserve said the central bank would buy up assets, including government debt, to support the economy, and that a time will come when this support will no longer be necessary.

Bernard Madoff will remain in prison until his sentencing in June, the Financial Times reports. A federal appeals court in New York supported the verdict of a judge to immediately incarcerate Madoff following his guilty plea last week.

American management firms are preparing for another wave of layoffs, the Financial Times reports. Capital Group, the parent company of American Funds, has told its employees in an internal memo that it will be laying off more staff, following a reduction of 6% already announced.

Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco, Allianz group) has announced that its closed funds Corporate Income and Corporate Opportunity would pay dividends on Friday which had been delayed due to the depreciation of auction-rate securities (ARS) in their portfolio, the Wall Street Journal reports. The High Income Fund already paid out its dividend on Thursday. The three funds, and the Floating Rate Strategy Fund, have announced that they will honour dividend payments slated for 3 April. In all four cases, redemptions of ARS by Pimco will begin on 30 March. ARS redemptions for the fifth closed fund, which has announced the suspension of its dividend for April, will begin on 1 April. The fund has not yet stated when it will reopen.

The Australian businessman Hilton Nathanson pocketed USD123.7m from the sale of his alternative management firm, Marble Bar Asset Management (MBAM) to the Swiss management firm EFG International (see Newsmanagers of 3 December 2007). The Sunday Times reports that this amount was invested in the fund, which made money in 2008, at a time when hedge funds lost 18.3% on average.

The Sunday Times reports that the private equity investor Hellman & Friedman, in partnership with Carlyle and two other private equity firms which may be TPG and Apax, are offering Barclays USD5bn fro iShares (USD1trn in assets). Bain Capital is also reported to be leading another consortium of interested buyers.Barclays is offering to finance 80% of the transaction, a sign that it would like to close the deal before 31 March in order to avoid being nationalised as a result of being compelled to rely on the UK government’s toxic asset buyback programme.

Skandia has announced that, at the request of IFAs, it is increasing the number of passively-managed tracker funds on its platform Selestia Investment Solutions, and in its Life and Pensions range, with 8 new funds from Pictet, bringing the total of 21 funds on offer. Ten other tracker funds will be added to Skandia’s range in the next few months.

Jupiter Asset Management has ultimately decided not to launch the Jupiter China Sustainable Growth fund, as it has not achieved its target minimal volume of USD50m, Money Marketing reports. The project received the interest of come institutional investors, but the crisis clearly prevented the corresponding investments from materialising.

State Street Corporation is launching an expense management solution which will allow providers of investment funds to reduce their operating costs and risks associated with their management fees. The expense management service offered by State Street will provide a complete solution which can replace manual or partially automated management processes used in client fund operations. The solution will be integrated with the global accounting system from State Street, and makes it possible to automate account regularisation, budgeting, and payment processing processes as part of cost management, to proide investment fund promoters with the scope, precision and flexibility necessary to manage their expenses effectively. The new service follows integrated solutions for fund administration which include legal, treasury, financial reporting, fiscal reporting, and compliance support, all of which are designed to help investment fund promoters to outsource a larger number of operations to provide increased adaptability.

BlackRock Luxembourg has announced that it will be liquidating the Global Capital Securities Absolute Return Fund, which has assets of only USD37.56m, by 24 April at the latest, fondsweb.de reports. Subscriptions and redemptions of shares have already been suspended due to insufficient liquidity of assets in the fund. Liquidation costs will be charged on the administration commission.

Oddo AM is launching Oddo Opportunités, a diversified fund which aims to ?take advantage of attractive prices in all asset classes.? ?Whether it is corporate bonds or convertibles, value, thematic, or midcap equities, a wide variety of assets have been heavily punished by the markets, and are now undervalued. The mission of managers at Oddo AM is to select the shares which will be most likely to profit from a rebound on the financial markets,? a statement explains.Asset allocations will be targeted ?reactively? by the diversified management team, led by Mirela Agache. The team will also make use of forecasts determined by Group Oddo and Thierry Deheuvels, head of management.Currently, asset management privileges corporate and convertible bonds and also is invested in equities, though it highly selectively targets heavily devalued sectors. Commodities are being avoided at present. The fund has no exposure to currencies.Oddo Opportunités aims for high returns and is aimed at qualified investors willing to remain invested for the recommended period fo 5 years. In order to make it possible to direct asset allocation more coherently and to preserve outlooks for returns on investments, the fund has a limited subscription period and will be closed on 31 July 2009.

