Photo: Rusan Estudio / Courtesy Photo. Stelac Advisory Services Hires Gabriel Garcia, Carlos Machado and Nacho Contreras, and Opens an Office in Miami
Stelac Advisory Services, a multi family office based in New York co-founded and headed by Carlos Padula, has closed three high level contracts over the past two months.
Gabriel Garcia Daumen joinsfrom UBS WM Americas International, where he was responsible for the selection of offshore mutual funds and hedge funds for the UBS platform. He joined the team as Head of Research and Direct Investments last July. Before joining UBS WM in 2007, Gabriel Garcia worked at PWC and prior to that, from 1999 to 2003, at Deutsche Bank, where the founders of Stelac Advisory Services worked before founding the company. Gabriel Garcia shall carry out his duties from New York headquarters.
Carlos Machado joined the Stelac team this month as Director, Relationship Manager, and Head of the Stelac office in Miami, which opened this August. Machado has worked for just under four years in BigSur Partners, a multi family office based in Miami, where he carried out advisory work. He previously worked at Standard Chartered during the years 2010 and 2011, although the bulk of his career, from 2003-2010, was carried out in various areas of Deutsche Bank in the Americas region and in Switzerland.
Nacho Contreras, holder of an MBA from IESE and a PHD in Economics and Human Resources, and an expert in corporate finance and consulting, has joined the Stelac team as Head of the Human Resources division and to lead relationships with endowments and foundations.
Carlos Padula, Managing Partner of Stelac, was Managing Director and CEO of PWM Latin America at Deutsche Bank until 2007, the year in which he founded Stelac Advisory Services together with Maria Zita La Rosa and Karla Cervoni, who also worked at Deutsche Bank with UHNW Latin American clients.
According to information filed with the SEC, Stelac Advisory Services has US$1.5 billion in assets under management and advisory, belonging primarily to UHNW clients from international families.
. Embrace New Sources of Return: Pioneer Investment’s Miami Forum
Pioneer Investments will host an exclusive due diligence meeting at the JW Marriott Marquis in Miami on the 8th of October. The event will provide clients with the opportunity to engage with Pioneer Investments’ senior investment team members as they look beyond traditional asset classes, challenge conventional asset allocation and risk management, and identify compelling new investment solutions.
Amongst others, highlight speakers coming together from Pioneer Investments around the globe will include:
Piergaetano Iaccarino: Head of Thematic & Disciplined Equity, Portfolio Manager of Pioneer Funds – Global Equity Target Income
Thomas Swaney: Head of Alternative Fixed Income U.S., Portfolio Manager of Pioneer Funds – Long / Short Opportunistic Credit
Adam MacNulty: Client Portfolio Manager of Pioneer Funds – Absolute Return Multi-Strategy & Absolute Return Multi-Strategy Growth
Andrew Feltus: Director of High Yield Bank Loans, Portfolio Manager of Pioneer Funds – Strategic Income
As fundamental changes taking place in the investment management market continue to lead investors to look beyond their existing strategies, the theme “Embrace New Sources of Return” is a continuation from Pioneer Investments’ global annual client meeting for international investors held in Boston in April.
Key topics of conversation on October 8th will include:
How to navigate Fixed Income markets in a rising interest rate environment.
The outlook for Equities moving forward in continued volatility.
Where are the opportunities in Emerging Markets?
How to meet the need for Income in today’s economic environment.
What Alternative Investments can provide market neutral solutions?
Foto: MinWoo, Flickr, Creative Commons. El positivo escenario para la industria de fondos europea hace que relaje su consolidación en el segundo trimestre
“As mentioned in the last report, it seems European fund promoters are in a standby mode, even though the activity regarding fund closures, mergers, and launches went up in Q2 2015 compared to Q1 2015. One reason for this can be seen in the still-exceptional high net inflows witnessed by the European fund industry during Q2 2015; higher assets under management (AUM) lead to a higher income stream and therefore to lower pressure with regard to the profitability of single funds within the product ranges. In addition, we have already seen a lot of activity with regard to the cleanup of product ranges, meaning European fund promoters have done a lot to realize economies of scale within their product offerings. This might have eased pressure on profits. That said, the activity in the equity segment during Q2 2015 showed there is still a lot for promoters to do on this front”, says Lipper.
During Q2 2015, 459 funds were launched in Europe. The quantity of newly launched products was 11% behind the number of launches during second quarter 2014, but it was in line with the average of the last four measured second quarters (the number of launches for Q2 2011 needs to be considered as exceptional).
“It is remarkable that the industry has not started to launch a massive number of new products to profit from the ongoing trend toward asset allocation/multi-asset and income products as has been seen in the past. Nevertheless, the European fund industry still has a lot of room for consolidation, since the AUM in Europe is still far behind the average AUM in the United States”, according to the report.
