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03/03/2009

Royaume-Uni - Le bénéfice de HSBC en chute libre

Le géant britannique de la banque a annoncé hier une chute de 70% de ses résultats nets en 2008 à 5,7 milliards de dollars, et la suppression de 6.100 suppressions emplois aux Etats-Unis.L’enseigne a également indiqué qu’elle va lancer augmentation de capital de 17,7 milliards de dollars (14,05 milliards d’euros) en faisant appel à des investisseurs privés et non à des fonds publics comme RBS ou la Lloyds Les dividendes sont revus à la baisse à 0,64 dollar (0,51 euro) par titre, soit 29% de moins qu’en 2007 et aucun bonus ne sera servi aux cadres dirigeants de la banque britannique, PDG compris.
03/03/2009

World - 2009 will be the worst year of declining dividends since 1938

US investors are facing the worst year of falling dividends since 1938, according to estimates by Standard & Poor’s, cited by the Financial Times. Big businesses worldwide are cutting back their dividend payments to shareholders. The most recent firms to have done so are HSBC, PNC Financial, and International Paper.
03/03/2009

Spain - Infobolsa will distribute information on VDOS funds

Infobolsa, a 50/50 joint venture by Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) and Deutsche Börse, has signed an agreement with the Spanish firm VDOS Stochastics to make all information on investment funds, Sicav funds, foreign management firms, and retirement savings plans produced by VDOS Stochastics available on Infobolsa terminals in Spain. Cinco Días states that Infobolsa and VDOS will launch join commercial activities, to serve management professionals and distribute services and investment fund analysis tools.
03/03/2009

France - Blackstone recruits Gérard Errera as special advisor

On Monday, Blackstone announced that Gérard Errera, who for the past two years has been secretary general at the French foreign ministry, will take over on 1 April as special advisor to the group. He will be based in Paris, and will be a member of the international advisory board at the private equity investment firm. In his new role, Errera will focus primarily on the development of Blackstone’s activities in France and continental Europe. He is currently also a member of the boards of directors at EDF and Areva.
03/03/2009

France - AMF approval for Reyl France

Reyl France on Monday announced that it has received a new license from the French market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), to select and incorporate hedge funds into its dynamic management mandates, which will allow it to optimise the diversification of portfolios. The management firm says it ?succeeded in demonstrating that the human and electronic procedures deployed internally ensure that clients will receive optimal management of risks related to indirect alternative management activities.?However, Dorothée Marty, chair, says that in the short term, Reyl France is in ?no hurry? to make use of alternative management products.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - iShares to launch five bond ETFs

?To satisfy strong demand from investors,? Barclays Global Investors (BGI) has decided to launch five physically-based ETF funds bearing the iShares brand by the end of the month. The products will be listed on the LSE, and include the iShares Barclays Capital Global Aggregate Bond, iShares Barclays Capital Euro Aggregate Bond and iShares Barclays Capital Euro Corporate Bond, based on the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond indexes.The other two products are the iShares Barclays Capital Euro Treasury Bond 0-1, which will replicate the performance of a basket of fixed-rate government bonds denominated in Euros with maturities of 0 to 12 months, and the iShares Citigroup Global Government Bond, which covers 500 government bonds issued by G7 countries.
03/03/2009

Germany - Flowers parts with Renate Krummer

The private equity investment firm J.C. Flowers has announced the resignation of Renate Krümmer, with effect from 31 March. Krümmer has been director of the firm’s activities in Germany since early 2007, and was behind its disastrous investments in Hypo Real Estate (HRE) and HSH Nordbank, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.
03/03/2009

Spain - More losses for retirement savings

According to Mercer, Spanish retirement savings plans suffered average losses of 2.3% in February, bringing losses since the beginning of the year to 4.1%, Expansión reports. The worst results were for plans specialised in Euro equities, which lost 11.7% in February and 19.1% in the first two months of 2009. Over one year, these plans show losses of 34%.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - RBS gives stock options to chairman

Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank in which British taxpayers control a majority stake, has been granted GBP1.5m in stock options, in addition to his GBP750,000 salary, the Financial Times reports.
03/03/2009

