Foto: Carlescs79, Flickr Creative Commons. Standard Life Investments convierte su trust de real estate en un REIT
Standard Life Investments has converted its Property Income Trust (SLIPIT) to a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) to ensure greater accessibility and tax efficiency for investors.
Accordint to the company, REITs are ideal for wholesale investors who want to buy into the commercial property sector, using the real estate expertise and team ethos within a reputable fund management house.
SLIPIT was launched as a Guernsey-based investment company in December 2003, to provide investors with an attractive level of income with the prospect for income and capital growth by investing in a diversified portfolio of UK commercial real estate. Standard Life Investments has managed the trust since inception and Jason Baggaley has been the manager since 2006.
SLIPIT hasa market cap of £191m (at 31 Dec 2014), and an investment portfolio of direct assets valued at £269.9 million. The Company pays a quarterly dividend, which at the end December 2014 represented an annualised yield of 5.9%.
Gordon Humphries, Head of Investment Companies, Standard Life Investments said: “SLIPIT has been a very successful investment vehicle for the past ten years and we fully expect it to continue to deliver robust returns for investors. We see a growing trend for Guernsey property investment companies to convert to REITs as they offer investors a more established, accessible and liquid form of investment, with greater tax efficiency going forward. Our priority is always to existing shareholders, protecting their value and ensuring there is no dilution. Jason Baggaley will continue to take an active approach to managing the property portfolio in the Company to maximise returns and currently has a fully invested portfolio of office, industrial and retail assets that we believe provide the prospect for attractive returns as rents and capital value increase at this point in the real estate cycle.”
In 2014 SLIPIT won two awards: the Property category at the ‘Investment Company of the Year’ awards, hosted by Investment Week in London and the Investment Adviser 100 Club Awards. In 2014 SLIPIT’s equity base doubled through share issuance and strong investment performance.
Also in 2014 (November) SLIPIT purchased a portfolio of five industrial and logistics units for £23.75 million, reflecting an initial yield of 7.25%. The purchase was funded from equity raised earlier that month. The five assets in Manchester, Birmingham, Cheltenham and Milton Keynes total 390,490sqft. The units are all single-let and have scope for further asset management.
. Laurent Crosnier, CIO de Amundi Londres, asistirá al Fund Selector Summit Miami 2015
Laurent Crosnier, CIO Amundi London, is set to present on the topic of ‘global fixed income in an absolute world’, when he takes part in the Fund Selector Summit Miami 2015, being held 7-8 May at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne.
The event – a joint venture between Open Door Media, the owner of InvestmentEurope and Miami based Funds Society – is targeting locally based fund selectors with the opportunity to hear input from a range of managers.
As 2015 continues to present a complex environment for fixed income investors, Crosnier will argue that alpha generation will be a key driver of return at a time when high liquidity and low interest rates combine to limit the sources of return.
Crosnier began his career in the financial industry in 1989 as a futures trader at ODDO, a European investment banking boutique. He joined Amundi in 1991 as a Euro Fixed Income manager and has been focusing on Euro Corporate management since 1997.
He was was appointed head of Inflation, Duration & Credit management in 2006 and then promoted head of the Euro Fixed and Credit Department in 2008. In April 2010, he was appointed CIO of Amundi London Branch.
You will find all information about the Funds Society Fund Selector Summit Miami 2015 through this link.
Photo: Winnie Chwang, portfolio manager at Matthews Asia. Matthews Asia’s Winnie Chwang to Participate in Miami Summit
Winnie Chwang, portfolio manager at Matthews Asia, is set to present her views on Chinese companies when she takes part in the Fund Selector Summit Miami 2015, at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne on 7-8 May.
Chwang will focus on China’s economic growth and rebalancing, and the resulting wave of small cap investment opportunities in some of the fastest growing segments of the economy, including health care, education, e-commerce, and other services industries.
The manager is seeking to take advantage of these opportunities through the Matthews China Small Companies fund.
Chwang not only is a portfolio manager, but also co-manages the firm’s China strategy. She joined the firm in 2004 following an MBA from the Haas School of Business.
