Wikimedia CommonsFoto: By OiMax. El broker dealer Mizuho Securities contrata un equipo de deuda latinoamericana
Mizuho Securities USA the U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary of the global Mizuho Financial Group, announced the addition of senior emerging markets fixed income sales and trading appointments to build out the firm’s investment grade and sub investment grade coverage for Latin America debt.
Trading hires include Allan Grauer, Head of LatAm Trading, Sebastian Azumendi, Head of LatAm Credit Trading; and Georges Fernandes, High Yield Credit Trading. Emerging Markets Fixed Income Sales will be enhanced with the additions of Rod Eichler and Nestor Cybriwsky. Further appointments to the team are expected.
Jerry Rizzieri, Executive Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income, MSUSA, commented, “Diversifying our product lines to better service customers continues to be a high priority for Mizuho Securities USA. Latin American debt trading is a natural extension of our fixed income platform’s existing Investment Grade and High Yield Credit businesses and aligns with Mizuho’s expansion efforts in Brazil.”
Mizuho’s presence in Latin America will also continue to grow with the completed acquisition of Banco West LB do Brasil. Although still subject to regulatory approval, the acquisition of a Brazilian corporate banking subsidiary will significantly enhance Mizuho’s ability to support client business activities in Brazil and across the region through more extensive financing and advisory services for potential acquisitions, divestitures or joint ventures, and greater access to loans, derivatives and other capital markets products.
Foto: Annick MONNIER . Los fondos con valores menos líquidos superan a su competencia
Morningstar has announced that the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal (FAJ) has selected “The Liquidity Style of Mutual Funds” by Thomas Idzorek, James Xiong, and Roger Ibbotson for a prestigious Graham & Dodd Scroll Award for 2012. Idzorek, CFA, is president of the Morningstar Investment Management division; Xiong, Ph.D., CFA, is a senior research consultant in the Morningstar Investment Management division; and Ibbotson, Ph.D., CFA, is founder of Ibbotson Associates, chairman and chief investment officer of Zebra Capital Management, and professor of finance at the Yale School of Management. Morningstar acquired Ibbotson Associates in 2006. This is the 10th award from the FAJ won for financial writing based on research of Morningstar, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
“Liquidity offers another valuable lens to help investors evaluate and select mutual funds”
Recent studies have shown that a liquidity investment style—investing in stocks with lower trading volume—has led to excess returns. In “The Liquidity Style of Mutual Funds,” the authors examined whether this style premium, previously documented in stock investing, can be applied at the mutual fund level. Across a wide range of mutual fund categories, they found that, on average, mutual funds that held less-liquid stocks significantly outperformed those that held more-liquid stocks. The paper was published in the November/December 2012 edition of the FAJ and can be found at www.cfapubs.org.
“There are many lenses through which we can view investments—large capitalization versus small, growth versus value. Liquidity offers another valuable lens to help investors evaluate and select mutual funds,” Joe Mansueto, chairman and chief executive officer of Morningstar, said. “For years, Tom, James, and Roger have been producing innovative research on manager selection, asset allocation, and portfolio construction with an emphasis on theories and techniques that can be put into practice. We’re pleased that the FAJ recognized these thought leaders and their contribution to the field.”
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: böhringer friedrich. New collaboration between RobecoSAM and CDP will streamline corporate sustainability reporting to inform investor rankings
As part of its annual corporate sustainability ranking process, RobecoSAM, the company behind the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), produced with S&P Dow Jones Indices, will now ask public companies the same climate change questions as those developed over the past decade by CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), provider of the only global environmental disclosure system and producer of the annual Climate Disclosure and Climate Performance Leadership Indexes (CDLI & CPLI). This collaboration will improve the comparability of sustainability data in the global market and will simplify the process for companies answering multiple requests for environmental information.
Specifically, to inform the climate change aspects of its annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment, RobecoSAM has aligned seven of its Climate Strategy questions with corresponding questions asked by CDP on behalf of 722 investors representing more than US$87 trillion. This will significantly reduce the workload for the 90% of DJSI participating companies which also respond to the request for climate change information through CDP.
