Mar Hernández - Courtesy photo. Russell Reynolds Associates Hires Mar Hernández
Russell Reynolds Associates yesterday announced that Mar Hernández has joined the firm’s new Miami office as a consultant in the Financial Services practice. Mar advises and recruits C-suite level executives for clients in global private wealth management, asset management, private equity, insurance and fintech. She also works with clients across a range of industries to build and develop C-suite leadership at their regional headquarters based in Florida
“Mar brings industry and analytical expertise to conduct senior-level searches for a wide range of strategic and functional roles,” said Constantine Alexandrakis, leader of Russell Reynolds Associates’ operations in the United States. “We are excited to have Mar join our Miami office. Her deep connections in the region and her international work experience augment our ability to assist clients and continue our firm’s growth trajectory.”
Prior to joining the firm, Mar spent five years with a boutique search firm in Miami –Transearch– as a senior client partner. Earlier, she was Global Sales & Marketing Director, BPO at Amicorp Group. During her time there, she worked in Barcelona and Athens and supervised the opening of a new center in Pretoria, South Africa. Earlier in her career, Mar worked for EDS, TeleTech and advertising roles at companies such as McCann (in Barcelona and Miami) and Saatchi & Saatchi (in Barcelona).
Mar earned a B.A. in Communications Science from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and an M.A. in Business Administration from the Escuela Superior de Administracion de Empresas.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrFoto: Randy Heinitz
. Changing Investor Preferences are Pressuring Hedge Funds
Hedge fund managers are feeling the pressure from changing investor demands and the managers that adapt accordingly and timely will be the most successful in achieving growth, according to the EY 2016 Global Hedge Fund and Investor Survey: Will adapting to today’s evolving demands help you stand out tomorrow?
The 10th annual survey found that hedge fund growth has slowed for a variety of reasons – the abundance of low fee passive investment options, lackluster hedge fund performance and cost concerns. In 2016, the proportion of North American investors that said they were reducing allocations to hedge funds exceeded the proportion that were increasing for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008.
Investors have more options than ever within the alternatives marketplace and are allocating funds to those managers that have a unique offering that is satisfying a specific need. Therefore, hedge fund managers must be at the forefront of actively listening to their investors to keep pace, or else be left behind, the report finds.
Michael Serota, EY Global Leader, Hedge Fund Services, says: “Growth is the industry’s top priority, but managers are changing the strategies employed to achieve it. While we find the largest managers pursuing several growth strategies, the smaller managers are more narrowly focused, seeking to expand investor bases within their home markets. Amidst today’s challenging environment, it is imperative for managers of all sizes to identify the needs of their clients and align product offerings to their demands.”
Other key findings include:
Hedge fund managers focus on asset growth to counter reduced inflows
As fee pressures increase, managers need to innovate and optimize processes to cut costs
Prime brokerages are putting pressure on hedge funds to evolve their relationships
Managers are focused on developing their talent management programs, which investors see as increasingly important
Foto: Henri Bergius
. Funds Society lanza la encuesta sobre utilización de ETFs para inversores profesionales en el mercado de no-residentes
Since their introduction two decades ago, ETFs have been extremely successful, growing far beyond their initial function of tracking large liquid indices in developed markets. Globally, ETFs hold US$3.38tr in assets, having come a long way from the US$79bn they held in the year 2000 (according to BlackRock’s Global ETP Landscape, September 2016)
Funds Society would like to know if, how, and when the international professional investors are using ETFs.
Responses from this will help us better understand attitudes and usage of ETFs, and share the findings of a growing investment tool with the international wealth and asset management community.
We kindly ask you to take some time in answering this survey, which you can access through this link. We will share its findings in a series of articles in Funds Society and publish a brochure summarizing our results.
To make this survey even more appealing… we are raffling a set of Oculus Rift Virtual Reality glasses among all the qualifying respondents who complete the survey.
We look forward to your participation in the survey.
Pixabay CC0 Public DomainPhoto: Mike Bird . Passive Funds, Funds of Funds, and Team-Managed Funds, the Ones With More Women Fund Managers
Morningstar, has published a research report finding that across 56 countries, one in five funds has a female portfolio manager, and in the study’s eight-year timeframe, that ratio has not improved. The company’s second research report about fund managers and gender considered more than 26,000 fund managers, comparing the man-to-woman ratio of fund managers to other professions that require similar education, including doctors and lawyers, by country. The report also identifies areas of the industry where women have been making relative gains.
