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08/01/2009

Germany - Bernd Greisinger and UI among the victims of Madoff

Handelsblatt reports that in mid-December, the five Luxembourg funds of funds from LRI managed by Bernd Greisinger had total exposure of 7% and 50%, respectively, to two Madoff funds, for a total of EUR20m. LRI is planning to sue the depositary bank (HSBC).Universal Investment (UI), for its part, states that four small funds with less than EUR10m each have been affected, but that they had an average investment of only 2% in Madoff funds. Universal is also planning to claim damages and interest from the depositary bank.
08/01/2009

United Kingdom - HSBC imports Luxembourg emerging market funds

HSBC Global Asset Management has extended its product range to British retail investors, and has made the ten global emerging markets (GEM) sub-funds of its Luxembourg Sicav GIF available on the Cofunds platform, Citywire reports. All the funds, including Indian Equity, Chinese Equity and BRIC Freestyle, may be traded and ?report? in Pounds Sterling.
08/01/2009

Germany - Subscribers primarily attracted by transparency of fees and security of funds

The BVI association of management firms is distributing a new flyer, which describes ?seven good reasons investment funds are necessary in a portfolio.? On this occasion, it is also publishing the results of a survey by GfK of 869 subscribers, which found that 85.2% of investors value transparency of fees, and 75.2% place importance on the fact that funds give them protection from total loss of their capital. However, the flexibility of investment in funds is only important to 38.2% of those surveyed.
08/01/2009

Germany - Madoff did not meet criteria at Deutsche Bank

The Financial Times reports that Deutsche Bank was approached about ten times in recent years with requests for loans to investors in hedge funds who wanted to place the money with Bernard Madoff, but every time, the bank refused to lend the money, since the manager did not meet the bank’s due diligence criteria. In the same article, the FT reports that a preliminary investigation has been launched in France to determine if investors in Madoff funds are victims of a crime.
08/01/2009

World - Lessons to be learned from Madoff scandal

One of the lessons for asset managers to learn from the Madoff scandal is that, as soon as something seems too good to be true, it usually is, says Sonya Morris, director of training for the pan-European and asiatic research teams at Morningstar, cited by Ignites Europe on 7 January. Philippe Carrel, executive vice-president of Thomson Reuters, says the asset management sector should be preparing for a fundamental reform of the legal and regulatory framework for mutual funds.
08/01/2009

Italy - UniCredit creates an institutional real estate fund

UniCredit has announced that, as part of the valuation and rationalisation of its real estate portfolio, UniCredit Real Estate (UIRE) on 30 December finalised a centralisation of all its assets within a real estate fund managed by Fondi Immobiliari Italiani SGR (Fimit), of which 62% has been placed with institutional investors. The portfolio includes 72 positions on commercial real estate properties, including 70 bank branches of the group and properties on the Piazza Cordusio and Livio Cambi in Milan. The total value of the properties represents about EUR800m, of which 60% has been financed by a loan from a banking union.UniCredit states that URE will retain a 33% stake in the fund (which has a 15-year horizon), while a further 5% will be sold to institutionals by the end of February 2009.Placement of shares with institutional investors will generate capital gains, before taxes, of about EUR280m in fourth quarter 2008, which will have a positive impact on the core tier 1 owners equity ratio, to the tune of about 5 percentage points.
08/01/2009

United Kingdom - Axa IM adds to bond personnel

Theodora Zemek, head of bond management at Axa Investment Managers in London, has recruited a head of ex-US bonds, as planned (see Newsmanagers of 25 September 2008), in the person of Graham Nicol, who was previously head of the Investment Grade Credit team at JP Morgan.The appointment comes at the same time as that of Mondher Bettaieb Loriot, who will join the AXA IM teams as a bond manager in May 2009 in London. He is currently based in Zurich at Swisscanto Asset Management, where he is also serving as interim director of the bond division and as a manager.
08/01/2009

Switzerland - Madoff: UBS's defense is fragile

UBS will have a hard time avoiding any responsibility for the Madoff scandal, Ignites Europe reports on 7 January, citing lawyers. The Swiss bank was, until recently, the depositary for the LuxAlpha Sicav. Last month, UBS defended itself by pointing to the subscription terms of LuxAlpha, which stated that the firm was not the guardian of the fund’s assets. Jean Bricher, a partner at Brucher & Associés, says that clauses of this nature exonerating the firm from responsibility are not valid under Luxembourg law.
08/01/2009