The Funds Society Fund Selector Summit Miami 2015 will bring key fund selectors, primarily from the Miami area but also from other locations where decisions are made regarding the US Offshore market, together with top-performing Asset Managers to explore the latest portfolio management strategies and investment ideas. The Summit is designed specifically for key fund selectors who want to benefit from the knowledge of leading fund managers. You may access further information through this link.
Photo: Simon & His Camera. Investec Asset Management Extends Relationship with State Street
Investec Asset Management has extended its relationship with State Street Corporation for another seven years to provide full middle office and fund accounting services across the UK, South Africa, Luxembourg and the United States.
Investec Asset Management is a specialist investment manager providing investment products and services to institutions, advisory clients and individuals. Their clients include pension funds, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, foundations, financial advisers and individual investors.
Kim McFarland, chief operating officer of Investec Asset Management, said: “State Street has always worked with us as a partner and understands the constant evolving needs of our business and the industry. We were keen to continue our relationship to ensure State Street’s excellent support.”
John Campbell, head of Global Services for UK, Middle East and Africa at State Street said, “We are very proud to have been able to support Investec Asset Management during their phenomenal growth over the past ten years and are delighted that they have chosen to continue our successful partnership.”
“There is a new battleground for today’s asset managers,” continued Campbell. “Our recent research revealed that more than three quarters of asset managers are embarking on a fundamental shift in their business strategy in response to changing client demands.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: OTA Photos. Investec: Japan Receives Industrial Output Boost
Japan’s industrial output edged higher in December, suggesting the world’s third-largest economy may be turning the corner after a recession brought on by a hefty sales tax hike. Data released last week showed manufacturing production increased by 0.3 per cent in December from a year earlier and by one per cent from the month before.
But inflation slowed to 2.5% from a year earlier, compared with 2.7% in November.
Tackling deflation
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made pushing prices higher the main focus of economic policies aimed at ending years of deflation that have discouraged corporate investment and hobbled growth. Japan returned to recession last year, shrinking in both the second and third quarters of 2014. The surprise slump prompted Mr Abe to call a snap election to renew his economic policy mandate, a poll that he won in December.
Now it seems the country’s mighty industrial base could be returning to health.
Flag of Japan
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that, on top of the rise in production, there was also a 1.1% rise in shipments of goods compared with November and a 0.4% increase compared with a year earlier.
There was also a run-down in the inventories held by businesses, which shrank by 0.4% compared with November, suggesting a pick-up in demand.
The ministry said: “Industries that mainly contributed to the production increase are, first, electronic parts and devices, second, information and communication electronics equipment, and third chemicals, excluding drugs, in that order.”
It added: “Industrial production shows signs of increase at a moderate pace.”
Production forecast improves
The ministry published also its “survey of production forecast”, which it describes as “one of the useful economic indicators, which reflect changing business conditions and provide a view of where the economy is heading in the near future”.
The latest forecast found planned production this month was expected to be 6.3% higher than in December, but to be 1.8% lower in February than in this month.
The same survey in December forecast a 5.7% rise in production this month compared with December, so the expected level of output has risen by 0.6% points.
Nikko Asset Management has hired four executives in New York, Tokyo and the United Kingdom to bolster the company’s institutional sales and marketing functions, the company has announced.
Fred DeSerio, based in New York, has been named head of Sales in the United States. He will be responsible for developing business in the institutional investment market in North America.
He joined the Tokyo-based asset manager’s US arm on January 30 from Invesco where he was a managing director. He previously worked for firms including Segal Advisors, American International Group and Smith Barney.
“We are very pleased to have Fred join Nikko Asset Management, and believe he will be very effective in cultivating institutional clients in North America,” said Takuya Koyama, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Sales.
“He has had a distinguished career and his experience will help us accelerate our global expansion in the institutional market.”
In the company’s Institutional Marketing and Proposition division, which acts as a link between product and institutional sales, Nikko Asset Management hired three professionals with strong international backgrounds.
Peter Knight joined the company as head of Global Product Specialists. Knight, based in Tokyo, will help drive the global sales effort by helping the firm articulate its product messaging from an investment perspective.
