Photo: Mike Gibb, co-head Global Wealth Management Distribution at Legg Mason Global Asset Management. Mike Gibb, co-head Global Wealth Management Distribution at Legg Mason Global Asset Management, will join the Fund Selector Summit Miami
Mike Gibb, equity specialist, co-head Global Wealth Management Distribution at Legg Mason Global Asset Management will join the upcoming Funds Society Fund Selector Summit Miami 2016, which takes place on the 28th and 29th of April.
The conference, aimed at leading funds selectors and investors from the US-Offshore business, will be held at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne. The event-a joint venture between Open Door Media, owner of InvestmentEurope, and Fund Society- will provide an opportunity to hear the view of several managers on the current state of the industry.
Focusing on European long/short equity opportunities, Gibb, who is also an equity product specialist of Martin Currie, a Legg Mason affiliate, will look to outline how combining bottom up stockpicking with a macro overlay can generate alpha and deliver absolute returns in variable market conditions.
Before his previous role managing relationship and wealth mangement opportunities, Gibb was a client services director covering an institutional client base across regions. He has also been a hedge fund salesman with responsibility for investors in Europe and Asia. Before joining Martin Currie in 2005, Gibb was at Credit Suisse First Boston as a director and equity saleman for five years.
He was also an equity research salesman at Salomon Smith Barney for four years and before that a Far East equities fund manager for Gartmore and Scottish Amicable in 1990-1995. He is an associate of the UK Society of Investment Professionals (Asip) and a member of the CFA Society of the UK and has attained the Fundamentals of Alternative Investments certificate from CAIA . He graduated with an MA (Hons) in economic science from The University of Aberdeen.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: The Tax Haven. The Earnings Season in the US Adds Pressure To Financial Markets
As we approach the start of the Q1 earnings season in the US, financial markets experienced renewed pressures. During the last week, the MSCI world was down 1%, with EMU and Japanese equities underperforming US equities. Commodities were also down but interestingly this had limited implications on US high yield and EM.
This was detrimental for hedge funds with the Lyxor index down 0.7% during the last week. CTAs again outperformed, driven by the performance of the fixed income, energy and FX clusters. Long positions on the JPY vs USD were also rewarding (see chart) as a result of the continued depreciation of the USD.
“The minutes of the 15-16 March FOMC meeting reminded investors that the dovish stance of the Fed is not so consensual within the voting members of the Committee but this had little impact on the currency. It is actually a well known fact that Yellen had to deal with hawkish regional Fed presidents in 2016. The good news is that she has managed to control the hawks so far”, explain the Lyxor AM team head by Jeanne Asseraf-Bitton, Global Head of Cross Asset Research.
Overall, Lyxor AM are upgrading CTAs, from neutral to slight overweight. “After the market rally in March and ahead of the US earnings season, their defensive portfolio appears to be a good hedge against any disappointment. Meanwhile, their long stance on US fixed income is less aggressive and with 10-Treasury yields near the bottom of the range of the past three years, it seems adequate. They have also reduced their shorts on energy, which is a positive development as the USD depreciation implies upside risks on the asset class”, says the research.
With regards to Event-Driven, Merger Arbitrage funds suffered due to the Pfizer/ Allergan deal break. It followed the announcement of new Treasury rules to discourage tax inversion deals. The Lyxor Merger Arbitrage index is down 1.9% this week. A number of funds were involved in the deal: Merger Arbitrage managers had set up the spread (long Allergan/ short Pfizer), while Special Situation managers held either long positions in Allergan, Pfizer or both, explaining why they outperformed. “We maintain the slight overweight stance on Merger Arbitrage. The exposure of the strategy on inversion deals is marginal today, hence limiting contagion risks to the rest of the portfolios”, concludes.
Foto: Zorka Ostojic Espinoza
. Janus lanza un fondo de retorno absoluto global y asignación dinámica de activos
Janus Capital Group recently announced the launch of the Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund that aims to provide investors total returns by dynamically allocating assets across a portfolio of global equity and fixed-income investments.
Ashwin Alankar, Global Head of Asset Allocation and Risk Management, and Enrique Chang, Chief Investment Officer, Equities and Asset Allocation, are the fund’s portfolio managers. Chief Investment Strategist Myron Scholes, Ph.D., co-led the research and development of the fund with Alankar and will contribute to the overall investment strategy.
The Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund is designed to adapt allocations actively based on forward-looking views regarding extreme market movements, both positive and negative.
“While most investment approaches look for average outcomes, this adaptive global allocation fund seeks to manage outcomes that have the largest impact on growth, namely left and right tail events,” Alankar said.