“Women are underrepresented in mutual funds’ leadership ranks globally, with larger markets farther behind smaller markets,” Laura Pavlenko Lutton, Morningstar’s director of manager research in North America, said. “We did find areas where women are finding more opportunity, specifically among passive funds, funds of funds, and team-managed funds. Larger equity firms are also more likely to promote women to fund-management roles than smaller firms.”
Key highlights of the research report include:
Countries with large financial centers have lower proportions of women fund managers than many smaller markets based on data from Morningstar’s global database. In France, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, and Spain, at least 20 percent of fund managers are women. Singapore is the global leader among 56 countries with women representing 30 percent of total fund managers and 29 percent of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholders. Large financial centers, such as Brazil, India, Germany, and the United States, are behind the global average of 12.9 percent women fund managers. In India, only 7 percent of fund managers are women.
In some asset classes, women fund managers are more credentialed than men. A woman fund manager is approximately 7 percent and 4 percent more likely than a male peer to have her CFA designation among equity and fixed-income funds, respectively.
Women have better odds of running funds in areas of industry growth such as passive, funds of funds, and team-managed funds; women are 19 percent more likely to manage on a team than men. In addition, it appears difficult for women to achieve management roles in more-established parts of the fund industry, including actively managed funds and solo-managed funds. In fact, women are 36 percent less likely to manage an active equity fund than men.
The industry’s largest equity firms are more likely to name women as fund managers than smaller firms. Among funds at one of the top 10 largest firms by global equity assets under management, there are 83 percent higher odds that a woman would be named a fund manager.
Photo: Richard Garland during his presentation at the Global Insights 2016 / Courtesy photo. Investec: “We are Entering an Interesting, but also Potentially Dangerous, Moment in History”
This month, for the ninth consecutive year, Investec held its annual conference which brought together 150 delegates from the Americas, Europe and Asia. The location chosen for this year’s event was the InterContinental Hotel in New York, where the attendees were able to listen to presentations of the company’s star managers (photos of the event).
Up to 14 portfolio managers gave their vision on different assets. Michael Power, the firm’s strategist, Philip Saunders, co-Head of Multi-Asset Growth, John Stopford, Head of Multi-Asset Income, or the award-winning Ken Hsia, European Equity Portfolio Manager and member of Investec’s Global 4Factor Equity team, were part of the speakers list.
“The reason why we organize this event every year is because we want to offer our clients in the buy-side a vision very close to the markets of what is happening around the world. They need answers, and the professionals who are part of the Investec team can help them find them,” said Richard Garland, Managing Director of Global Advisory.
“In this conference, we also create a network of advisors who can help each other globally,” he said referring to the delegates. He also stated that because market leadership has changed significantly over the past 12 months, it is important to take stock and consider where opportunities exist.
“At Investec, we are convinced that investment power is moving from institutions to individuals, and that is why we are refocusing our business to make sure we are a solid global advisory firm,” Garland explained.
Investec, which in October of this year had US$115bn in assets under management, has 44% of the total invested in equities, 21% in multi-assets, 31% in fixed income and 4% in alternative investments.
For Investec’s Managing Director, this year, multi-assets have been the star of the portfolios. “They are becoming increasingly important because they offer our clients solutions; it is all about ‘income’. And that’s the reason this product is booming and that it’s going to stay that way for a while,” he said.
“As investors, we face many challenges. We cannot follow the indexes, we are active managers. But fees are under pressure. We see this in Europe, in the UK and in other places. What are we going to do? At Investec we have strategies with a high ‘active share’ that can give the portfolios an added element to beat the market,” added Garland, mentioning one of the most debated points in the industry.
A Changing World
In this regard, John Stopford, recommended adjusting portfolios, managing actively but also “being prepared for things that can go wrong.” For Philip Saunders, the world of investment has changed, partly due to the fact that the economy has been dominated by politics for too long.
And we always think that the West is the safest place to keep money, but in the last 18 months we have seen the risks grow, and it doesn’t seem as if that trend is going to change. “The Western world has turned its back on globalization. We are entering an interesting, but also potentially dangerous, moment in history. And not just for political reasons, but also on the economic side,” Michel Power observed.
“The companies we invest in have moved their production capacity to the East, and I believe that in the coming years we will see a lot of money going in that direction,” the company’s strategist advised.
Ken Hsia’s was perhaps the most positive of the presentations. And that’s because European equity is starting to experience improvements in line with the data of the region. “I’m less worried now. We see evidence of recovery in Europe. The strength may not be currently very good, but there are indicators that point out that the region is heading in the right direction and is improving,” he said.
Northstar Financial Services has added index-linked investment plans to its growing product range.
