Les fonds européens (hors fonds monétaires) ont accusé des rachats nets de 416 milliards d"euros entre juin 2007 et septembre 2008, selon les chiffres de Lipper FMI cités par le Financial Times Fund Management du 5 janvier. Avec l"effet marché, les encours ont plongé de 28 % à 3.200 milliards d"euros. EPFR Global estime de son côté que les actifs des fonds actions européens ont diminué de 248 milliards d"euros à 188 milliards en 2008. Toutefois, on observe certains signes de stabilisation, note l"hebdomadaire. Les acheteurs de fonds actions ont dépassé le nombre de vendeurs pour chacune des sept semaines au 19 décembre, selon EPFR.
Alors que les instruments financiers sophistiqués ne font plus recette, certaines sociétés de gestion proposent à une clientèle aisée d"investir dans des fonds investis en actifs bien tangibles, rapporte Les Echos. Le quotidien donne l"exemple de la société de gestion française Pergam Finance, qui a lancé le fonds Pergam Partners III (PP3) au Luxembourg, et a acquis à travers la société argentine Campos Orientales des fermes en Uruguay et en Argentine. En transformant une partie des terres à bétail en cultures céréalières, le gestionnaire vise des plus-values latentes de 30 % en deux ans pour ses clients.
Selon l"Agefi, malgré des niveaux de valorisation injustifiés au regard de leurs fondamentaux, Il ne faut pas attendre d’embellie à court terme sur les valeurs bancaires, notamment du fait de la BFI et aussi parce que le coût du risque va augmenter.Parmi les points favorables au secteur, la baisse des taux devrait permettre aux banques de reconstituer leurs marges, pondère toutefois le quotidien financier.
Selon Il Sole ? 24 Ore du 6 janvier, les actionnaires d"UniCredit et de Mediobanca étudient une fusion entre les deux banques. La partie va se jouer dans les 6 mois qui viennent. Cela dépendra notamment des résultats 2008 d"UniCredit, qui seront publiés d"ici à la mi-mars. «Si UniCredit prouve qu"il a retrouvé des forces, et colmaté les brèches de la banque d"investissement, on pourra dire que la phase la plus aigue de la crise est passée. Et le projet de rapprochement UniCredit-Mediobanca sera plus difficile à réaliser. Autrement, le mariage deviendra quasiment inévitable (?)», analyse le quotidien italien.
Selon L"Echo, la crise a laissé des traces chez Euroclear, l’organisme de règlement-livraison paneuropéen et chambre de dépôt. Toutefois, souligne Pierre Francotte, son CEO, dans un entretien au quotidien belge, «nous n’avons pas eu de difficulté à obtenir de la liquidité auprès des banques, ni à octroyer des crédits à court terme (intraday essentiellement) à nos clients. Euroclear joue un rôle différent par rapport aux banques classiques. Nous agissons en tant qu’agent de facilitation pour l’activité sur titres. Notre activité est ciblée, et nous n’effectuons pas d’investissements risqués. Nous n’avons investi dans aucun actif toxique, ni dans des fonds comme ceux de Madoff Investment Securities». Pierre Francotte rappelle qu’Euroclear couvre son activité de crédit avec un niveau de collatéral (garanties) de 99 %. Il indique, en outre, n’avoir pas eu recours à des provisions pour créances douteuses.
La Deutsche Börse a annoncé lundi avoir enregistré 226 millions de transactions en 2008 sur sa plate-forme électronique de négociation Xetra, ce qui représente un gonflement de 28 % par rapport à 2007. Cependant, le volume de transactions sur cette plate-forme (livre d’ordres) a diminué de 10 % à 2,1 billions d’euros pendant que celui du marché à la criée de la Bourse de Francfort se contractait de 30 % à 112,9 milliards d’euros.Pour l’ensemble des places boursières allemandes, le volume de transactions est ressorti à environ 2,5 billions d’euros, soit 12 % de moins que l’année précédente.
Selon les informations du Handelsblatt, Allianz, l’actuel propriétaire, et la Commerzbank, le futur, négocient actuellement avec le Fonds de stabilisation des marchés financiers (Soffin) une aide d’Etat pour la Dresdner Bank. Les porte-parole des trois établissements ont refusé de commenter. Les garanties concerneraient le portefeuille de valeurs mobilières de la Dresdner. Le Handelsblatt a d’ailleurs appris que la Commerzbank essaie d’obtenir également d’Allianz des garanties sur les risques du portefeuille de la Dresdner. Tant que ces négociations n’auront pas abouti, le closing de l’acquisition de la Dresdner par la Commerzbank ne se fera pas. Il est censé intervenir avant fin janvier?