United States - Marathon AM names five of its managers as partners

The alternative management firm Marathon Asset Management (USD10bn in assets) has announced the appointment of five new partners, who are also high-ranking executives at the business. They are Andrew Rabinowitz, COO, Richard Ronzetti (Global Investment Management & Head of Research), Jon Halpern (Head of Real Estate), Steve Kim (CIO of Asia) and Adam Phillips (CIO of Europe).
08/01/2009

United States - More lawsuits over Madoff

The Hadleigh Holdings company, based in Miami, on Wednesday filed a suit in bankruptcy court against J.P. Morgan Chase, the depositary, and Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hadleigh claims that it paid Madoff USD1m on 8 December, three days before he was arrested.Meanwhile, a government prosecutor has told the courts that Madoff possesses valuables at three residences in the United States and one home in France. The prosecutor claims that the suspect may unload these goods if he is not imprisoned.
08/01/2009

United Kingdom - Hermes cancels restructuring

Hermes, which manages the assets of the BT pension fund, has suspended plans to reorganise in the wake of poor performance of its main activist fund, and after the departure of two managers (Stephan Howaldt and Wouter Rosingh), the Financial Times reports. Rupert Clarke, CEO since December 2007, had planned to transform the group into several independent investment boutiques.
08/01/2009

United States - SEC reopens investigation into Pequot CM

According to sources close to the case, the SEC has reopened its two-year investigation into possible insider trading of Microsoft shares in 2001 by the alternative manager Pequot Capital Management, which it had previously closed without any definite findings, the Wall Street Journal reports. Pequot is said to have made more than USD2m on the trades in question.
08/01/2009

United States - Several ethical ETF funds in preparation

Judging by the number of applications for sales licenses, 2009 will be a bumper year for socially responsible ETF fund launches, the Wall Street Journal notes. Pax World Funds is planning to release two new ETF funds investing in shares of North American and overseas companies which stand out for their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, and a third fund focused on companies which develop environmental technologies. Veritas Funds will launch five ETFs corresponding to Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and ?Christian? criteria, to respond to demand from the various Catholic faiths.Javelin Investment Management is planning to launch the JETS Dow Jones Islamic Market International Index Fund, which respects the precepts of Sharia law.
08/01/2009

Ireland - Pension funds have lost EUR27bn in assets

Rubicon Investment Consulting estimates that Irish pension funds have seen a decline of EUR27bn in their assets in 2008, with an average loss of 34.8%. The best manager of the ten large groups studied was Setanta Asset Management, with losses of 29.6%, while the worst was Hibernian Investment, with losses of 38.8%. This is largely due to excessive exposure to Irish equities, which represented 14% of the funds’ assets at the beginning of 2008, and which lost 65% last year. This allocation alone cost the funds EUR4.6bn in assets.
08/01/2009

France - Clotilde Bouchet becomes CFO of Axa IM

Axa Investment Managers announced on Wenesday that Clitilde Bouchet, former managing director and CFO of Abn Amro France, on 3 November took over as CFO of the Axa IM group in Paris. In her new position, Bouchet will be in charge of accounting, management controlling, taxation issues, analysis of activity levels and monitoring of the profitability of the AXA IM group, allocation of internal resources, and the deployment of warning systems ?which will allow the business strategic options while retaining its ability to invest,? the management firm says.Bouchet ?suceeds Vincent Godemel, who will be continuing his career at AXA Tech.?
08/01/2009

Singapore - Temasek lost out on Merrill

According to calculations by the Financial Times, Temasek lost more than USD2bn on its investment in Merrill Lynch, the bank which was acquired by Bank of America last week. On Monday, the Singapore sovereign fund converted its 13.7% stake in Merrill into BofA shares.
08/01/2009

Germany - Shedlin Capital scales up sales staff

The management firm Shedlin Capital, based in Nuremberg, has recruited four people, including two sales directors, one sales manager and one head of the organisation, as additions to its sales personnel, which is now concentrated in a new office in Berlin, led by Selim Kuzu, who since December has been both a partner in the business and its CFO.The arrival of the Kuzu family in the capital of Shedlin at the end of 2008 sould lead to a strong increase in its activities in the areas of infrastructure, health, and real estate development in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
08/01/2009

United States - 401(k) funds hit hard by crisis

The Wall Street Journal reports that the disturbances on the equities markets have provoked a crisis of confidence for millions of Americans who manage their retirement savings in 401(k) plans. According to a research centre at Boston College, more than USD1trn invested in equities via 401(k) plans were wiped out in the twelve months since the peak of the markets in October 2007. There are now about 50 million 401(k) plans, with assets totalling USD2.5trn.
07/01/2009