According to a press release, the Bermuda company believes that the Global Index Protect combines the benefits of 100% principal protection coupled with participation in the S&P 500 Index.
Clients have the choice of 5, 7 and 10 year durations and also the option of an annual lock-in feature, that ensures any annual gains in the index are captured and so the guaranteed payment at maturity is increased through the life of the contract.
The Global Index Protect is therefore designed for investors to whom preservation of capital is a priority, but who also wish to benefit from the positive performance of equity markets. As is the case with all Northstar investment solutions, clients also enjoy the benefits of a Bermuda trust structure, which include financial security and enhanced wealth transfer flexibility.
Northstar’s Global Head of Distribution, Alejandro Moreno, commented: “I am very excited at the prospect of introducing these new solutions to our distribution partners. The combination of guaranteed 100% principal protection and in some cases more than 100% of the upside potential of equity markets should prove to be an attractive proposition to our advisors and their clients and perfectly complement Northstar’s existing suite of variable and fixed-rate investment plans.”
Northstar’s Vice Chairman, Mark Rogers, commented: “The addition of Global Index Protect further demonstrates Northstar’s commitment to delivering innovative products to help serve the needs of our international clients more closely. I look forward to working with advisors on our enhanced range of solutions as we introduce Global Index Protect globally.”
. Liquidity Management Top Priority for Fund Managers and Institutional Investors in New Market Environment
State Street Corporation in partnership with the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global representative of alternative investment managers, released a new research report that found that nearly half (48 percent) of survey respondents say that decreased market liquidity is a secular shift that is here to stay. Regulations stemming from the 2008 financial crisis, coupled with historically low interest rates and slow rates of growth in the global economy, have constrained the ability of many banks to perform their traditional roles as market makers, which in turn has impacted broader market liquidity conditions.
More than three-fifths of the survey respondents say current market liquidity conditions have impacted their investment management strategy, with nearly a third rating this impact as significant, and are reassessing how they manage risk in their investment portfolios. More broadly, they are adjusting to an environment of less liquidity in which trading roles have been transformed, new market entrants are emerging, and electronic platforms and peer-to-peer lending are changing the way firms transact their business.
“Increased regulation and the pressure to manage costs have significantly changed market liquidity conditions,” says Lou Maiuri, executive vice president and head of State Street’s Global Exchange and Global Markets businesses. “The new liquidity paradigm is causing many players in the investment industry to think again about the fundamentals: what roles they play, where they invest, and how they transact their business.”
While there is no one-size-fits all strategy for balancing risk and return in the current market environment, investors and managers are adapting to the new environment by focusing their efforts in three areas:
Rationalizing the risk
Optimizing the portfolio
New rules, new tools
49% say the role of non-bank institutions as liquidity providers will grow and 42% say that this growth will come from hedge funds Nearly half (47%) say hedge funds may play an important role in providing liquidity in more volatile markets. “With liquidity likely to remain top of mind for years to come, now is the time to find the strategies, tools, and solutions that will make a sustainable difference in the new investment climate,” continued Maiuri.
“Hedge funds and other asset managers are responding to more challenging market liquidity conditions by increasingly seeking out new opportunities, including taking on a more prominent role as market-makers, providing new sources of finance to the real economy, and lending their support and expertise to improving liquidity risk management,” added AIMA CEO Jack Inglis.
Gustavo Lozano, courtesy photo. Pioneer Investments Wins a Mandate for Mexican Afore XXI-Banorte
Global Asset Manager, Pioneer Investments, announced on Monday the appointment of an Asian Equity Mandate with Mexican pension fund manager, Afore XXI Banorte. The mandate, totaling close to USD 150 million, will be actively managed by the specialist Asian Equities investment team at Pioneer Investments’ London hub. Pioneer Investments, which currently has USD 246 billion of Assets Under Management globally, has been managing Asian Equity assets since April 2008 based on a consistently applied philosophy and process. This approach has provided a strong track record over the medium to long term through all market cycles.
Afore XXI Banorte, the pension fund manager in Mexico, awarded Pioneer Investments the mandate as it diversifies its investment strategy and seeks to provide its customers with access to investment opportunities across the international markets. To date, Afore XXI Banorte has funded one previous mandate on European Equity Markets with Schroders and BlackRock and this is the second project that they are awarding. The funding period is expected to be quicker than previous industry experiences on the back of regulation flexibility and experience acquired.
The Asian Equity mandate, a segregated account close to USD 150 million, follows an original pan Asiatic approach that includes Japan. This allows the investor to benefit from emerging Asia potential while investing in developed market companies based in Japan and Australia.