Dans un communiqué boursier, Porsche Automobil Holding SE a annoncé avoir encore acheté des actions ordinaires de Volkswagen et porté sa participation au capital de ce dernier à 50,76 % du capital ordinaires. De ce fait, Porsche prend indirectement le contrôle de Scania, dont VW détient 68,6 %, ce qui l’oblige à lancer une OPA sur le reliquat du capital du constructeur suédois, mais au prix minimal, qui correspond au cours moyen pondéré de l’action Scania sur les 20 séances précédant l’annonce de la prise d’une participation majoritaire dans Volkswagen (soit environ 62,75 couronnes). Porsche souligne n’avoir aucun intérêt stratégique à une prise de contrôle du constructeur suédois et à l’achat d’actions Scania.
Shares in Fortress Investment Group rose sharply on Monday in the wake of rumours that the firm may be withdrawn from public trading, the Financial Times reports. Fortress was the first private equity and hedge fund firm to hold an IPO two years ago.
A prohibition on short-selling of financial shares will not be extended when it expires on 16 January, the Financial Services Authority announced on Monday. But investors will still be required to disclose their short positions until at least 30 June.
There have been shockwaves as Robert McCann, who supervised 16,850 employees in the brokerage division of Merrill Lynch, announced his resignation from Bank of America (BofA), the establishment taking over Lynch which announced in October that the future position of head of global wealth and investment management would be given to someone other than McCann, who was vice chairman and president of global wealth management. His successor is expected to be his immediate number two, Dan Sontag, the Wall Street Journal reports.Some analysts and competitors were asking how the prevailing culture of cost savings at BofA can accommodate the spendy Wall Street attitudes typical of the Merrill brokers who handled relationships with high net worth clients.
Philips Electronics UK and its pension fund Philips Pension Trustees Ltd have told IPE that they have filed a lawsuit against the consulting firm Hewitt Associates and its former director for Europe. They accuse Hewitt of errors in the valuation of certain services rendered under an actuarial contract between 1995 and 2000.
Hedge funds have had a difficult start to the year, after many of them suddenly had to suspend or freeze redemptions at the end of 2008, the Financial Times observes. Funds from GLG Partners, RWC Partners and Oceanwood Capital all introduced last-minute restrictions at the end of last year. The Finnish fund Ilmatar also announced on Monday that it will be shutting down.
The Santander group has held an extraordinary general assembly of shareholders in four of its six real estate funds, Cinco Días reports. The objective was to approve a new business model for the next five years. The group is seeking to find a profitable use for its real estate assets totalling EUR400m.
Il Sole - 24 Ore reports on 6 January that shareholders in UniCredit and Mediobanca are studying the possibility of a merger between the two banks. A decision will be made in the next six months, and will depend largely on UniCredit’s 2008 results, which will be published by mid-March. ?If UniCredit proves that it has found new strength and has plugged the holes in its investment bank, it could be said that the most dire phase of the crisis has past, and that plans for a UniCredit-Mediobanca merger will be more difficult to realise. Otherwise, the marriage will be virtually inevitable (...),? the Italian newspaper considers.
According to the HFRX index from Hedge Fund Research, hedge funds lost an average of 23% in 2008, marking their first decline since the data series began in 1998. The Börsen-Zeitung reports that to date, their worst monthly result was a performance of 2.7% in 2004. Due to the Madoff scandal, Credit Suisse/Tremont has been obliged to revise its figure for losses from hedge funds in November to 4.2%, six times the losses initially announced.
The Börsen-Zeitung reports that Fortis Investments is closing its Düsseldorf office and concentrating all its activities in Germany in Frankfurt. Eight employees are leaving the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia for the Hessian financial centre. The move will result in a considerable reduction in overhead costs.
Investors under stress have a tendency to see less far into the future, and to shorten their temporal investment horizons, Michael J. Mauboussin of Legg Mason Capital Management claimed at a round table held on 11 December, from which extracts were published on the management firm’s website. ?Although they recognise that they should think in terms of a longer term, their stress encourages them to concentrate on what is happening here and now,? the document says.In a difficult environment such as the one which we are now experiencing, there is a chain reaction: the environment provokes stress; the investor shortens his or her temporal horizon, and modifies the portfolio more frequently; the investor undergoes more losses than he would otherwise suffer, according to the theory of loss aversion; and this increases the risk premium which the investor expects for new investments, which drives down the price of assets.
