Foto: Júlio Boaro. El Foro de Fondos de Pensiones Brasil 2015 reunirá a los principales protagonistas del sector brasileño e internacional
The Pension Fund Brazil Forum, that will take place in Sao Paulo on the 13th of May organized by Markets Group, is a specialized gathering for Brazilian and international pension funds to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities faced by the key players in Latin America’s largest pension fund community.
The Forum was designed in collaboration with leading Brazilian pension fund decision makers to support the Brazilian pension funds who are confronted with falling local interest rates, the threat of inflation at home and rapidly increasing liabilities tied to an increasingly robust but aging middle class. It is an opportunity for Brazilian pension funds, asset managers and industry experts to work together toward solutions in Brazilian pension fund portfolio construction, Brazilian pension fund asset allocation and investment strategy, as well as to develop innovative strategies for liability and lifecycle modeling for Brazilian pension funds.
Closing Keynote speaker will be Henrique de Campos Meirelles, Former President of the Central Bank of Brazil, who will be preceded by Cecília Mendes Garcez Siqueira, PREVI;Maurício Marcellini, Funcef; Gabriel Amado de Moura, Fundação Itaubanco; Jorge Simino, Fundação Cesp; Antonio J. Carvalho, PREVI; Ana Nolte, Valia; Fábio Mazzeo, METRUS – Instituto de Seguridade Social; Carlos Kawall, Banco J Safra; Arlete Nese, Banesprev; Reinaldo Soares de Camargo, Funcef; Flavio Pacheco Moreira, Petros; Edner Castilho, Fundação Cesp; Nairam Félix de Barros, AGROS; Adilson Ferrarezi, HSBC Fundo de Pensão; Giuliano Lorenzoni, FAPES and Luiz Mário Farias, Towers Watson.
Key discussion topics include:
Best Practices in Asset-Liability Management: Developed and Emerging Market Pension Fund Perspectives
Investment Strategies for Long Term Asset Preservation and Growth
Fiduciary Excellence: Evolving Responsibilities in Global and Emerging Markets
Trends and Macroeconomic Prospects in Brazilian and Global Economies
Accessing Alternative Investments & the Future of International Asset Allocation
Pension System’s Lifecycle and Educational Programs for Contributors
Current Brazilian Pension Fund Regulation, New Legislation & Considerations in Fundraising & Capital Allocation
For additional information on program or registration, please visit link
Ian Headon, responsable de Servicios Técnicos y de Regulación de Depositaría en Northern Trust, dice que la regulación es una maratón, no un sprint. . Los inversores demandan cada vez más productos acordes con la nueva regulación
More than a quarter (28 percent) of fund managers and consultants surveyed at a Northern Trust seminar on regulation said they believed investors in funds are now demanding products fully compliant with new regulations.
“Investment managers launching new products are now seeing an increasing demand from investors for a combination of traditional offshore and fully regulated products,” said Ian Headon, head of Depositary Regulatory and Technical Services at Northern Trust. “This is a gradual, incremental change in investor behavior and will have a significant impact on the evolution of fund managers’ product offerings – regulation is here to stay, but this is a marathon, not a sprint.”
However, whilst the survey demonstrated an increased demand for compliant products, the majority of respondents (65 percent) still believed their investors viewed the Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive (AIFMD) as primarily a compliance exercise, despite the fact that AIFMD implementation is almost complete.
“The regulatory landscape continues to evolve and as AIFMD implementation nears completion, the industry is faced with a new wave of regulation,” said Robert Angel, head of Regulatory Services for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Northern Trust. “The successful managers will be the ones that break away from the pack and get ahead of the regulatory trends. We provide our clients with regular insights on the latest industry developments and the opportunities that regulation creates, helping to ensure clients can remain ahead of the curve.”
Northern Trust’s Global Fund Services business provides custody, fund administration, investment operations outsourcing, and ETF solutions to investment managers across the globe and across the spectrum of asset classes. Northern Trust offers depositary services in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg and Guernsey.
Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has raised $2.5 billion for its first international energy fund, the largest first-time fund in the firm’s history. Carlyle International Energy Partners (CIEP) began raising capital in mid-2013 and has attracted 160 investors. Carlyle now has over $10 billion of capital ready to deploy across its global energy platform.
Carlyle Chairman Daniel A. D’Aniello said, “This has been a remarkable fund raise, the largest first-time fund in our 28-year history. We are grateful for the support of our investors who share our excitement at the current investment opportunities across the international oil and gas sector. The vision and experience of Marcel van Poecke, who leads our international energy team, made this possible. Marcel, alongside Ken Hersh, David Albert, Rahul Culas, Bob Mancini and Matt O’Connor, who led our other energy strategies, form what we believe is the most talented and experienced energy investing platform in the world.”
