Foto cedida Daniel Romero-Abreu, presidente y fundador de Thinking Heads, ocupará el cargo de CEO de Thinking Heads Américas. . Personalidades del mundo de las finanzas de Miami apuestan por Thinking Heads Americas
Thinking Heads Group (THG), the first agent in the Hispanic world specialized in operating within the globalized market of ideas, is beginning its process of expansion in the region with the intention of broadening its efforts in spreading the ideas, values, projects and knowledge of its clients throughout Latin America and the USA. With a potential market worth over 2,500 million dollars that includes personal, digital, literary and on-trend contents, THG aspires to become the Thought Leadership Hub on a worldwide scale, based on the application of its unique management model on personal positioning.
Miami – the enterprise node par excellence among the different American regions – has been the city selected to begin on the expansion project. A project that anticipates, over the next two years, the opening of three more offices across the region, as well as the incorporation of top-level figures from all over Latin America into the Group’s portfolio of clients.
In its launch, Thinking Heads Américas will put into practice the methodology developed by some of the world’s most prestigious thinkers: the management of personal positioning, through the generation and diffusion of knowledge. Thanks to this, personalities like Felipe González, Ricardo Lakes or Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero have been able to contact those institutions that have wished to draw on their ideas to improve the environment in which they operate. And most importantly – it always engages the capacity of reflection and thought of the target audience. For this reason, THG has already staged more than 6,000 public appearances, ensuring its digital audiovisual production contents were a formative element of success for thousands of directors and companies.
In addition, it has advised and promoted the works of hundreds of authors and has planned the personal positioning strategy for more than 80 personalities of various scopes. Amongst them are the economists Jose Carlos Diez and Carlos Rodriguez Braun; the lawyer and ex-minister Ana Palacio; the athletes Toni Nadal and Emilio Butragueño; the philosopher José Antonio Marina; the journalist Pedro J. Ramirez and the artist Theo Jansen, as well as various personalities from the world of business, science and ideas.
In order to achieve its objectives, Thinking Heads Américas relies on a group of investors including: Erics Bergasa, Partner in Tagua Capital; Alex Blochtein, General International Manager of Nortek; José Castellano, Managing Director of Pioneer Investments; Eduardo Rabassa, Managing Partner of Amrop Seeliger and Conde US; Pete Pizarro, CEO at Whitney International University System; Ignasi Puig, CEO of SCPF América; Gustavo Cisneros and Steven Bandel, chairman and co-chairman of Organización Cisneros.
The Board of Directors of the new company will be chaired by Steven Bandel, while Daniel Romero-Abreu – chair and founder of Thinking Heads – will hold the post of CEO. Iván Abanades, who was been director of the Thinking Heads office in Barcelona, has been appointed as Director General of Thinking Heads Americas.
Foto: PressCambrabcn, Flickr, Creative Commons. El fondo de pensiones de California otorga a UBS GAM un mandato para invertir en infraestructuras
California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”) and UBS Global Asset Management have formed a strategic infrastructure partnership, Golden State Matterhorn, LLC to pursue infrastructure investment opportunities across core, OECD markets. CalPERS and UBS have made capital commitments of USD 485 million and USD 15 million, respectively, to the partnership.
UBS will be the managing member and it will utilize the services of Infrastructure Asset Management (“IAM”), an investment area within UBS Global Asset Management’s Infrastructure and Private Equity business unit. IAM originates and manages direct investments in infrastructure assets globally on behalf of institutional investors from around the world. The team includes senior executives who have been active in the infrastructure and related sectors since the early 1990s.
CalPERS’ Senior Portfolio Manager, Randall Mullan noted, “We are pleased to add UBS Global Asset Management to our roster of preferred partners as we expand our access to infrastructure assets across the globe.”
Global Head of UBS Global Asset Management’s Infrastructure and Private Equity business, Paul Moy, said, “We are delighted to be partnering with CalPERS, one of the world’s pre-eminent institutional investors, for this important mandate. We share a common view of good infrastructure investment and the value-add and risk management activities associated with these investments. We are now working together to put this view into practice.”
GSM LLC was established on June 30th, 2014 and is actively considering infrastructure investments opportunities with the goal of making two to four investments over the next few years.