France - Immobilier : la baisse des prix affecte aussi Paris

Selon La Tribune, citant Century 21, la baisse des prix dans l’ancien à l'échelle nationale au second semestre 2008 a atteint ? 7,46% et un nouveau recul des prix de - 6% est attendu en 2009. «Paris, (?) a connu une baisse de 5,94 % au quatrième trimestre 2008 par rapport au troisième trimestre», précise notamment le quotidien.
07/01/2009

France - Assurance vie : les contrats en euros plus lucratifs que prévu

Selon Le Figaro, «L"Afer, dont le contrat sert de baromètre au marché, a ainsi annoncé hier un rendement de 4,36 % pour son fonds en euros (contre 4,42 % en 2007)». Une baisse de rendement de l"ordre de 0,10% à 0,30% est donc attendue, en moyenne. Toutefois la collecte d"assurance-vie a reculé de 11 % entre janvier et novembre 2008 et les assureurs ont puisé dans leur réserve pour rapporter plus que le livret A, ajoute notamment le quotidien.
07/01/2009

Etats-Unis - BofA vend des actions de China Construction Bank

The Wall Street Journal titre sur le fait que Kenneth Lewis, chairman et CEO de Bank of America (BofA) a finalement recommandé dans une note interne qu’il ne lui soit pas versé de bonus au titre de 2008 et que cette disposition s’applique aussi aux autres dirigeants de la banque, même si toutes les personnes concernées ont travaillé extrêmement dur l’an dernier. Le journal en profite pour signaler que la banque américaine à vendu pour 2,8 milliards de dollars d’actions de China Construction Bank Corp (CCB). L’opération se serait faite à 3,92 dollars de Hong-Kong par titre, soit une décote de 12 % sur le cours de clôture. Cela permet à BofA de récupérer une parti de 7,1 milliards de dollars investis en novembre pour augmenter sa participation dans CCB.
07/01/2009

Chine - Feu vert pour une JV entre Deutsche Bank et Shanxi Securities

La China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) a donné son agrément à la création de Zhong De Securities Company Limited, coentreprise entre Deutsche Bank (33,3 %) et Shanxi Securities Co. Ltd (66,7 %) dans le domaine des valeurs mobilières. Cette autorisation couvre la souscription et le placement d’actions (y compris les actions A et des titres destinés aux investisseurs étrangers) ainsi que le négoce d’obligations d’Etat et d’entreprises. D’autres activités pourraient être mises en place sous réserve des autorisations correspondantes de la CSRC, indique mardi la banque allemande.
07/01/2009

Espagne - Les gérants restent méfiants

L’enquête mensuelle de Lipper auprès des principaux gestionnaires espagnols montre que malgré la relative remontée des actions en décembre, les gérants de fonds sont 15,38 % à sous-pondérer cette classe d’actifs contre 7,69 % en décembre, tandis que la poche moyenne de cash a été augmentée à 34,05 % contre 33,79 %, rapporte Cinco Días.
07/01/2009

Allemagne - La Commerzbank lance le premier Soffin Bond

Selon les milieux financiers, rapporte la Börsen-Zeitung, la Commerzbank va lancer un emprunt d’un à deux milliards d’euros avant même l’acquisition de la Dresdner Bank. Ce sera la première émission d’une banque allemande revêtue de la garantie du fonds de stabilisation des marchés financiers (Soffin) et qui porte dans ce cas sur une enveloppe de 15 milliards d’euros.
07/01/2009

Belgique - Le gouvernement veut négocier avec les actionnaires de Fortis

Selon Les Echos, qui reprend des informations du quotidien De Tijd, le gouvernement belge devait discuter mardi, lors d’un Conseil des ministres, d’une éventuelle indemnisation des actionnaires de Fortis, dont le cours a chuté depuis la scission et la décision de la vente à BNP Paribas des actifs belges et luxembourgeois du groupe.
07/01/2009

Allemagne - Adolf Merckle s'est suicidé

Le milliardaire allemand Adolf Merckle s’est suicidé lundi en se jetant sous un train, rapporte la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Il était sur le point de perdre son empire industriel (Heidelberg Cement, Ratiopharm, Phoenix Pharmahandel) à la suite entre autres de spéculations malheureuses lors du corner sur Volkswagen l’an dernier.

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