He most recently worked as a business development manager in Japanese equities at BNY Mellon, having previously worked for Citigroup Asset Management Japan.
Daisuke Kono, based in Tokyo, has been named Head of International Institutional Materials on February 1. He was previously a director of Invesco Asset Management’s product management section.
Cameron Kuwahara also joined the company on February 2 as head of Solutions Marketing based in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Nikko Asset Management has a global equity team.
He will be working in Edinburgh and the company’s full-service European headquarters in London, as well as its New York office. He was previously a senior sales director for Citigroup Global Markets in Singapore. He also worked for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Securities and Deutsche Securities Tokyo.
“We are extremely pleased that Peter, Daisuke and Cameron are joining Nikko Asset Management, all of whom have extremely high-quality backgrounds and are bilingual,” said Stefanie Drews, Global Head of Institutional Marketing and Proposition. “These hires show our commitment to elevating our position in the institutional marketplace, both within Japan and globally.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, Flickr. Lorenzo Parages Appointed Head of Distribution by March Gestión de Fondos
March Gestión de Fondos, one of the largest Spanish private bank-owned asset managers, named Lorenzo Parages as its head of Distribution – responsible for the promotion of MGF funds in UK, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg and Latin America.
Prior to joining the Spanish asset management company, Parages was in charge of Allfunds Bank’s investment services operations in Latin America. Formerly, Parages worked in the equity sales division of Banco Urquijo, a Spanish private bank, before pursing his career at Axa Investments as financial advisor, then in several UK firms such as BSN Capital Partners, BlueCrest Capital Management and CMD.
March Gestión de Fondos CEO Jose Luis Jimenez said Parages would help maintain the rapid growth the firm has seen in Spain and overseas since the beginning of the financial crisis, namely a fourfold increase in asset under management since 2008.
He also commented: “Thanks to strong performance, we see continuing support for our range of global equity and bond products not only in Spain but also in Italy and increasingly in Latin America. With Germany being particularly supportive of investment in family business focused funds, we see potential for strong growth there too. In the UK, we are working towards establishing a more permanent base and so Lorenzo´s experience in London will prove particularly helpful.”
Photo: BTC Keychain. Bitcoin and Altcoin Transactions Will Shrink by More Than Half in 2015
A new report from Juniper Research has found that the value of all cryptocurrency transactions will fall sharply this year to just over $30 billion, compared with over $71 billion in 2014.
According to the report, the surge in altcoin transactions in 2014 was overwhelmingly attributable to brief spikes in activity during the first quarter in Dogecoin, Litecoin and Auroracoin. By the end of the year, daily dollar values of these transactions were at less than 5% of their earlier peak.
However, the report argued that the introduction of licensed, regulated exchanges could lead to a stabilization in currency values and with it an increase in retail transaction adoption. It pointed out that in an unregulated marketplace, consumer confidence had been eroded by the demise of the Mt Gox exchange in February 2014 and the recent theft of nearly 19,000 Bitcoins from BitStamp hot wallets.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that PayPal has now begun to allow US consumers to purchase digital goods via Bitcoin, the report argues that the scale of the challenges facing Bitcoin is so great that it will struggle to gain traction beyond a tech-savvy and/or libertarian demographic.
Real Time Transaction Settlement Opportunity
Instead, it identifies a longer term role for cryptocurrency protocols in the wider payment space. According to report author Dr Windsor Holden: “It is likely that we will see the technologies behind cryptocurrency deployed in areas such as real-time transactional settlement. Ripple Labs is already focusing overwhelming on that approach and in the medium term we may see a role evolution to this end amongst other cryptocurrency players.”
Paris head-quartered La Française, a US$54 billion multi asset-class manager (as at 31/12/2014), and London-based Inflection Point Capital Management (IPCM), a specialist firm focused on responsible, long-term Strategically Aware Investment (SAI), will commit to the 7 point voluntary Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) Code as the latest international signatories.
