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GLG launches fund to buy company debt
September 28, 2009--GLG Partners, one of London’s largest hedge funds, has launched a new fund to invest in the debt of troubled UK and European companies.
The fund will be one of the most significant launches in London so far this year, as a growing number of hedge fund managers and investors turn to so-called distressed strategies in pursuit of potentially huge returns.
GLG’s fund already manages about $300m of clients’ money, according to people familiar with the situation. It began trading earlier this month, having previously been run as a component strategy within GLG’s existing credit and market-neutral funds since July last year.
Statement of IASB Chairman Sir David Tweedie to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committe
I am particularly pleased that you have made time to allow me to provide an update on the IASB’s work at this critical juncture for financial markets. I and my colleagues on the IASB look forward to working with the Committee in the coming years, and we remain committed to seeking your input on important aspects of our work at an early stage in the decision-making process. I also know that the Trustees of the IASC Foundation, the IASB’s oversight body, have already expressed their willingness to meet the Committee later this year.
This session is particularly timely. The G20 leaders met last week and have repeatedly affirmed the importance of achieving a single set of high quality global accounting standards. This is something that the European Union and your predecessors on this Committee recognised well in advance of the current crisis. The European Union’s strategy to adopt an international standard, rather than a particularly European one, has been vindicated. As a direct result of your leadership in this area, over 100 countries now require or permit the use of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) issued by the IASB. It is crucial for the achievement of global standards and the effective functioning and prosperity of the European economy, and indeed the global economy, that the EU remains committed to global standards.
read statement
Dearth of listings hurts Plus Markets read full story EDHEC research suggests that the traditional approach to private wealth management is misguided
The EDHEC-Risk analysis has great potential implications for the wealth management industry. Most private bankers actually implicitly promote an ALM approach to wealth management. In particular, they claim to account for the investor's goals and constraints. The technical tools involved, however, are often inappropriate and do not give the clients any insight on the risk related to reaching their objectives.
Broadly speaking, the EDHEC analysis shows that taking an ALM approach to private wealth management generates two main benefits:
1. First, it has a direct impact on the selection of asset classes. In particular, it leads to a focus on the liability-hedging and goal-specific properties of various asset classes, a focus that would, by definition, be absent from an asset-only perspective. 2. Second, it leads to defining risk and return in relative rather than absolute terms, with the liability portfolio used as a benchmark or numeraire. This is a critical improvement on asset-only asset allocation models, which fail to recognise that changes to asset values must be analysed in comparison to changes in liability values. In other words, private investors are not seeking terminal wealth per se so much as they are seeking terminal wealth whose purchasing power enables them to achieve such goals as preparing for retirement or buying property. This study was produced by EDHEC-Risk as part of the ORTEC Finance ‘Private ALM’ research chair.
View the publication “Asset-Liability Management in Private Wealth Management” For more information, please contact:
Carolyn Essid, EDHEC-Risk: New Central Bank Gold Agreement went live on Sunday
•2. The gold sales already decided and to be decided by the undersigned institutions will be achieved through a concerted programme of sales over a period of five years, starting on
27 September 2009, immediately after the end of the previous agreement. Annual sales will not exceed 400 tonnes and total sales over this period will not exceed 2,000 tonnes.
•3. The signatories recognize the intention of the IMF to sell 403 tonnes of gold and noted that such sales can be accommodated within the above ceilings.
•4. This agreement will be reviewed after five years.
read more
CESR responds to the Commission’s consultation on the UCITS depositary function
Please find enclosed CESR’s response to the Commission’s consultation on the UCITS depositary
function.
Since late 2008, CESR has been working on a number of issues related to UCITS depositaries. At
the outset, the focus was on assessing the impact of the Madoff fraud on the fund industry; this work
was then widened to include consideration of the duties and responsibilities of UCITS depositaries.
In this context, CESR carried out a mapping exercise to establish how the various rules on
depositary obligations have been implemented in Member States. A summary of this mapping
exercise is included as an annex in CESR’s response.