CDP’s chief executive officer Paul Simpson says: “This is an important response to market demand. Both the business and investment communities have called for a more harmonized approach to sustainability reporting and for more comparable data. It will now be easier to incorporate climate risk, opportunity and governance into evaluations of corporate progress on sustainability. CDP and RobecoSAM are the de facto raters for business progress on climate change and sustainability and this development will bring high quality data together for use in the DJSI.”
Daniel Wild, head of research at RobecoSAM states: “We are natural partners given our mutual focus on sustainability issues that are financially material for investors who are focused on identifying innovative companies that are well-positioned for the long-term. In aligning our environmental data collection approaches we hope to lessen the burden on companies that currently have to submit similar data to both CDP and RobecoSAM.”
Further, to promote greater uptake and use of environmental disclosure, CDP and RobecoSAM are investigating additional areas of corporate environmental assessment to cooperate on and will leverage their networks to encourage more companies to complete both questionnaires. More than 4,100 companies use CDP to report their climate change strategies and impacts to investors and the disclosure rate among the world’s largest companies runs at 80%. RobecoSAM assesses the corporate sustainability of over 2,000 listed companies summing up to 60% of the world total market capitalization on a wide range of criteria.
Wikimedia CommonsPhoto: Petr Novák, Wikipedia. Risk Tolerance by Generation
No doubt attributable, at least in part, to the recent market recovery, investors risk tolerance appears to be increasing.
Gen Y, the youngest investors appear to be more conservative in their approach than their Gen X peers. In fact, the risk allocation of Gen Y investors largely mirrors that of Gen Xers in 2011. This caution among twenty-somethings is understandable, considering that the bulk of their limited investing experience has occurred since the 2008 market meltdown.
Gen X investorshave shifted their asset allocation to accept more risk and increase their return potential in 2012.
Boomers and investors in the Silent Generationreport a more risk-averse profile overall. However, each cohort has shifted a significant portion of their assets from low-risk to moderate-risk investments over the past year — a welcome sign for advisors and investment providers alike, who may benefit from money moving off the sidelines.
This information was taken from the Cogent Research Investor Brandscape® report, which is based on a representative survey of over 4,000 affluent investors within the United States. It is the leading industry benchmark for brand preference and product usage among affluent investors and has been tracking the attitudes and behaviors of affluent investors since 2006.
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: Victor Soares/ABr. (Agência Brasil) . Deutsche Bank nombra a Don Linford director regional de Servicios de Seguridad Directa para América Latina
Deutsche Bank’s Global Transaction Banking (GTB) division today announced the appointment of Don Linford as a Director and Regional Head of Direct Securities Services (DSS) for Latin America.Don Linford, who will be based in São Paulo, will start on March 19.
Linford has joined the Bank with more than 25 years of global business experience in Latin America. Previously, he served as the Product Head for International Security Services for Latin America with Itaú Unibanco. Prior to that, he held the positions of Regional Network Executive for Americas and Global Manager of Business Intelligence and Strategic Planning at JP Morgan Chase, based in the United States. Linford also worked for Mellon Trust and BankBoston in Massachusetts, US.
Deutsche Bank’s Trust & Securities Services business, part of Global Transaction Banking, is a provider of trustee, agent, depositary, registrar, SPV management and related services for a wide range of financial structures and transactions. It also offers both mutual and alternative fund administration and provides securities custody, clearing and agency lending services from a global network spanning more than 30 markets.
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: Maros M r a z . Scotiabank y su socio Bank of Beijing, autorizados para operar como gestora de fondos en China
Scotiabank announced this friday that along with its joint venture partner Bank of Beijing, the Bank of Beijing Scotiabank Asset Management Co. Ltd. has received regulatory approval for a license to operate as a fund management company in China. This is the first fund management license issued in China under a new round of pilot programs allowing commercial banks to set up fund management companies.