The number of liquidations went down approximately 11%, comparing Q2 2015 with Q2 2014—to 359 from 402, for the lowest number of liquidations in the five-year observation period.
The number of fund mergers went up approximately 28%, from 257 for Q2 2014 to 329 for Q2 2015, but–similar to launches–fund mergers were in line with the average of the last four measured second quarters.
“Since there is still a lot of activity regarding mergers and acquisitions in the European asset management industry, the alignment of product ranges and the resulting mergers and closures of funds will be one driver of future consolidation in the industry. This is the easiest way to increase the potential profits from an acquisition. That said, we see no lack of innovation in the European fund industry, and therefore we still expect the European asset management industry to show net growth in terms of new funds at some point in the near future. That will depend on general market conditions staying in the favor of investors, i.e., that no negative trend hits the stock or bond markets. The growth pattern of the industry is heavily dependent on market conditions and investor confidence”.
Beamonte Investments, a private investment firm in Boston, along with its affiliate Beamonte Mexico Holdings SAPI de CV, announces the formation of Fondeadora KC, SAPI de CV (KCMX Capital) a Mexico City-based company dedicated to provide innovative financing solutions to SME’s in Mexico.
KCMX is specifically designed to serve small and middle market family-owned operating enterprises in Mexico and will provide structured financing across the capital structure and short-term financing as Factoring. KCMX will assume the operations and portfolio of Kiwii Capital.
KCMX Capital is a provider of senior secured asset-based loans to the small and middle-market across a variety of industries with additional complementary financing throughout the capital structure. KCMX will offer financing schemes, such as project finance/contract-linked, receivables financing, and inventory financing products, as well as structured loans.
Luis Felipe Treviño, who currently serves as senior Managing Director of Beamonte Investments, will serve as Chief Executive Officer of KCMX Capital.“We are excited to announce a premiere credit platform like KCMX that offers our investors a unique way to capitalize on the opportunity to finance the growth of SME’s in Mexico”, said Treviño.
Salvador Gaytan former CEO of Kiwii Capital will serve as Director of Operations.“I’m thrilled to be part again of another venture with Beamonte Investments, KCMX is a vehicle that allows us to provide a more robust product offering to serve SME’s, we work with companies with annual sales between MXN 20 million to 150 million that provide products or services to large corporations. The credit facilities goes from MXN 1.5 million up to 50 million”, said Gaytan
Andrea Mandraccio is Head of Institutional Clients Division at Anima. Italian Fund Manager Anima To Land in the Spanish Market Through Selinca
Italian fund manager Anima has landed in the Spanish market, with the registration of its Irish Sicav in the Spanish regulator, CNMV. In this interview with Funds Society, Andrea Mandraccio, Head of Institutional Clients Division at Anima, explains its objetives for the future.
Why have you made the decision to enter in Spain now?
Anima is today a reference point in the Italian asset management industry with a total AUM of 65 billion euros (data as of July 31, 2015). Through a combination of diversified and complementary backgrounds and know-how, Anima’s products and services figure among the widest available on the Italian market. The range of products includes wealth management services both for retail and institutional clients. Anima offers Italian mutual funds, open-ended umbrella funds domiciled in Ireland and in Luxembourg and pension funds.
Having achieved a significant reach in the Italian market we are moving our first steps abroad since mid 2014 through our Institutional Client Division. As of today we have clients in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg. We’ve targeted the Spanish market as the first country to approach with a structured effort through the partnership with a solid operator such as Selinca, since the structure of the market (relationship between Asset managers and banks), size and culture is similar to our own.
What are your objectives in the Spanish market? Is it a big potencial market for you?
We think that through the partnership with Selinca, we can potentially achieve an interesting penetration of the Spanish market. Spanish market is very similar to the Italian market by structure with a particular focus to the fund buyers space. Similarities between our economies and needs of savers other than their historical experience and culture make us think that investment solutions studied for the Italian market would be viable also for the Spanish market.
To get them, what does your sicav look like?
For the Spanish market we’ve just registered our Irish Sicav. The main strategies we want to present in the Spanish market are the essence of our best capabilities: Anima is a leading player in the equity market – in particular with a European focus. Our CIO Lars Schickentanz who’s running our long only flagship European fund and absolute return European fund has more than 20 years of experience in the management of such products and a proven track record.
Our offer will also include Absolute return strategies in the fixed income space which are becoming a specific need for asset allocators going forward, where we can as well show proven numbers and a different approach vs our main international competitors.
Finally we think the Italian equity market – one of the most de-rated of the past years – today offers interesting pockets of value which could be disclosed through a dynamic and absolute approach. Our team has a long standing experience and excellent numbers on their side in out domestic stock market.