During the week of February 9th, a series of events are planned by La Française and IPCM in Tokyo, to commemorate the important step they are taking in signing the Stewardship Code. Ahead of the pivotal United Nations climate change summit scheduled for Paris in late 2015, the threats and opportunities for investors of global warming along with the greening of real estate assets will be a focus of the La Française and IPCM week in Japan.
Dr. Matthew Kiernan, Founder and Chief Executive of IPCM, currently advising on a roughly US$1 billion La Française Inflection Point global equities portfolio, explained: “The Stewardship Code highlights remarkable vision by the Japanese Government to pro-actively promote good governance, along with world class environmental and social practices, as a route to greater Japanese corporate success in a highly competitive global economy. IPCM is delighted to become a signatory to the Code today.”
Xavier Lépine, Chairman of La Française, commented: “We view the Japanese investment market and the influence of Japanese investors and companies around the world as a crucial component of 21st Century global economic vibrancy, financial stability and balanced growth. It is a genuine honour for La Française to become a signatory to the FSA’s Stewardship Code.”
“Along with transparency and good governance there are a broad range of new challenges for global investors such as climate change, resource depletion, ecosystems destruction and human rights issues in corporate value chains, ” added Mr Lépine. “As signatories to the Code, La Française’s knowledge will deepen and that will help our work with Dr. Kiernan and the IPCM team to create new investment opportunities for our clients and partners. Both the new Japanese Code and the country’s diplomatic success in delivering the 1997 UN Kyoto Protocol on climate change mark Japan out as a forward-looking global force as we seek to balance economy and environment.” 2 Paul Clements-Hunt, the original United Nations backer of the 2006 launched UN Principles for Responsible Investment (www.unpri.org), now backed by institutions representing US$45 trillion in assets, commented: “La Française and IPCM signing Japan’s Stewardship Code sends the strongest of signals of just how important this development in Japan is for global investment markets. The positive revolution unleashed by the three arrows of Abenomics is attracting the attention of the most sophisticated and forward-looking investors worldwide.”
Clements-Hunt, who left the UN in 2012 after heading the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative for 12 years, is an IPCM Principal and Director, and advises La Française on Special Global Projects.
The FSA Code, capturing a set of Principles detailing sound approaches to responsible investment, was developed by a Japanese Government convened Expert Committee during 2013-2014 and was launched in February 2014. The Code allows large Japanese investment institutions, such as pension funds and insurance companies, to highlight their commitment to include a range of governance, environmental and social considerations in their long-term investment policy-making and investment decision-making. An increasing number of international institutions are now signing the Code.
La Française and IPCM, whose joint venture asset management company La Francaise Inflection Point (LFIP) was created in December 2013, are also taking a thought leadership role in the fast evolving, multi-US$ billion carbon investment space ahead of the pivotal United Nations climate summit that will convene in Paris in late November 2015. La Française and IPCM recently hosted a climate-investment focused dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In Tokyo on February 10th La Française and IPCM’s most senior executives will present on “From Kyoto to Paris: A Blueprint for Climate Success”, referencing the 1997 UN Kyoto Protocol agreement that created global carbon markets. During the Tokyo presentation La Française and IPCM will also introduce their Carbon Zero investment approach and cutting edge work to engineer Green Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Photo: Allan Ajifo. Alternative Ucits Demand Reaches Record High
The alternative UCITS sector has grown strongly in 2014, increasing by 41%YoY to a total of €224.3bn, according to the latest Alceda UCITS review.
The study also highlighted that managed futures were the best performing alternative UCITS strategy, with the index gaining 14.3% while event driven strategies declined by -2.7%.
Overall, 2014 was a challenging year for active managers with the AH Global UCITS Index which encompasses a total of 498 funds, returning only 1.3% in 2014, compared to the almost 6% gains seen in 2013.
Michael Sanders, CEO and chairman of the Board at Alceda Fund Management S.A., said: “These results show the ongoing attractiveness and demand for alternative UCITS strategies globally with investors increasing allocations and managers, in particular in the US, choosing UCITS to target European investors.
“In addition, the recent implementation of the AIFM Directive has resulted in a greater focus on UCITS with managers looking to build sustainable distribution strategies for their products.”