In the meantime, the Commission launched its public consultation on UCITS depositaries. Since the
scope and topics of this consultation are very similar to the ones on which the CESR technical group
had worked with a view to making suggestions to the Commission, CESR considered that it should
provide a response to the public consultation. View CESR’s response to the European Commission’s consultation on the UCITS
depositary function CESR re-assesses the application of its Standard No. 1 on financial information in Europe
The update of Standard No.1 has been conducted in the form of a self-assessment, followed by
a peer review undertaken by the Review Panel, CESR’s peer pressure group. The purpose of
this work is to achieve greater supervisory convergence, market transparency, efficiency and
market integrity. Carlos Tavares, Chair of the Portuguese Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliarios
(CMVM) and Vice-Chair of CESR and Chair of the CESR Review Panel, stated:
“The publication of today’s re-assessment of CESR’s Standard No. 1 shows the progress
made in achieving convergence on how national enforcers apply CESR’s Standard No.
1 on the enforcement of standards on financial information. This is quite an important
instrument to ensure that investors across Europe are provided with comparable
standards of high quality information upon which to base their decisions.
This work is one further contribution by, and an example of, the Review Panel’s role in
acting as a peer pressure group. By increasing transparency of implementation, CESR
identifies those areas where efforts to convergence are still needed and where peer
pressure should continue to be applied in order to adopt best practices and achieve an
appropriate standard of convergence.
A comparison between the results of the current re-assessment and the findings in 2006,
reveals that the overall compliance with the Standard has increased compared to 2006,
but, at the same time, that further harmonisation is needed. The results also show that
the work of CESR’s Review Panel does effectively contribute to changes in the Members’
jurisdictions, improving compliance and delivering greater convergence over time.”
Overall application of Standard No. 1 has increased
The work carried out by the Review Panel shows that (see the table in the annex for more
details):
• less than half (45%) of the 29 EU National Enforcers fully apply Standard No. 1 on
financial information, and 6% of the enforcers either did not apply the Standard or did not
contribute to the review; view the Final report of the Review Panel
concerning the updated self
assessment and peer review of
CESR's Standard No.1 on financial
information iShares launches accumulating fund range
The new fixed income products are:
• iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials contains fixed-rate, investment-grade Euro-denominated securities from non-financial issuers only. Inclusion is based on the currency of the issue and not the domicile of the issuer.
• iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond ex-Financials 1- 5 contains fixed-rate, investment-grade Euro-denominated securities from non-financial issuers only with at least one and up to, but not including, five years to final maturity. Inclusion is based on the currency of the issue and not the domicile of the issuer.
• iShares Barclays Euro Corporate Bond 1-5 contains fixed-rate, investment-grade Euro-denominated securities with at least one and up to, but not including, five years to final maturity. Inclusion is based on the currency of the issue and not the domicile of the issuer.
• iShares iBoxx GBP Corporate Bond ex-Financials tracks the market for non-financial corporate bonds denominated in Pound Sterling. The index contains fixed-rate, investment-grade GBP-denominated securities from basic material, consumer goods, consumer service, healthcare, industrial, oil and gas, telecommunication and utility issuers. read full story
Credit Suisse May Expand ETF Products by Adding Commodities read full story Unscheduled free float adjustment in TecDAX
The next regular review of the Deutsche Börse equity indices is scheduled
for
3 December 2009. If you are looking for a particuliar article and can not find it, please feel free to contact us
Source: FT.com
September 28, 2009--Madam Chairwoman, Members of the Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee, I welcome this opportunity to appear before you today to present how we at the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) are responding to issues arising from the financial crisis.
I will focus my formal remarks on our response on the financial crisis and, in particular, our response to issues raised by EU institutions. However, I should be happy to discuss any other issues that members of the Committee wish to raise.
Source: International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)
September 28, 2009--Pre-tax losses more than doubled at Plus Markets in the six months to June 30, after the junior stock exchange suffered from a dearth of listings and had to find an extra £2.5m ($3.97m) in costs arising from a threatened court battle with the London Stock Exchange.
The dispute with the LSE over the rights of Plus to report trades in the shares of all the companies quoted on Aim delayed the group’s expansion plans, ratcheted up lawyers’ costs and meant Plus needed an injection of £5.5m from Middle Eastern investors, Amara Dhari Investments.
Source: FT.com
September 28, 2009-The results of a new study by EDHEC-Risk entitled “Asset-Liability Management in Private Wealth Management,” by Noël Amenc, Lionel Martellini, Vincent Milhau and Volker Ziemann, suggest that suitable extensions of portfolio optimisation techniques used by institutional investors can be transposed to private wealth management, precisely because these techniques have been engineered to incorporate in the portfolio construction process an investor's specific context, objectives, and horizon.