Mr. van Poecke said, “This fundraising effort reflects the market’s confidence in Carlyle and our ability to create value in the international energy sector. This is one of the best energy investing environments I’ve seen in more than 30 years in the industry. Carlyle’s broad energy platform plus a significant amount of dry powder enables us to leverage current opportunities and market volatility across the global energy markets.”
CIEP seeks investment opportunities in oil and gas outside North America, notably in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The primary investment focus is on oil and gas exploration and production (E&P), mid- & downstream, refining and marketing (R&M) and oil field services (OFS).
CIEP’s current investments include: Varo Energy, a Swiss-based refining, storage and distribution business operating in Germany and Switzerland; Discover Exploration, an oil and gas exploration company based in the UK that focuses on Africa, Latin America and Asia; and HES International, a European liquids, dry-bulk storage and handling business located in The Netherlands.
The final close of CIEP further expands Carlyle’s global energy offering and brings more than $10 billion of capital to invest across the sector through CIEP (led by Marcel van Poecke), NGP Energy Capital Management (led by Ken Hersh), Carlyle Power Partners (co-headed by Robert Mancini & Matt O’Connor) and Carlyle Energy Mezzanine Opportunities Fund (co-headed by David Albert and Rahul Culas).
The CIEP team consists of 14 investment professionals, all with extensive international oil and gas industry investment and operational expertise. In addition to Marcel van Poecke, it includes Managing Directors Bob Maguire and Joost Dröge, both industry veterans with 55 years’ combined successful energy investing experience, as well as Paddy Spink, Senior Advisor to CIEP, with 35 years’ upstream experience in Africa, Latin America & Europe. The advisory team for CIEP has offices in London and they will continue to benefit from the support of the firm’s global network of 40 offices.
Foto: Scott Rettberg
. Conferencia inaugural de Arthena sobre Activos de Arte e Inversión
Arthena, the first equity crowdfunding platform to give individuals access to invest with leaders in the art world, will hold an inaugural conference on Art Assets & Investment on April 2, 2015, at 54 W 40th St, New York. The conference will feature insights from leaders in the fields of art, finance, and technology, including the latest international art market trends, how to value art, and the importance of art as a both a financial investment and an investment of passion.
The panel on Art Assets & Investment will be moderated by Enrique Liberman, President of the Art Fund Association; opened by Louis F. Trevino, Senior Managing Director of Beamonte Investments; and will include the insights of Adrien Meyer, Christie’s, International Director of Impressionist & Modern Art; Alan Fausel, VP and Director of Fine Arts at Bonhams New York; James Martin, Founder of Orion Analytical; Javier Lumbreras, CEO of Artemundi Global Fund; Joseph Jacobs, Founder of Jacobs & Morawska; and Madelaine D’Angelo, Founder of Arthena, will be in charge of the concluding remarks.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrFoto: Camelia at Wu, Flickr, Creative Commons. La UE y Suiza cierran un acuerdo de transparencia fiscal a partir de 2018
The European Commission has concluded negotiations on an ambitious new tax transparency agreement with Switzerland, marking a major step forward in the fight against tax evasion. Under this new agreement, Member States and Switzerland will automatically exchange information on the full range of financial account information from 2018.
This means that EU residents will no longer be able to hide undeclared income in Swiss accounts to evade paying tax.
Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, said: “We are taking a decisive step towards total tax transparency between Switzerland and the EU. I am confident that our other neighbours will soon follow suit. This transparency is vital to ensure that each country can collect the tax revenues it is due.”
Member States will receive, on an annual basis, the names, addresses, tax identification numbers and dates of birth of their residents with accounts in Switzerland, as well as a broad set of other financial and account balance information. This is fully in line with the new OECD/G20 global standard for the automatic exchange of information.
The new EU-Swiss agreement was initialled by Commission and Swiss negotiators. It will be signed following authorisation by the Council on one side and the Swiss Government on the other, both of which are expected to be before the summer.
Foto: Maus. La generación del milenio quiere conservar a los asesores familiares, según FOX
New research from Family Office Exchange (FOX), a global membership organization of private family enterprises and their key advisors, shows that Millennial wealth owners value and aim to retain their family’s advisors—if the advisors can adapt to meet Millennials’ expectations.
The FOX Family Client of the Future research, highlighted in new white paper “Engaging the Client of the Future,” finds that Millennial family clients are eager to work with experienced advisors who already know their family, and who can help them address their needs—just so long as the advisors are ready, willing and able to adjust to their Millennial clients’ expectations on engagement and value delivery.
“While Millennials’ needs are similar to those of their parents and grandparents, their expectations for how wealth advisors should meet those needs are notably different than those of earlier generations,” says Amy Hart Clyne, executive director of the knowledge center at FOX.