The launch of the Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund furthers Janus’ Chief Executive Officer Dick Weil’sdiversification strategy, which included the July 2014 hiring of Alankar and Myron Scholes to begin designing asset allocation options for clients.
Foto: Chris Shervey
. AXA IM facilita y acelera el proceso de toma de decisiones de inversión
AXA Investment Managers announced a collaboration with State Street and MKT MediaStats to evaluate data-driven indicators that help analyse economic and market information.
MKT MediaStats is focused on financial market implications of increasingly available ‘big data’ from multiple sources, and is founded and led by well-known academic researchers. It leverages and extends into the commercial realm of considerable academic research done by its partners. The State Street PriceStats inflation series is a daily measure of inflation derived from prices posted to public websites by hundreds of online retailers.
“AXA IM, MKT MediaStats and State Street share a commitment to exploring new data sources that can enhance our ability to make timely and well-informed investment decisions,” said Joseph Pinto, chief operating officer at AXA Investment Managers. “Leveraging these big-data solutions will allow us to advance our client service on multiple fronts. Not only are we increasing the amount of knowledge available to us, but we are also cutting down on the amount of time spent manually sorting through information resources.”
“Investor success in the coming years will continue to largely depend on the ability to rapidly access and synthesise an exponential amount of information. Our goal is to bridge the gap between financial decision making and academic thinking to help investors achieve their return and risk objectives.” said Jessica Donohue, chief innovation officer for State Street Global Exchange.
MKT MediaStats uses unstructured data from many sources, including 25,000 distinct media sources, to derive a wide variety of indications of market behavior, such as sentiment, price movements, risk, and liquidity of individual assets.
The State Street PriceStats inflation indices are generated using software that scans the underlying code on public websites to capture the full array of products sold by online retailers, including food, beverages, electronics, apparel, furniture, household products, prescription drugs, and over-the-counter medicines. The technology monitors price fluctuations on roughly five million items sold by hundreds of online retailers in more than 70 countries.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: US Lipper Awards 2016. Five Columbia Funds Earn Lipper Fund Awards
Five Columbia funds have received 2016 Lipper Fund Awards as top-performing mutual funds in their respective Lipper classifications for the period ending December 31, 2015:
Columbia Select Large-Cap Value Fund (R5 shares): Large-Cap Value Funds classification (290 funds) – 10 years
Columbia Greater China Fund (Z shares): China Region Funds classification (26 funds) – 10 years
Columbia Global Equity Value Fund (I shares): Global Large-Cap Value Funds classification (39 funds) – 3 years
Columbia Contrarian Core Fund (Z shares): Large-Cap Core Funds classification (499 funds) – 10 years
Columbia AMT-Free California Intermediate Muni Bond Fund (Z shares): California Intermediate Municipal Debt Funds classification (30 funds) – 10 years
The U.S. Lipper Fund Awards recognize funds for their consistently strong risk-adjusted three-, five-, and 10- year performance, relative to their peers, based on Lipper’s proprietary performance-based methodology.
“We are pleased to have five funds recognized by Lipper for their consistent, risk adjusted performance,” said Colin Moore, Global Chief Investment Officer. “Our priority is to deliver consistent investment returns for our clients through superior research and capital allocation within and across our strategies and with a deep understanding of their investment needs.”
This is the fifth consecutive year that Columbia Select Large-Cap Value Fund has earned a Lipper Award in the Large-Cap Value category. The fund received the award for 10-year performance in 2015 (90 funds), 10- year performance in 2014 (84 funds), for 5-year and 10-year performance in 2013 (102 funds and 84 funds), and for 5-year performance in 2012 (402 funds).
Despite suffering from the collapse in energy prices, and a -3.7% GDP growth in 2015, Russia’s financial assets have been having a positive performance, but can this go on?
According to Lars Peter Nielsen, Senior Portfolio Manager at Global Evolution and part of the team that In March 2016 visited Russia to evaluate if the recent strong performance of financial assets can continue, “the economic mix is very supportive for fixed income investors. We are increasingly convinced that inflation will come down strongly this year and be close to the 4% target next year which should provide further support for local currency denominated debt. The Russian Ruble should also be well supported as long as the oil price is stable around USD 40 per barrel. If RUB was to appreciate strongly we could see the Central Bank start to rebuild reserves, but they seem to prefer a stronger RUB for now to help combat the inflation.”
Global Evolution believes Russia’s Central Bank “will do whatever it takes” to get 4% inflation. they are also certain that Russia’s GDP will continue in negative territory in 2016, and “Without structural reforms longer term potential growth is at most 2%.” accompanied by a tight fiscal policy.