You registered also a sicav in Luxembourg in 2006 that is in CNMV…
In the Spanish market we’ve decided to register our Irish Sicav funds, since those products are historically the clones of our Flagship Italian vehicles. New strategies are today launched through our Irish branch, so we think this is the best tool to approach a new market.
Being Anima the result of mergers between multiple Asset managers we have also a Luxemburg sicav coming from another of our constituent Asset Managers.
Who will be your distributor in Spain?
Our distributor in Spain is Allfunds Bank S.A.
Animais an historical player in the Italian asset management industry and today is a leading independent operator in the field. The company was born in 2012 from a process of mergers between Italian Asset management companies. Since April 2014 the Holding of the Anima Group was listed in the Italian Stock Exchange and today roughly 70% of the capital is owned by the market. Anima Sgr is headquartered in Milan, but it is also present in Ireland and Luxembourg, through its subsidiaries Anima Asset Management and Anima Management Company respectively.
Anima is a reference point in the Italian asset management industry, with more than one hundred distribution agreements and one million customers, with strong partnership with leading banking groups.
Art Steinmetz, de OppenheimerFunds, y Vince Lowry, de VTL Associates. Foto: PRNewsFoto/OppenheimerFunds. OppenheimerFunds compra VTL
OppenheimerFunds has announced an agreement to acquire VTL Associates, an independent institutional investment firm best known for itsRevenueShares exchange traded funds (ETFs). VTL manages $1.7 billion for investors across eight ETFs and its separate accounts.
The acquisition expands the firm´s active client offering into the growing smart-beta space, subject to customary closing conditions and consents. The deal will bring both high-quality smart-beta ETFs and an ETF platform offering cost- and tax-efficient investment solutions that financial advisors are increasingly using in their investors’ portfolios.
“Investors are looking to active managers for innovative solutions to add to their overall investment strategy, including products that are designed to deliver better-than-market returns with full transparency of their investment process,” said Art Steinmetz, Chairman, President and CEO of OppenheimerFunds.
In general, smart beta strives to identify factors that have the potential to generate positive risk-adjusted returns compared with market-cap-weighted index funds. VTL applies a proprietary methodology to screen and weight the stocks in each ETF according to various factors such as revenue or dividends, instead of by market capitalization. This practice is designed to lower exposure to overvalued companies, while maintaining diversification by investing in all of the stocks in the given index. VTL has been successfully employing this strategy in ETFs since 2008.
“Our firm has grown by serving the needs of investors seeking above-market returns delivered through a suite of custom index products and institutional advisory services,” said Vince Lowry, Founder of VTL.
Peter Mintzberg, Head of Corporate Strategy and Development at OppenheimerFunds, said, “Clients have expressed interest in OppenheimerFunds expanding its array of investment capabilities. We are expediting that process with a strategic acquisition, as we did most recently in 2012 with SteelPath, which enabled clients and their investors to participate in the income and tax advantages afforded by master limited partnerships. We continue to look for these types of opportunities to further broaden our offering in a way that is consistent with our core investment approach.”
Foto: El Coleccionista de Instantes Fotografía & Video
. S&P DJI lanza un índice de valores católicos
S&P Dow Jones Indices has launched the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index which is designed to include the companies within the S&P 500 whose business practices adhere to the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines as outlined by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (US CCB) and exclude those that do not.
The Index has been licensed to Global X for product development.
The S&P 500 Catholic Values Index is the first Catholic index based on such a prominent benchmark as the S&P 500. Constituents are screened to exclude companies who are involved in the following activities that are perceived to be inconsistent with Catholic values as set out by the US CCB, such as:
Biological weapons, chemical weapons, cluster bombs, landmines
Nuclear weapons– any exposure to whole systems and strategic par
Conventional Military sales– companies that have their primary business activity as military products
Child labor employmentin the company’s operation or in supply chain
“Sustainable issues represent one of the most important cost and revenue drivers in the modern corporate world,” says Julia Kochetygova, Head of Sustainability Indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices.”By selecting stocks that comply with the US CCB, the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index aims to include companies with resilient business profiles by addressing the ethical challenges that can make a stronger investment case. We are excited to be working with Global X by licensing this new and innovative index to them.”
“As a client-focused ETF company, Global X consistently strives to find new paths that help support our clients’ businesses,” Jim Glowina, Regional Consultant at Global X adds. “Global X is excited to bring to market a custom ETF, which seeks to provide a solution for a client’s chosen investment strategy.”