Although the chairman of the board, Franz Waas, has done much to restore stability at DekaBank since his arrival in early 2006, and he was wise enough to reduce the exposure of portfolios before the crisis began, he reinvested too soon, and worse, these investments went into derivative activities, which have suffered most heavily, the Frankurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The central management firm for the savings banks is now being required by its shareholders to cut back its portfolio of structured products, which represented EUR44bn in assets as of the end of June 2008. The firm will also have to call off plans to enlarge market activities, and it is not certain that the board’s term will be extended after the 2008 fiscal term.

Fidelity Investments has annoucned that it has recruited Christopher Sullivan, who was previously managing director and co-head of US fixed income at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was in charge of about USD150bn in assets, as president of its bond group. Sullivan will report to Michael E. Wilens, head of asset management, and will lead a team in charge of managing more than USD170bn in assets (as of the end of February).

Expansión reports that 427 investment funds currently have assets of less than EUR3m, the minimum established by the CNMV. If they cannot bring their assets above this level within one year after falling below it, they may be liquidated at the order of the regulator. The only exception to the EUR3m is a 6-month extension for newly-launched funds. Between November 2008 and February 2009, the number of funds in Spain fell from 3,060 to 2,881. In addition, there are about 300 funds with total assets of EUR3m-EUR5m, which are therefore vulnerable if the market continues its downward trajectory.Average assets under management are EUR60m in Spain, compared with EUR160m elsewhere in Europe, and more than EUR1bn in North America. And 10% of funds worldwide are Spanish, although they account for only 2% of assets.About half of all the funds with less than EUR3m in assets come from only 10 promoters, of whom Ahorro Corporación (57), La Caixa (45) and Santander (29) top the list.

Allianz Global Investors (AGI) is planning to complete its integration of cominvest by the end of 2010; the cominvest brand will then disappear, Financial Times Deutschland reports. In 2008, open-ended funds from AGI saw net redemptions of nearly EUR10bn, while cominvest managed to bring in net subscriptions. AGI and cominvest together had assets as of the end of 2008 of more than EUR300bn in assets, which makes it the top German asset management firm. But, as AGI’s clients are largely institutional investors, the integration of cominvest will not bring it higher than fourth place in the rankings of open-ended fund providers. With EUR70bn, AGI trails behind Deka (savings banks), DWS (Deutsche Bank), and Union Investment (co-operative banks).

Alexandre Caminade, responsable crédit chez Allianz Global Investors France

La correction entamée à 6.170 points en 2007 risque de se poursuivre jusqu’à la région des 2.150 points

La récession marquée en zone euro force les Trésors à relever leurs programmes d'émissions

La récession marquée en zone euro force les Trésors à relever leurs programmes d'émissions

Jean-François Virolle, directeur général délégué chez Global Equities Asset Management

Claire Chaves d’Oliveira, gérante actions européennes chez Groupama AM

Michael Soued, directeur du pôle taux & devises chez State Street Global Advisors France

Jean-Louis Mourier, coresponsable de la recherche économique & stratégie chez Aurel BGC

Contraints de s’adapter à un cadre réglementaire qui devient de plus en plus stricte, les acteurs du marché des contrats dérivés de protection contre le risque (CDS) s’engagent pour la création d’outils communs de marché. La Fédération bancaire française (FBF) et l’Association française des marchés financiers (Amafi) ont ainsi récemment transmis aux autorités françaises leurs différentes propositions, parmi lesquelles la création de chambres de compensation sur les grands produits dans chaque zone monétaire, «avec priorité aux CDS».Le projet de mise en place d’un cadre adapté à une chambre de compensation commune ne pourrait que difficilement se réaliser sans la participation des principaux acteurs sur ce marché. En février, les neuf plus importantes maisons du secteur des CDS (Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley et UBS) ont donc répondu aux souhaits de l’Union européenne et se sont engagés à utiliser une chambre de compensation centrale basée en zone euro et ce, d"ici à la fin juillet 2009. Elles ont par ailleurs proposé de dialoguer avec la Commission européenne et les régulateurs pour préparer un certain nombre de détails techniques. En attendant, la nature stratégique du secteur suscite un certain nombre de convoitises, le marché de la compensation des CDS étant évalué à 60.000 milliards d’euros. LCH.Clearnet Limited, basée à Londres, qui pourrait être achetée par la chambre américaine DTCC, a fait savoir qu’elle prévoit de se lancer sur la compensation des CDS en zone euro d’ici fin 2009, par le biais de LCH.Clearnet SA, la branche française du groupe. Eurex, la filiale de dérivés de Deutsche Börse est pour sa part à la recherche de partenaires potentiels sur ce créneau. Des discussions seraient d’ailleurs en cours entre le groupe allemand et LCH.Clearnet SA, rapportaient récemment Les Echos. Les acteurs en provenance des Etats-Unis et de Londres ne veulent pas laisser passer la manne de revenu en provenance de la compensation et sont eux aussi sur le pied de guerre. The IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), qui a ouvert début mars sa plate-forme de compensation pour les credit-default swaps (CDS) aux Etats-Unis ICE Trust, veut rééditer le modèle en Europe, en lançant avant fin juin une chambre de compensation baptisée ICE Trust Europe, qui sera régulée par la FSA britannique.