Foto: Simon MacKinnon, asesor de estrategia para Asia en Old Mutual Global Investors. Old Mutual Global Investors contrata a Simon MacKinnon como consultor estratégico para Asia
Old Mutual Global Investors has announced that Simon MacKinnon has been appointed to the newly created consultancy role of Asia Strategy Adviser, with effect from February 2015.
Reporting to Julian Ide, CEO at Old Mutual Global Investors, MacKinnon will provide strategic advice and support to Old Mutual Global Investors and Old Mutual International, part of Old Mutual Wealth, in respect of their ambitious Asia Pacific expansion plans.
This role will include working closely with Ide and Carol Wong, managing director, head of Distribution Asia, on the operating model needed in the region as well as identifying and supporting the recruitment of future key appointments. He will also assist Old Mutual International in the development of their footprint in the Asia Pacific region.
Old Mutual Global Investors is actively expanding into selected key international markets in order to support its global client base. Over the last two years, the business has significantly enhanced its capabilities in the Asia Pacific region. The appointment of Simon follows the creation of a new Asian Equities Team in October 2014 which will be based in Hong Kong during Q2 2015.
This team is headed by Josh Crabb, and also includes specialist China Equities portfolio manager Diamond Lee, who joined the business in November 2014. In addition, Old Mutual Global Investors recently completed the build-out of the Hong Kong based Asian Distribution Team, under the leadership of Carol, and has a strong relationship with Capital Gateway, a Master Agent in Taiwan.
MacKinnon has experience across a variety of businesses in Asia and the UK including leadership and investor roles today in financial services, healthcare, clean-tech and education. Among other roles, he is currently Chairman of Sinophi Healthcare, Non-Executive Director of London Bridge Capital and Non-Executive Chairman China of Modern Water PLC and Xeros PLC.
Deutsche Bank’s Global Social Finance Group announced the closing of the Essential Capital Consortium (ECC), a five-year USD 50 million social enterprise fund, which is part of its family of social impact funds first launched in 2005.
With a list of investors including Church Pension Fund, MetLife, Agence Française de Développement, Deutsche Bank, Calvert Foundation, Prudential Financial, the Multilateral Investment Fund, member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, Left Hand Foundation, IBM International Foundation, Tikehau Capital, Salvepar, Cisco Foundation and the Posner-Wallace Foundation, the ECC will provide debt financing to social enterprises in the energy, health and Base of the Pyramid financial services sectors. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency is also providing ECC with crucial credit enhancement support.
The ECC, which will finance 25 social enterprises including microfinance institutions expanding their offerings of financial products, has made its first round of loans to three organizations: Sproxil, a developer of a patented text message-based drug authentication system; Tiaxa, a provider of “nanocredits” to poor consumers in developing countries via mobile phones using big data analytics; and Arvand, a Tajikistan-based MFI providing innovative “green loans” to finance solar panels, clean cookstoves and other energy efficient products.
“The Essential Capital Consortium is a pioneering fund that aims to finance the growth of social enterprises as vehicles to achieve measureable benefits in improving the lives of the poor, bringing together well-respected and similarly motivated investors to fill an existing capital gap,” said Gary Hattem, Head of the Global Social Finance Group at Deutsche Bank. “As part of Deutsche Bank’s ongoing commitment to microfinance and the impact industry, the ECC provides responsive debt capital to support the next generation of social entrepreneurs globally who are redefining a market approach to addressing fundamental humanitarian challenges.”
Deutsche Bank was the first global bank to establish a socially motivated microfinance fund in 1997, managed by its Global Social Finance Group. Since then, the Bank has partnered with more than 130 MFIs in more than 50 countries, benefiting as many as 3.8 million low-income entrepreneurs through USD 1.67 billion in financing.
Foto: Ines Hegedus-Garcia. V Foro Estratégico Mundial: cómo diseñar una economía resistente
An initiative of the International Economic Forum of the Americas, the World Strategic Forum, will convene over 200 global leaders to discuss how to Engineer a Resilient Economy in the face of the myriad of political, economic and environmental opportunities and challenges confronting countries and businesses around the world. The event will take place April 13 and 14, 2015, at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami.
The two-day conference seeks to foster a better understanding of the issues and trends driving the global economy in the areas of finance, innovation, energy and trade. Included among the topics to be discussed: What are the foundations for a resilient economy? What strategies are Central Banks implementing to boost inclusive economic growth and combat poverty and inequality? How can infrastructure investment best be financed at a time of tighter fiscal constraints? Will the price of oil stabilize or is volatility the new normal? How can the agri-food sector continue drive economic growth and employment in a sustainable manner? How will the rise of emerging economies change the global trade landscape?
“As the Great Recession recedes into history, the global economic recovery remains an uneven work in progress that will require bold economic strategies and vision,” said Nicholas Rémillard, president and CEO of the International Economic Forum of the Americas and the World Strategic Forum. “This year’s Forum brings together an impressive array of political and economic leaders to help chart a path towards a more resilient global economy.”