Europe - Lombard Odier recruits a director from UBS

Lombard Odier has announced the appointment of Michael Kuenzi as director for eastern countries, including Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. Kuenzi joins the firm from UBS, where he was previously head of wealth management for Russia.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - Knight Vinke says HSBC got what it deserved

In a statement published on 2 March, the activist investor Knight Vinke has claimed ?revenge? as HSBC has announced a write-down on its investment in Household International. ?For two years, Knight Vinke has asked HSBC to withdraw from the US subprime market ? to concentrate on markets where it had a real competitive advantage, ,? the statement says. ?The board of directors has finally admitted that its catastrophic investment in Household International, described not long ago by the board of directors as a ‘dream portfolio,’ was valueless.?Knight Vinke remains concerned, since it claims HSBC still overestimates the value of its US subprime assets by USD34bn.
03/03/2009

World - Reshuffle at Franklin Templeton

Vivek Kudva, president for India, has been appointed managing director of Franklin Templeton Investments, and will be in charge of India and also the entirety of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA), with effect from 1 March, Global Pensions reports. Harshendu Bindal will become president of asset management for India from 1 April; he was previously senior director for the CEEMEA region. Both will be based in Mumbai.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - SEI launches new services for wealth managers

SEI announced on Monday that it has launched a new range of services aimed at wealth managers in the United Kingdom and available on its Global Wealth Platform, launched two years ago. The services will allow clients to more efficiently generate accounts for their clients, and will provide the necessary compliance characteristics in an evolving regulatory environment. Wealth managers will also be able to make grouped transactions involving all of their clients, and to create client reports grouped by family or by type of client. The new services will also provide wealth managers with risk configuration options and tools to improve pre- and post-trade compliance of investments.
03/03/2009

United States - KKR Financial Holdings in the red

The publicly traded fund KKR Financial Holdings has posted a loss for fourth quarter of USD1.2bn, or USD7.85 per share, compared with net profits of USD59.9m, or 52 cents per share, in October-December 2007. For last year as a whole, losses total USD1.1bn, or 7.68 per share, compared with net profits of USD100.2m, or USD1.11 per share, the previous year.The fund will pay no dividend for fourth quarter 2008, and is planning to pay no cash dividends in 2009. The directors estimate, however, that the fund has sufficient liquidity or access to liquidity to keep up with its financial liabilities for at least the next twelve months.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - USS adds to alternative management staff

The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS, GBP23bn in assets) has made its first recruitment as part of a new policy which will aim to double the proportion of its portfolio allocated to hedge funds to 20% in the mid-term. The pension fund has recruited Emily Porter as portfolio manager for its absolute performance strategies program; she will report to Mike Powell, head of alternative assets.Professional Pensions reports that Porter was previously investment director at Key Asset Management, where she was in charge of research for event-driven and distressed hedge funds, and managed the portfolios of multi-strategy funds of hedge funds.
03/03/2009

World - ICGN calls for shareholders' help in fight against corruption

Professional Pensions reports that the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), which includes institutional investors worth USD9.5trn, has called on shareholders to ensure that companies they invest in have put in place preventative and disciplinary structures to combat corruption. In the document, which includes a checklist, the ICGN also recommends that investors themselves set up the corresponding controls at their own organisations.
03/03/2009

United Kingdom - Tilney changes name to Deutsche Bank PWM

Tilney Investment Management announced on Monday that it is changing the name of its commercial brand Tilney Private Wealth Management to Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management (PWM). David Campbell, former CEO of Tilney, becomes global head of global investment solutions at Deutsche Bank PWM. He says the name change aims to reassure existing clients and to attract new ones. The Deutsche Bank group acquired Tilney in December 2007. The firm Tilney Investment Management will continue to exist legally.
03/03/2009

Spain - Local alternative management contracts by 40%

After the announcement by BBVA of the closure of Próxima Alfa (see Newsmanagers of 27 February), total assets in Spanish alternative management will fall to about EUR940m, which represents a contraction of 40% compared with its levels at the end of July 2008, Funds People reports. For funds of funds, the decline measures 45%, to EUR560m (excluding funds in the process of liquidation), while for single hedge funds, the decline is 30% to EUR380m.
03/03/2009