F&C Investments a complété sa gamme disponible en Allemagne avec le F&C Active Return (lire notre dépêche du 20 octobre 2008) qui est censé générer une surperformance après frais de 200-400 points de base par rapport au taux sans risque. Le produit, compartiment d’une Sicav de droit luxembourgeois, est géré par Stephen Crewe et Chris Childs, de F&C Alternative Investments, et il affiche liquidité journalière ainsi qu’une structure de frais simple, ce qui le différencie d’un hedge fund. Les parts sont disponibles en livres et en euros pour les institutionnels, en euros uniquement pour le retail.Les gérants mettent en oeuvre trois stratégies principales : d’abord, ils peuvent utiliser les options dans une approche market neutral ; ensuite, ils travaillent la volatilité ; enfin, ils ont la possibilité de miser sur la dispersion, la corrélation et les dividendes implicites.Pour les particuliers, le droit d’entrée peut atteindre 5 % maximum et la commission de gestion ressort à 1,5 % (1 % pour les investisseurs institutionnels).

Les autorités fédérales américaines s"apprêtent à étendre leur enquête à des avocats et à des comptables en Suisse et aux Etats-Unis qui auraient avaient conseillé UBS sur les meilleures astuces fiscales pour ne pas déclarer des clients américains, affirme le New York Times sur son site internet. L"enquête se concentre sur trois personnes.

Le conseil d’administration de DekaBank a accepté jeudi la proposition du directoire de ne pas statuer sur le quitus aux membres du directoire tant que les deux enquêtes menées par PwC (pour le directoire) et Deloitte & Touche (à l’initiative du président du conseil d’administration) n’auront pas été entièrement bouclées. Jusqu'à présent, elles n’ont produit aucun indice d’entorse aux règles bilancielles, précise le communiqué.Le conseil d’administration du gestionnaire d’actifs des caisses d'épargne allemandes a par ailleurs approuvé les comptes de 2008 qui ont été révisés le 27 février et qui font apparaître un bénéfice économique de 71,5 millions d’euros au lieu des 167,9 millions annoncés le 12 février. Cette révision à la baisse du résultat a provoqué les deux enquêtes mentionnées plus haut.

Burkhard Dallosch, l’un des dirigeants de l’Office de promotion de la construction de logements résidentiels de la NRW Bank, a été nommé COO de la division gestion d’actifs/immobilier (AMI) de DekaBank. Il remplace Josef Schultheis, qui part diriger Modalis Management à Berlin pour se spécialiser à nouveau sur les dossiers de restructuration.

Plus d"un investisseur institutionnel sur deux (54%) affirme être prêt à remettre en cause ses investissements dans des fonds luxembourgeois, affirme un sondage d"Amadeis réalisé auprès de 60 investisseurs français -institutionnels et distributeurs- représentant plus de 500 milliards d’euros. L"affaire Madoff est passée par là? De la même manière, 50% des investisseurs avouent désormais une défiance vis-à-vis de la gestion alternative.Au-delà de cette escroquerie, la crise affecte les comportements des investisseurs institutionnels. Ainsi, même si la grande majorité des investisseurs institutionnels (81 %) apprécie ses relations avec les sociétés de gestion, 19 % des investisseurs sont aujourd"hui insatisfaits de leurs prestataires, contre 10 % en 2008 et 3 % en 2007. Et les mauvaises performances arrivent largement en tête des causes d"insatisfaction. Dans les mêmes proportions que l"an dernier (78%), les investisseurs s"estiment globalement mal informés des risques réels des produits commercialisés par les sociétés de gestion. A l"inverse, la crise a renforcé l"intérêt de 38 % des investisseurs pour les ETF et 29% pour l"investissement responsable.