Foto: db, Flickr, Creative Commons. BNP Paribas Securities Services le compra Prime Fund Services a Credit Suisse
BNP Paribas Securities Services, a global custodian with USD 9 trillion in assets under custody, has announced that it has agreed to acquire Prime Fund Services (PFS), a leading provider of fund administration, custody and banking solutions for alternative investment managers, from Credit Suisse. The move is part of BNP Paribas Securities Services’ strategy to develop its global fund administration franchise.
The transaction will result in a global fund administrator dedicated to alternative investment managers that will service over USD 231 billion of alternative assets and will be ideally positioned to support the convergence of traditional and alternative managers.
Clients will benefit from an enhanced, full service offering that brings together PFS’ administration expertise in the alternative investment sector and BNP Paribas Securities Services’ extensive custody and depositary network, and global reach, according to BNP Paribas Securities Services.
PFS employs staff in Europe, Asia and the United States. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2015.
Despite falling stock markets and a decline in the peso versus the dollar, Argentina remains in defiant mood regarding its “technical default”.
The stumbling point is the so-called ‘vulture’ funds (a group of US hedge funds), which had rejected a renewed offer from the government. The Argentinian government is refusing to offer more to placate these holdouts. Judge Thomas Griesa is insisting that Argentina must pay the holdouts in full at the same time as holders of its performing debt.
To understand the problem you need to go back a little in Argentina’s history. Having initially defaulted on its debt in 2001, the vast majority of bondholders – around 93% – agreed to a settlement in 2005 and 2010. However, a small group of holdouts refused to settle. A rights upon future offers (RUFO) clause, however, was written into the settlements in 2005 and 2010. Essentially, this clause means that if better terms are agreed with the holdouts then the same terms need to be given to those who had settled in 2005 and 2010, which would vastly increase the cost of any settlement.
The situation remains highly fluid and hinges on a complex legal and financial transaction. At the time of writing, there are plenty of headlines in the media, according to Henderson Global Investors. There is talk of a potential deal in which a consortium of banks would buy the bonds from the holdouts and then attempt a fresh negotiation with the Argentinian government, either in the near future or maybe after the expiry of the RUFO in December 2014.
The International Swaps & Derivatives Association (ISDA) is reported to rule on 1 August on whether the missed bond payments mean that credit default swaps (CDS) have been triggered on Argentina’s overseas securities. Also at stake is the issue of ‘cross-default’, where holders of Argentina’s foreign currency bonds might invoke a ‘cross-default clause’ in their bond holdings and demand immediate payment.
Steve Drew, Head of Emerging Market Credit at Henderson Global Investors comments: “In terms of ability to pay, from Argentina’s perspective it wants to avoid paying a lot more than it has to. The expiration of the RUFO clause in December 2014 offers a potential exit strategy as it would allow Argentina to negotiate better terms with the holdouts without triggering additional payouts to those bondholders who settled in 2005 and 2010.
“In terms of willingness to pay, there is no love lost between the Argentinian government and the holdouts, with the government staking a lot of political capital on not paying any more to what it sees as a collection of opportunists. A scenario that might allow both sides to save face is for the holdouts to sell their bonds, probably at a discount to existing prices, to a consortium of banks who would then negotiate with the Argentinian government. Such a scenario might occur as early as the first quarter of 2015, with the banks receiving a price higher than the 2010 settlement but lower than that demanded by the holdouts. In such a situation, Argentina could be welcomed back into the capital markets fold within 1-2 years as markets tend to be quite forgiving when there is an appetite for yield and a lack of similar opportunities. Of course, the situation is highly fluid and I expect we will learn more over the coming days and weeks.”
Christopher Palmer, Director of Emerging Markets Equities comments: “This is largely a US-judicial driven situation and, frankly, has had little or limited impact on Argentinian assets in the long term.
“We are looking through this to the elections next year, when we anticipate a more market-friendly government to be elected. In our view, this is the last gasp of the populist Kirchner government that has drawn its battle lines. We believe a solution will ultimately be worked out because the amount outstanding – even if holdouts were paid in full – is around $1.5 billion (provided the RUFO clause is not triggered), which is small relative to the size of the Argentinian economy.”
Stefanie Drews is joining Nikko Asset Management as Global Head of Institutional Marketing and Proposition, as the Tokyo-based firm continues to invest in its institutional platform and solutions business globally, the company has announced.