“I welcome the creation of the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index and support its specific selection rules. It is important that investors now have a representative measure of the performance of those S&P 500 companies that adhere to the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines as outlined by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,” states Father Seamus Finn O.M.I., Chief of Faith Consistent Investing, Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust.
Suramericana, Grupo SURA´s insurance and risk management subsidiary, announces that it has reached a definite agreement to acquire RSA Insurance Group’s operations in Latin America, for a total of GBP 403 million, that represents COP 1,910,750 million (US$ 614 million) for 99.6% of the equity, payable in cash.
RSA’s Latin American operations represent a leading, geographically-diversified P&C franchise within the region, with a presence spanning Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. The aforementioned operations posted total assets of COP 6,181,628 million (US$ 1.9 billion) at year-end 2014; this in addition to net reserves worth COP 1,964,868 million (US$ 631 million), and total gross written premiums amounting to COP 3,362,834 million (US$ 1.1 billion).
With this acquisition, Suramericana will consolidate its position in the Latin American insurance market. It shall become a top player in Chile and Uruguay, and #9 in Argentina. As for Mexico and Brazil, the largest markets in Latin America, the Company shall be entering new market niches offering substantial growth potential, while in Colombia it would be strengthening its existing offering and consolidating its leading position.
“This transaction represents a unique opportunity to expand our presence across the fast-growing Latin American markets. We are certain that this new acquisition shall create value for all our clients, as well as for us in Suramericana, our parent company Grupo SURA and the Organization as a whole, through the diversification of our geographical risk, sharing of best practices and harnessing of synergies, while at the same time allowing us to develop new markets” stated Gonzalo Alberto Pérez, CEO of Suramericana S.A.
Suramericana is well-known for building long term relationships and implementing world-class standards in all countries where present. The Company will consolidate this new acquisition, with the help of RSA’s recognized human talent in the region, while capitalizing Suramericana´s70 years of experience and expertise in the insurance sector.
Now that it has acquired RSA’s Latin American operations, Suramericana shall be extending its current presence in Colombia, Panamá, Dominican Republic and El Salvador, thereby consolidating its position as one of the most important insurance companies in the region with over 15.6 million clients.
At the same time, Grupo SURA, Suramericana’s parent company, has welcomed this acquisition as part of the organization´s strategy to develop a wider range of financial services within the region. “This transaction is being carried out maintaining the highest corporate governance standards, fulfilling our expectations in terms of corporate reputation, senior management capabilities, and business practices”, stated David Bojanini, CEO of Grupo SURA.
Amidst recent market volatility, the change in China’s stock market has been quite dramatic, shifting from overvalued to possibly undervalued according to data from Thomson Reuters Fundamental Research. Following the Chinese stock market crash, the 360 day growth rate is now a more reasonable 37% compared to a lofty 150% from just a month ago, and the difference between the five year growth rates has swung into positive territory. More details follow:
“A month ago, our StarMine data warned that the Chinese markets seemed overvalued at the time,” said Sridharan Raman, senior research analyst at Thomson Reuters. “With the crash in markets over the past few weeks, the market may be discounting stocks more than necessary, out of fear or panic. Our models now show that the markets may actually be undervalued now in China.”
Countries with the smallest differential between StarMine’s Market Implied Growth Rate and the Compound Annual Growth Rate show where market expectations for growth are above, or match, analyst expectations for the next five years, representing possibly over- or fair- valued markets. After the recent stock market collapse, the difference between market expectations for growth and analysts’ expectations in China has moved from -0.2% in early June to 7.7%; more in line with possible undervalued markets.
Robeco Group announces the departure of Roderick Munsters, who will resign as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Management Board. Mr. Munsters will leave once a smooth handover to his successor has been completed.
Roderick Munsters, said: “Two years after the acquisition by our new shareholder, Robeco is in good shape with a solid financial performance and a strong long-term strategy. This is therefore a natural moment for me to hand over my responsibilities to new leadership. Although I will stay with the company for a few more months to ensure a seamless transition, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues for six successful years of working together to achieve great results for our clients.”
Dick Verbeek, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said: “We are grateful to Roderick for his commitment to Robeco as our CEO over the past six years and his contribution to the development of the company, including the successful transition process following the acquisition of a majority stake in Robeco by ORIX. We wish him every success in pursuing his professional ambitions.”
Makoto Inoue, President and Chief Executive Officer of ORIX Corporation and member of Robeco’s Supervisory Board, said: “I want to thank Roderick for his contribution and the commitment he has shown in leading Robeco. Under his leadership the company has shown strong results and he has built a solid foundation for Robeco’s future growth.”
The Supervisory Board, working in close cooperation with Robeco’s shareholders, will name a successor for Mr. Munsters in the near future. An official announcement will be made once this process, including obtaining all necessary regulatory approvals, is completed.