Gustavo Lozano, Country Head of Pioneer Investments Mexico, commented: ‘’We are delighted to be able to partner with Afore XXI Banorte. We have been working with them and other pension funds to develop of long-term institutional relationships in an integral relationship where knowledge transfer and investment capabilities are key. We believe that our fundamental, proprietary research-driven approach to investment in Asian Equities stood out through the selection process, and we look forward to building a rewarding relationship with the Afore going forward.’’
Jose Castellano, Head of Iberia, North America Offshore & Latin American Markets at Pioneer Investments, noted: ‘’ Pioneer Investments opened a Mexico Office in 2012 and being able to work with Afore XXI Banorte is the culmination of efforts from a variety of areas of our business. Afore XXI-Banorte is the largest pension fund in Mexico and key for our consolidation as a top international active manager in the country and the region. We believe that our best-in-class service proposition together with our investment expertise is key to developing long-term relationships. We are honored to be awarded this mandate by Afore XXI Banorte, and we will continue to work closely with them to secure both a high quality of service and strong long-term performance.’’
Sergio Mendez, CIO for Afore XXI Banorte noted: “We selected Pioneer Investments for the strength of their process, their performance record, original investment proposition and the stability of the investment team. We are excited to be moving forward with Pioneer Investments, giving the Mexican pension fund market access to international expertise. Afore XXI-Banorte continues its diversification in international markets building strong and beneficial partnerships with the global Asset management community that will benefit Mexican pensioners in the long run.”
Photo: Naroh, Flickr, Creative Commons. New Equities Fund Invests in Listed European Family Businesses
The current economic and financial situation is changing investment habits. Persistently low interest rates, the resulting quest for yield and control of risks are the main concerns for investors seeking to invest in equities. Against this backdrop, BLI – Banque de Luxembourg Investments will launch the BL-European Family Businesses fund, a new equities fund that invests in around 60 listed European family businesses, rigorously selected according to strict criteria: a clear competitive advantage, strong profitability, a value-creating business strategy and attractive valuation.
“One distinguishing characteristic of family businesses is that they are not driven by short-term financial objectives. Because of the family’s commitment to the next generation, the company naturally develops a long-term strategy with an underlying desire for continuity and resilience over time. Of course, growth and performance are also important, but these goals are balanced by socio-economic values that can strengthen the organisation and its position in the market,” says fund manager Ivan Bouillot, who is also fund manager for the BL-Equities Europe fund since 2004.
“Family business leaders are also able to steer the company’s strategy and shape the corporate culture through the values they advocate, their passion for their profession and their social commitment. It was during meetings with family business owners that we began to appreciate the added value of businesses managed by families, and the idea of developing this family business fund project grew from there.”
The BL-European Family Businesses fund invests in European equities, regardless of market capitalisation. They define a company as a family business if at least 25% of its equity is owned by the person or family that founded the company or acquired the company’s capital, if the family has an active role in the company as a manager or a board member, and if there is a desire to preserve the company as part of the family’s wealth.
“With this new fund, we continue to apply our proven investment strategy, which involves selecting quality companies and taking an interest in their long-term development”, explains Head of Sales, Lutz Overlack. “Our strategy focuses mainly on manufacturers of personal and household goods, food and beverages and companies in the industrial, healthcare, chemistry and technology sectors.” Banking and insurance, capital-intensive industries, commodities and telecommunication companies are excluded from all the funds in the BL funds range.
Unigestion, the boutique asset manager with scale, appointed Emanuele Ravano as Chairman of UNI-GLOBAL, the SICAV comprising 13 Unigestion subfunds.
According to a press release, Ravano will work closely with Unigestion’s senior management team and will be influential in mentoring and supporting Unigestion’s distribution initiatives. He is particularly well placed, given his previous experience, to support Unigestion’s accelerated distribution plans in intermediary markets.
Ravano has over 30 years of experience building long-term client relationships by providing prudent investment advice and consistent portfolio management. His track record of active portfolio management at world renowned institutions include 13 years as Managing Director and Head of Global Wealth & Portfolio Management at PIMCO and 16 years as Managing Director and Head of European Fixed Income at Credit Suisse.
Bernard Sabrier, Group Chairman of Unigestion said of the appointment: “Emanuele’s vast sector knowledge and dedication to delivering measurable results will help us build on our existing strong client relationships and form new ones in the future. We are very pleased he is joining the team.”
Emanuele Ravano commented: “I am excited to be joining such a well renowned organisation, which creates such compelling and unique propositions for investors on a global scale. My passion for quality investment ideas and innovation is shared throughout the whole staff at Unigestion and I look forward to what we can achieve over the coming years.”