Drews was most recently Global Head of Key Clients and Family Offices at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management in London. She will be relocating to Tokyo later in 2014 to assume her new role.
“We feel very fortunate to have Stefanie join Nikko Asset Management as we take our institutional business to the next level,” said Hideo Abe, Executive Vice Chairman of Nikko Asset Management. “She has had a distinguished career in the investment and wealth management industry and we are very confident that her contributions will greatly improve the customer experience for institutional clients.”
Drews will be responsible for developing and managing the institutional proposition working closely with the firm’s investment, operational and distribution teams globally. She will manage institutional product, marketing and cross border specialist groups in Nikko Asset Management’s locations around the world. Her role was created in line with the firm’s strategy of increasing its business in the institutional arena.
Prior to Barclays, Drews was a Managing Director in Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Management business, where she ran a highly successful investment management program for institutional clients as well as high-net-worth individuals. She is a graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford University.
With economic growth in the emerging world currently at only some 4%, slightly more than half the average growth in the years between 2003 and 2008, reforms are becoming ever more important. As in the past three years, world trade growth will remain low, somewhere between 0% and 5%. Exporters in the emerging markets cannot count on more than that. The growth outlook in the US and Europe is too limited and the structural growth slowdown in China is all too evident. Capital flows will not provide the desired boost either, firstly because the US has begun normalising its monetary policy, and secondly because a growing number of emerging countries have had such high credit growth over the past years that little room remains for further credit-driven growth.
Therefore, there will have to be reforms. Over the past ten years, government intervention has increased sharply in many emerging economies, via state banks, all kinds of subsidies and unclear, counterproductive regulations and taxes. It has become more difficult for private companies to make a profit, which is clearly reflected in the low investment growth of the past few years. Improving the investment climate should ultimately lead to more investment and higher economic growth. That will require reducing government involvement, as well as tax reforms to create room in the budget for investment in infrastructure. And labour market reforms will be needed to improve the competitive position after years of high salary growth.
Last year, it looked as if the sharp market adjustment and falling exchange rates would lead to policy changes. The pressure had mounted so much that reforms seemed inevitable. Since then, that pressure has eased in response to rallying capital flows. Few countries are currently implementing reforms to improve domestic growth potential. Mexico is the exception. And India is the country where the prospect of reforms is creating the greatest excitement.
Since the elections in which reformer Narendra Modi won a large majority, expectations have been high. The market has looked far ahead in terms of all the possibilities. Given Modi’s ambition and track record and the enormous scope for improvement in the crippled Indian economy, the future looks bright. There will probably be many changes over the next few years: investment growth will benefit, infrastructure will improve substantially and economic growth could rise by several percentage points. In the short term, however, expectations seem a bit too high in view of what is actually possible.
For an opportunist investor wishing to benefit from possible reforms in the emerging world, there may be more to be gained in Brazil over the next few months. The chances of the opposition winning the October elections have clearly increased. If President Dilma loses the elections, then economic policy will change dramatically. Tax reforms and a serious reduction in government intervention in the economy will send the market soaring. But that is still an if.
Maarten-Jan Bakkum is Strategist, Emerging Markets Equity at ING Investment Management
Trust can be a good thing in business: If you as an Apple employee in the Steve Jobs era believed in his brilliance as an innovator, for example, you’d feel more committed to the decision to develop a tablet device that did not yet exist. Trust is a way to have friction-free relationships by reducing transaction cost. Of course, some leaders, like Bernie Madoff, are worthy of distrust. The question is, when connecting the dots on a suspicion about leaders or groups in your workplace, how can you be sure you’re right?
“The human brain is really hardwired to seek out and overweight certain kinds of information,” says Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty member Roderick Kramer. As he writes in a new paper, “Misconnecting the Dots: Origins and Dynamics of Outgroup Paranoia,” there are psychological factors at work — often in concert — that lead people to inflate or misconstrue suspicions into mistrust when it’s not warranted. Here are three types of misperceptions to be aware of:
Overly personal construal of interaction: “People begin to read their own personal story into a situation,” says Kramer. “The reason I wasn’t invited to that meeting is because they all discussed it and actively decided to exclude me.”