According to EDHEC-Risk, while the private client is routinely asked all kinds of questions about his current situation, goals, preferences, constraints, etc., the resulting service and product offering mostly boil down to a rather basic classification in terms of risk profiles with no link to the recommendation. In this new paper, EDHEC provide a formal framework suggesting that asset-liability management can ensure that private wealth managers are able to offer their clients investment programmes and asset allocation advice that improve the probability of meeting their individual objectives.
Tel.: +33 (0)4 93 18 78 24 – E-mail: carolyn.essid@edhec-risk.com
Sascha Vrolijk, ORTEC Finance:
Tel.: +31 (0) 10 498 66 66 – E-mail: svrolijk@ortec.nl
Source: EDHEC
September 28, 2009--The third Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA3) goes live on Sunday 27th September, with the same signatories as those to the second Agreement. These countries, listed below, plus the European Central Bank, have agreed to cap their combined annual sale at 400 tonnes per annum, down from the 500 tpa limit of CBGA2 and back to the original level imposed by CBGA1 in September 1999. The statement, released early in August, reads as follows:-
•1. Gold remains an important element of global monetary reserves.
Source: Mineweb
September 28, 2009--Dear Mr McCreevy,
Meanwhile, in February 2009 CESR was requested to advise the European Commission on the
measures to be taken by a depositary in order to fulfil its duties in the case of cross-border
management situations (Articles 23 and 33 of the modified UCITS Directive). For that purpose,
CESR created a technical group which is chaired by the French market authority (AMF). This group
was also tasked by the CESR Members with establishing whether further clarity is needed on an
EU-wide basis on the status, role and liability of UCITS depositaries and, if so, to prepare a
recommendation for CESR’s Investment Management Expert Group with a view to advising the
European Commission on the legislative proposals or modifications that would be required.
Source: Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR)
September 28, 2009--CESR publishes today an updated self-assessment and peer review (Ref. CESR/09-374) on the
application and implementation of CESR’s Standard No. 1 on financial information by EU
National Enforcers. This report updates the findings of an earlier peer review (Ref. CESR/06-
181) conducted in 2006, on the basis of the same criteria.
CESR’s Standard No. 1 was first published in March 2003 and sets out 21 principles which
should contribute to achieving a common approach to the enforcement of standards on
financial information which is considered an effective and important tool in securing efficient
capital markets and an actual level playing filed within the European Union. In particular,
the Standard gives a precise meaning to the notion of enforcement, clarifies what type of
bodies can be “enforcers”, and how they should carry out their work (including what powers
the body should have, who should be ultimately responsible, and what independence means
in that context). In addition, the Standard sets out the type of financial information the
principles of enforcement should apply to, and what the methods of enforcement should be
(for instance, in terms of procedures to follow, the most appropriate way to select issuers and
documents for review, or the kind of checks to apply). Finally, it clarifies in some detail what
actions should be taken once a material misstatement is detected, points out that “enforcers”
have to co-ordinate their decisions both ex-ante and ex-post, and stresses that they must
periodically report to the public (including a prescription about the ways to do this).
Source: Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR)
September 28, 2009--Exchange-traded fund provider iShares has launched nine ETFs on the London Stock Exchange including four corporate bond ETFs and five accumulating versions of iShares largest and most successful core equity benchmarks.
There are now 129 iShares listed on the LSE and the launch takes the iShares range of fixed income funds to 40 in Europe, the most of any provider in the market.
Source: ETF Expess
September 28, 2009-Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, may expand its exchange- traded funds to include commodities such as precious metals.
Assets in the bank’s existing 24 Zurich-listed ETFs for bonds and global equity indexes totaled about 7.8 billion Swiss francs ($7.6 billion) as of Sept. 24, said Thomas Merz, head of marketing and distribution at the bank’s asset management unit.
Source: Bloomberg
September 25, 2009--Deutsche Börse has announced an unscheduled adjustment to the free float of IDS Scheer AG in TecDAX®. Due to the takeover of IDS Scheer AG by SAG Beteiligungs GmbH, the free float of the TecDAX member altered by more than 10 percentage points. The company’s free float will thus be reduced according to the index rules from the current 37.08 percent to 11.00 percent.
The adjustment will become effective next Tuesday, 29 September 2009.
Source:Deutsche Börse