Morgan Stanley Bank has announced that it has been granted a sales license in Germany for the Traditionelle Werte Fonds, a German-registered product whose promoter is HansaInvest. The fund, which uses the Morgan Stanley IQ derivatives platform, but which is not a structured product, is composed 70% of savings and current accounts at banks, savings banks, and German co-operative banks. The management team concentrates on the five products which offer the highest interest rates in Germany; in addition, these establishments are required to be covered by a deposit guarantee fund.Meanwhile, 25% of the fund is invested in shares in real estate funds, while the remaining 5% are invested in gold or in Gold Bullion Securities.Front-end fee for the product is limited to 1%, and management commission is 0.85%.
The Austrian independent management firm C-Quadrat has announced that it registered net subscriptions in December of EUR50m for its C-Quadrat ARTS range of funds, which are primarily aimed at retail clients. For the year 2008 as a whole, net subscriptions totalled EUR154m, which represents an increase of 12% compared with the previous year. This is the best year in terms of subscriptions since the creation of the range, which now has total assets under management of EUR687m, according to a statement.
High-grade corporate bonds are set to outperform other asset classes in 2009 after being oversold last year, more than half fund managers and market strategists surveyed by the Financial Times have forecast. In contrast, government bonds were the least-favoured asset class.
The German management firm Union Investment Real Estate (UIRE) has purchased the Pórtico office building in Madrid (20,700 square metres, 400 parking spaces) from Grupo Marsans, for an undisclosed amount. The property, which will be added to the portfolio of the open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Deutschland, is leased until 2016 to the Spanish travel agency under a sale and leaseback agreement.
In 2008, assets in corporate retirement savings plans for companies of the FTSE100 index fell by GBP65bn, which represents five years of contributions, and a loss of 17% for the year, according to a study by Deloitte cited by Professional Pensions. The consultant finds that these plans had a total deficit as of the end of 2008 of approximately GBP130bn.
The global hedge fund sector will contract by 70% to 80% this year, Barclays Capital estimates, as cited by Financial Times Fund Management on 5 January. The firm predicts that assets in the hedge fund industry could fall to a total of USD300bn.
The Munich-based management firm KanAm announced on Monday that its institutional real estate fund KanAm Spezial grundinvest posted an increase of 50% for its real estate portfolio in the fiscal year ending on 30 September, for a total value of EUR473.5m. It made two acquisitions in Paris and one in Amsterdam, in addition to which a construction project in Rotterdam was completed, and the fund bought its first hotel property in Switzerland. The occupation rate for the portfolio remains at 100%.The Spezial grundinvest fund, launched on 25 January 2005, has earned returns over three years of 19.3%, of which 6% was in the past year (compared with 6.1% in 2006-2007), and has paid out an unchanged dividend of EUR5.15 per share.
The US federal prosecutor’s office on Monday demanded that Bernard l. Madoff be imprisoned for arranging last month for his brother, sons, and a pair of friends in Florida to receive watches, jewelry, and articles of value worth more than USD1m. The Wall Street Journal reports that with the gifts, Madoff and his wife violated a freeze on all their assets ordered by the SEC as part of a civil procedure.
European funds (excluding money market funds) have undergone net redemptions of EUR416bn between June 2007 and September 2008, according to data from Lipper FMI, cited by Financial Times Fund Management on 5 January. With market effects taken into account, assets plummeted by 28% to EUR3.2trn. EPFR Global estimates that assets in European funds fell from EUR248bn to EUR188bn in 2008. Nonetheless, there are some signs of stabilisation, the newspaper observes. Subscribers to equities funds outnumbered those selling their shares every week in the seven weeks until 19 December, according to EPFR.
As a general rule, ETFs lost money last year, since they replicate the evolution of the markets. However, in the equities ETF fund class, the ProShares UltraShort S&P 500, which uses short positions and leverage, posted performance of 61%, the Wall Street Journal reports. In bond funds, the iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund and the SPDR Lehman Long Term Treasury ETF gained 34% and 24%, respectively, according to Morningstar.
The Xinhua news agency reports that Zhang Hongli, executive vice president of the sovereign fund China Investment Corp (CIC, USD200bn) has declared that ?cash is king,? and announced that ?as far as possible, the CIC will not make any new investments? at the present time, due to the deterioration of global conjuncture, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the HF manager JD Capital Management LLC, founded by J. David Rogers (formerly of Goldman Sachs) has decided to liquidate its multi-strategy hedge fund Tempo Master Fund, which lost 40% in 2008 and which at the end of 2007 had assets of USD1.3bn. JD Capital is still managing a volatility fund launched in June, whose assets total about USD100m.