Sinister attribution error: “We often make paranoid attributions for benign behaviors,” he says. “A lot of us have experienced this around email. I send an email to my superior and they don’t get back to me right away. And I begin to ruminate about why — they’re mad at me, I’ve disappointed them, they’re punishing me — when in fact they may be busy and not even reading email.”
Exaggerated perception of conspiracy: “This tends to be social in nature,” says Kramer. “My colleague didn’t get back to me, but come to think of it my boss didn’t either — suddenly I begin to put those pieces together and think, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get that promotion.’”
So how do you keep suspicions from spinning out of control while maintaining a healthy skepticism? “Just knowing the nature of these biases and the psychological factors that feed them allows you to begin to compensate for those,” says Kramer. “In a way, we aspire to help the brain make rational choices by understanding some of the ways it goes wrong.” Kramer offers these de-biasing strategies to avoid misconnecting the dots:
Be mindful of the impact of status. Those with fewer resources or less power have a tendency toward hypervigilance, a psychological factor that can exacerbate misperceptions, says Kramer. “Lower status groups tend to look around vigilantly for any evidence to support their theory, because they have a lot to lose if they get it wrong.” In a study Kramer conducted on the graduate student–faculty relationship, for example, he found that graduate students spent a lot more time worried about how well the relationship is going. “Not surprisingly, the faculty are busy thinking about the people they’re accountable to, not the lower status people,” he says.
Gather data like a scientist. Once you think you’ve come to a conclusion on an issue, try to prove yourself wrong, says Kramer. There’s a whole body of research that suggests that people tend to seek confirmatory evidence to the exclusion of other information. “It’s a natural thing we do,” he says, “but a more rational approach is to work very hard to gather unbiased data, including information that might disconfirm your interpretation — scientists and doctors are trained to do this.”
Talk to the opposition. Part of questioning your interpretation of the facts should include talking to experts who have alternative interpretations. “Conspiracy theorists tend to go to websites they agree with and share information with like-minded people,” says Kramer. But you have a better chance of getting it right if you constantly reassess your interpretation of the facts. “There is actually some wisdom in keeping track of what your enemies are doing,” he says.
Don’t let yourself be isolated. Keeping suspicions to yourself, or confined to just a few friends who share your point of view, can fuel paranoia, says Kramer, who has studied leader paranoia and found that one of the common mistakes, especially by presidents like Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, is to become surrounded by yes-men. “It’s important to be sure you’re getting a panoply of information. You have to think about the social network you’re in — is it really serving you well?”
Hispania Activos Inmobiliarios, through its subsidiary Hispania Real SOCIMI, has acquired in two separate deals two residential buildings totalling 199 dwellings located in the Madrid region, out of which 115 are in Majadahonda and 84 in San Sebastián de los Reyes. The deals include the purchase of 227 parking spaces and 115 storage units. The total acquisition price has amounted to €29.9 million euros.
The dwellings are currently rented, with an overall occupancy rate of 87%. They are high quality assets, located in consolidated areas in the north and north-west of the Madrid region.
“These new acquisitions of residential assets fit perfectly in our strategy of investing in high quality assets with a value creation potential through an investment and management plan. We are very confident in the value creation opportunity which these assets present, given their location in consolidated areas within the Madrid region”, asserted Concha Osácar, Board Member of Hispania.
Azora, external manager of Hispania, has extensive experience in the investment, repositioning and management of residential assets under rent through a team of c. 95 professionals, who manage c. 100 buildings with more than 10,500 dwellings across 17 Spanish provinces.
Majadahonda assets
The 115 dwellings acquired are within a closed residential community. They have an average surface of 85 square metres, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as associated parking spaces and storages. This promotion is located next to the commercial area of El Carralero and has multiple additional services in its surroundings: hospitals, schools, universities –Francisco de Vitoria and SomosaguasCampus of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid– and sport facilities, including golf course.
With a population close to 71,000 inhabitants, Majadahonda is one of the municipalities with the highest rent per capita in the Madrid region. Majadahonda is located in the north-west of the Madrid region and is well communicated with the city centre by the A-6 and M-503 highways and thanks to a wide public transportation network.
San Sebastián de los Reyes assets
The 84 acquired dwellings have two and three bedrooms and are distributed across two buildings. They have an average surface of 100 square metre and have parking spaces and storage units linked to the apartments. Located in the north of Madrid, next to the commercial areas of Plaza Norte 2 and Factory, the dwellings have access to numerous services in the surroundings: hospitals, sports facilities, including golf course and subway.