Some of confirmed speakers for the event include: Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, Export-Import Bank of the United States; Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution; Shaukat Aziz, former prime minister of Pakistan (2004-2007) and former executive vice president, Citibank; John D. Negroponte, Chairman of Council of the Americas and Vice Chairman of McLarty Associates; Rafael Moreno Valle, Governor, State of Puebla; José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General, Organization of American States (OAS); Wilfredo R. Cerrato, Minister of Finance, Republic of Honduras; Herman Daems, Chairman, BNP Paribas Fortis; Ernesto Torres Cantú, Chief Executive Officer, Grupo Financiero Banamex; Amadou Diallo, Chief Executive Officer, DHL Freight; Luis Robles Miaja, Chairman of Grupo Financiero BBVA Bancomer and President of Asociación de Bancos de México; Justin Chinyanta, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Loita Group and Executive Vice-President, Africa Business Roundtable; Julio Velarde, Governor, Central Bank of Peru; Carlos G. Fernández Valdovinos, Governor, Central Bank of Paraguay; Mario Bergara, Governor, Central Bank of Uruguay; Sergio Argüelles González, President and Chief Executive Officer, FINSA; Anne Fulenwider, Editor in Chief, Marie Claire; Wandee Khunchornyakong, Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer, SPCG Public Company Limited; Sherife AbdelMessih, Chief Executive Officer, Future Energy Corporation; Leonel Fernández, President, Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) and Former President of the Dominican Republic.
Global investors have significantly pared back U.S. equity allocations as belief grows that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise rates in the second quarter, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for March.
A net 19% of global asset allocators are now underweight U.S. equities – the biggest underweight since January 2008 and a big swing from a net 6% overweight in February. The proportion of investors saying U.S. equities are overvalued has reached its highest since May 2000 at a net 23%.
Allocations to eurozone and Japanese equities have both increased, but investors have indicated that the shift to Europe has only just begun. A net 63% of respondents say that Europe is the region they would most like to overweight in the coming 12 months – a record since the question was first asked in 2001. The reading has spiked from a net 18% preferring Europe in January.
The move out of U.S. equities is also set to continue. A net 35% says that the U.S. is the region they would like to underweight the most, the most bearish reading in nearly 10 years. The spread between Europe and the U.S. has soared to 98 net percentage points – also a record.
The March survey indicates that investors have started to bring forward the date of the Fed’s first rate hike, rather than continue to push it back. The proportion of investors expecting the Fed to raise rates in the second quarter has risen to 34%, from 28%. The number expecting a rate rise in the third quarter has fallen. Accordingly, a net 2% of the panel has taken the view that the U.S. dollar is overvalued – the first overvalued reading since 2009.
“Investor consensus suggests that the strong dollar will act as positive rather than a negative for the global economy and markets,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. “Bullishness towards European stocks has reached uncharted territory. Demand for financials highlights confidence in domestic growth, while belief in European exporters is building on gains seen last month,” said Manish Kabra, European equity and quantitative strategist.
Inflation and rate expectations up sharply
Investors’ expectations of higher inflation and higher interest rates have risen sharply, according to the Global Fund Manger Survey. A net 52% of the panel expects high global consumer price inflation this month, up from a net 29% in February and a net 14% in January. Furthermore, increasing numbers take the view that global monetary policy could tighten. A net 34% say that policy is currently too stimulative, up from a net 26% a month ago.
More investors are forecasting increases in both long- and short-term interest rates. A net 66% of respondents believe short-term (three-month) rates will be higher in 12 months’ time, up from a net 53% in February. A net 63% expect long-term (10-year) rates in 12 months, up from a net 57%.
European bulls rush into banks
Investors inside Europe have echoed their global colleagues’ bullishness towards the region and made big allocations towards financial services. The proportion of European investors overweight banks has surged to a net 22% from a net 26% underweight last month. The proportion of investors overweight insurance has risen to a net 31% from a net 3% underweight in February
Belief in a rebound in profits is strong. A net 38% of respondents to the regional survey say that they expect double-digit earnings growth in Europe in the next 12 months, up from just a net 3% in February and negative net 43% in January. A net 88% of the regional panel says that Europe’s economy will be stronger in a year’s time, up from 81%.
Investors mindful of China default threat
With questions hanging over China’s debt levels, concern of default has moved to the forefront of more investors’ minds. China debt defaults is now seen the second-largest tail risk in world markets – 19% of investors rank it as their greatest risk, compared with 14% a month ago. “Geopolitical crisis” remains the most voted for tail risk.
Furthermore, the proportion of asset allocators underweight global emerging markets has risen to a net 11% from a net 1% in the past month. A net 57% of the global panel say that global emerging markets is the regional asset class they most want to underweight in the coming 12 months – down from a net 63% but remaining close to historic survey highs.