Photo: eric chan. Los inversores se decantan por el efectivo, mientras continúan los miedos de que las políticas monetarias no funcionen
According to the latest BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report, conducted from April 1-7, 2016, average cash balances jumped up to 5.4% from 5% in March, approaching the 15 year-high of 5.6% recorded in February While the three top most crowded trades are Shorting Emerging Markets, Long US dollar, and Long Quality Stocks.
“With valuations for bonds and equities at their seventh highest reading in 13 years, investors may be turning to cash to protect against the downside while shunning risk assets where valuations constrain the upside. Range-based trading is likely to continue,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch.
Regarding the US Monetary Policy, the vast majority of fund managers still expect no more than two Fed hikes in the next 12 months, while “Quantitative Failure” remains one of the biggest tail risks. Meanwhile in Europe, a record percentage of fund managers see EU monetary policy as “too stimulative” while confidence in this policy as an economic growth driver drops sharply to 15% from 24% in March
The survey also noted that investors have rotated into staples and cash, from Japan, discretionary, commodities and Eurozone. Allocation to Japanese equities marked its first underweight positioning since December 2012.
According to Manish Kabra, European equity and quantitative strategist, “Global investors highlight Quantitative Failure as the biggest tail-risk, followed closely by Brexit. However, despite significant convergence in previously extreme regional preferences, Europe remains the most attractive region globally.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Moyan Brenn. PineBridge Investments Completes Fundraising for Structured Capital Partners III, L.P.
PineBridge Investments, the global multi-asset class investment manager, has announced the final close for PineBridge Structured Capital Partners III, L.P. (together with parallel partnerships, the “Fund”).
PineBridge completed the fundraising in March with US $600 million of aggregate capital commitments, surpassing its planned target amount of US $500 million. The Fund will invest in junior capital securities including mezzanine debt and structured equity issued by privately-owned middle- market companies across all sectors in North America.
F.T. Chong, Managing Director and Head of PineBridge Structured Capital, stated, “We are committed to being reliable and flexible providers of junior capital to middle market companies. We are pleased with the positive reception for our Fund. Most of the Limited Partners from our prior fund have signed up for this Fund and new investors include major institutions in the US as well as Europe, the Middle-East and Asia.”
Generali Investments Europe appointed Jörg Asmussen as an independent director to the company’s Board of Directors, since April 1st.
Santo Borsellino, Chief Executive Officer of Generali Investments, says: “On behalf of everyone here at Generali Investments, I am delighted to welcome Jörg to our Board of Directors. His outstanding expertise, and the wealth of experience in international financial markets he brings to the Board, will be instrumental in reinforcing our international footprint and further driving our expansion in the European markets”.
Jörg Asmussen (49) has been State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs between 2013 and 2015. Prior to that, he had been a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) from 2012 to 2013, and State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance (2008-2011), where he held a succession of positions before.
Asmussen replaces Antonella Baldino, who resigned as independent member of Generali Investments Board of Directors in March.
Daniel Pierce, foto cedida. Daniel Pierce, nuevo socio en accelerando associates
accelerando associates, a European fund distribution consultant, strengthens its capacities with the hire of Daniel Pierce from Wells Fargo in London. Pierce joins as a partner and will work with Philip Kalus in accelerando’s offices in Valencia.
Daniel Pierce has more than 16 years experience in the asset management industry, on both sides of the Atlantic. Pierce joins accelerando from Wells Fargo, where he worked as Investment Management Specialist EMEA. Prior to Wells Fargo, Pierce has held various positions at Citi, including Cross Asset Group Fund Sales EMEA in London, and Smith Barney in Dallas. Pierce has relocated with his wife and his two daughters from London to Valencia. “accelerando associates has built a stellar reputation and has an impressive client book. However, there is still a lot of room to develop the firm and client solutions further, which is an exciting opportunity“ says Pierce. “I trust I can make a meaningful contribution to accelerando’s further development“.
“I am, as all of my colleagues truly excited about Daniel joining us. He brings in a lot of additional experience, thorough technical knowledge and most importantly the right mindset to think beyond and to challenge widespread beliefs and practices in asset management as well as in fund distribution,“ states Philip Kalus, founder and managing partner of accelerando associates. “Our team of five combines now 70 years experience in the asset management industry, with 48 years experience in fund distribution, which provides a major competitive advantage versus our peers,“ continues Kalus. “In addition we have four different nationalities in the team and we speak five European languages fluently, which helps enormously to dive deep into different European fund markets and to get the nuances in fund buyer trends and requirements right.“
accelerando associates, founded in 2004, is a leading European fund distribution consultancy with offices in Frankfurt, London and Valencia and provides European fund distribution research and bespoke strategic advice to asset management firms worldwide.