With this transaction, Hispania has already invested €292.7 million, 54.9% of the net proceeds raised in the IPO.
Photo: Miami. Fintech LatAm Will Explore in Miami New Technologies and Trends That Are Changing the Financial Ecosystem
According to organizers of the event, which include Florida International Banking Association (FIBA), LAVCA, and media and marketing agencies Nobox and CVOX, amongst others, “Fintech Latam” in Miami will open its doors on the 24th September to hold a one day event which will bring together the largest banks in Latin America, Europe and the U.S. to discuss the changing face of the financial ecosystem and to explore new technologies, ideas, and trends that will change the financial ecosystem as we know it today.
About 200 banking managers, IT professionals, and financial technology entrepreneurs are expected to attend. The event will be held just after the FELABAN XXIX CELAES 2014 FIBA Bank Security Conference, which expects 600 attendees, amongst whom Fintech Latam will be promoted.
The following are amongst the topics to be discussed on the 2014 Fintech Latam agenda:
A world withoutbanks – Will technology render banks obsolete?
Bitcoinand More – Are we facing a new era of digital currencies?
Regulation and digital frontiers – Promoting innovation while ensuring stability
Bankingon social networks? Is Facebook about to take over with e.social banking?
The conference will be held at The Light Box in Miami’s Wynwood district, the city’s most innovative quarter and home to Miami’s emerging technological community.
For further information or to attend the event please visit the following link.
Mark Carney (BoE) and Janet Yellen (FED). Financial Markets are Priced for US Interest Rates to Remain Below UK Rates
John Stopford Co-Head of Multi-Asset in Investec Asset Management shares its thoughts about one of the most crucial developments for the global markets in the months to come:
UK increases likely to be limited and gradual
The Governor of the Bank of England has put the market on notice that interest rates could start to rise as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. This is rather earlier than he had suggested previously. The Governor has been very consistent, however, in saying that rate increases will be, “limited” and “gradual”.
So, should we believe him? We tend to think so. As he says, “Households have a lot of debt.” The UK economy, especially the housing market, tends to be very sensitive to the cost of borrowing. While the UK’s sensitivity to higher rates is not new, it does appear to have increased as debt levels and house prices have gone up.
In the five prior tightening periods since 1994, the bank rate has never risen by more than 1.6 percentage points before being cut again. The Governor suggested that this cycle could see rates that are “slightly lower”, or, “slightly higher”, than the market’s pricing of the 2.5 percent in three years’ time. We may not even get that high. In addition, to mortgage concerns, the UK has to contend with fiscal tightening, higher bank lending margins, a stronger pound, and macro-prudential constraints.
The US Federal Reserve may have to raise rates by more than the Bank of England
The US Federal Reserve, by contrast, is in less of a hurry to tighten monetary policy, but may have to raise rates by more than the Bank of England when the time comes. Broad measures of labor market slack suggest that the US cycle is at a similar stage to when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) began to raise interest rates in 1994 and 2004. Unlike the UK, in those two prior cycles US interest rates were increased by 3 and 4 percentage points respectively, before any pause. This time may not be so different. Yes, the trend rate of nominal growth is lower, but so is the federal funds rate. Indeed, FOMC members expect to raise interest rates by around 3.5 percentage points in the long run.
Financial markets are priced for US interest rates to remain below UK rates
The US economy is much less sensitive to changes in short-term borrowing costs because its mortgage market is more reliant on fixed rate financing. A recent McKinsey study estimated that UK household debt burdens are about 2.5x more sensitive to interest rates than they are in the US. Furthermore, the US economy has less need to implement macro prudential policies because the housing market is less extended. Also, the dollar is fairly soft, fiscal tighteningis limited, and unlike the UK, inflation and wage costs are already rising, albeit slowly. Financial markets, however, are priced for US interest rates to remain below UK rates as far as the eye can see.
We expect markets to start repricing within the next 6-12 months. This should see UK yields top out below those in the US and sterling fall back against the US dollar. This in turn should help the FTSE 100 Index to break its all-time highs and outperform the S&P 500 Index.
Authored by John Stopford, Co-Head of Multi-Asset in Investec Asset Management