France - BNPP IP appoints two deputy CEOs under Gilles Glicenstein

BNP Paribas Investment Partners has announced the appointment of Philippe Marchessaux, director of marketing, FundQuest, and wealth management, and Pascal Biville, COO and head of financial management, human resources, operations and IT, as deputy CEOs under Gilles Glicenstein, director and CEO. BNPP IP says the appointments have the objective of strengthening management, in order to ?reinforce the development of the various management firms that compose BNPP IP, consolidate expertise, and strengthen services to BNPP IP clients.?The new management team will continue to report to the executive committee, led by Glicenstein, and composed of Biville, Vincent Camerlynck, Christian Dargnat, Guy de Froment, Marchessaux, Chantal Mazzacurati and Michel Anastassiades (director of FundQuest), who joins the executive board.
03/03/2009

United States - Contrafund from Fidelity lost 37.2% in 2008

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Contrafund (USD45.9bn), reopened in mid-December by Fidelity Investments, after being closed to new investors since April 2006, suffered losses of 37.2% last year, which corresponds to roughly the same amount as the S&P 500 lost in the same time, but outperforms other Fidelity heavyweight products, such as the Magellan Fund and the Growth & Income Portfolio. The manager, Will Danoff, admits that he kept his bets on stocks such as Google, Apple, and RIM for too long. However, he correctly adopted an underweight position on IT shares, and performance was considerably improved by a strong exposure to Genetech.
03/03/2009

United States - Hopes fade of recovering assets invested with Stanford

Ralph Janvey, the administrator designated to liquidate the assets of Sir Allen Stanford, announced on Monday that he would probably only recuperate a few hundreds of millions of US dollars for investors, instead of the billions which he had originally hoped to recover, due to the ?appalling? condition of the financial empire built by the Texan businessman, the Financial Times reports. The announcement comes as a Federal judge has extended a freeze on Stanford investors’ accounts for a further 10 days.
03/03/2009

United States - ?Bad banks? idea evolves towards public-private partnerships

The Obama administration is abandoning its idea of creating a class of ?bad banks,? since it would be the only investor left to buy up toxic assets, and would overpay for them with taxpayers’ money, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to sources close to the government, plans are now developing more in the direction of a public-private partnership, which would create several funds managed by private managers, who would agree to invest in the funds themselves, and which would be supported jointly by part of the USD700bn bailout plan, the Fed, and an issue of government-guaranteed shares. Other investors such as pension funds would also be allowed to participate in the funds, and the government would work to encourage subscriptions and to minimise risk for retail investors.
03/03/2009

United States - Allen Stanford's fraud was a gigantic Ponzi scheme

In a new version of its charges against the Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, the SEC has called the fraud a ?gigantic Ponzi scheme,? Les Echos reports. The newspaper explains that this type of fraud involves paying off existing investors in the scheme with money from incoming investors. An investigation by the US authorities has implicated Stanford and his CFO, James M. Davis. The two men are accused of skimming off billions of dollars and falsifying the accounts of Stanford International Bank (SIB), the newspaper reports.
03/03/2009

Italy - Advanced Capital launches a private equity fund of funds

Advanced Capital is launching a private equity fund of funds specialised in real estate, entitled AC Real Estate Global Opportunity fund, which will have EUR300m in capital, Il Sole - 24 Ore reports. The fund will be advised by Rèal Desrochers, recently mandated to manage alternative investments for the pension fund CalSTRS, and will be suppoerted by Mediobanca. Seth Lieberman, formerly of UBS, will be head of real estate.
02/03/2009

Etats-Unis - 30 USD milliards d'aide supplémentaire pour AIG

Selon le site Boursorama, qui cite l’agence AP, l’assureur américain AIG pourrait recevoir 30 milliards de dollars supplémentaires de la part de la réserve fédérale. La compagnie d’assurance s’apprêterait à faire état d’une nouvelle perte trimestrielle de 60 milliards de dollars, précise Boursorama. Depuis septembre, les autorités ont investi 150 milliards de dollars dans le groupe AIG pour le sauver de la faillite.

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