As part of this joint venture, Bank of Beijing holds a majority interest in the fund management company while Scotiabank and General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals both hold minority stakes.
High saving rates among citizens, pace-setting economic growth and an increase in China’s working-age population are expected to drive asset growth of Chinese fund management companies. As at the end of 2012, total Assets Under Management (AUM) in the industry stood at RMB2.79 trillion (US$450Bn).
Foto: Anthony Bailey. Emerging Markets: don't you see is the consumer?
Emerging markets indices have underperformed the developed world since the credit crisis. Marten Hoekstra, Chief Executive of Emerging Global Advisors, explains to Long View’s John Authers that the indices miss the strength of the consumer sector.
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: Adam L. Clevenger . Morgan Stanley entra en Auerbach Grayson para reforzar su presencia en emergentes y frontier markets
Auerbach Grayson & Company, a New York based brokerage firm specializing in global trade execution and exclusive in-depth research for U.S. institutional investors, announced today that it has sold a minority stake to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS). Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Following the transaction, Auerbach Grayson will become a Morgan Stanley executing broker in certain emerging and frontier markets, particularly in markets where Morgan Stanley has no local presence.
“We are excited to be providing Morgan Stanley with access to our network of local brokers and view this as a critical step in putting more emerging and frontier markets on the investment map,” said David Grayson , Managing Director and co-founder at Auerbach Grayson.
Auerbach Grayson built its global coverage network by establishing partnerships with local and regional brokers and banks in 130 markets worldwide with on-the-ground analysts in every region. The firm provides U.S. institutional investors with trade execution and in-depth local equity research from its local partners. Upon request, Morgan Stanley will direct interested clients to Auerbach Grayson.
“We are delighted to have made this investment and look forward to working with Auerbach Grayson to address opportunities in emerging and frontier markets,” said Gary Offner , a Managing Director in Morgan Stanley’s Institutional Equity division.
Lazard Middle Market served as financial advisor to Auerbach Grayson. Auerbach Grayson will continue to remain an independent entity following Morgan Stanley’s investment.
Foto cedidaBlackrock/Fidelity Investments. Fidelity and BlackRock join forces in ETF fee war
Fidelity and Blackrock have formed a strategic alliance to allow greater access to the iShares ETF range.
Fidelity brokerage customers will be able to trade 65 BlackRock iShares ETFs without paying a commission, up from 30 funds currently. It will include the 10 iShares Core ETFs, as well as a range of international, domestic, specialised equity, fixed income and commodity approaches.
The two companies will work together to develop passive sector-based strategies, which are designed to complement the funds already on offer through BlackRock’s iShares platform.
BlackRock will also help Fidelity develop an investment strategy for clients based on a mix of ETFs and will support some of the firm’s own efforts to start a new line of equity sector ETFs.
Boston-based Fidelity, which manages some $1.7 trillion, mostly in mutual funds, has largely been left behind in the ETF explosion of the past decade.
By contrast, BlackRock acquired top ETF provider iShares in 2009. Among its nearly $4 trillion of total assets, it oversees $708 billion of ETFs.
Wikimedia Commonsby Judith Covarrubias. Mexico has a new REIT
Fibra INN, a Mexican real estate investment trust specializing in the hotel industry, announced on March 13th, the pricing and results of its initial public offering.
With 214,316,264 Certificados Bursátiles Fiduciarios Inmobiliarios (“CBFIs”), 60.2% of which was placed with Mexican investors and 39.8% of which was purchased by international investors under rule 144A in the U.S. and Reg S outside the U.S., the offering price was Ps. 18.50 per CBFI, yielding an aggregate value of Ps. 3,964,850,884.
According to a press release, Desarrollos del Valle will contribute 8 hotels and holds non-mandatory options to purchase an additional 6 hotels that will make up its initial portfolio of 14 total hotels.
Corporación Actinver, S.A.B. de C.V. acted as structuring agent. Actinver Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. acted as joint bookrunner along with Casa de Bolsa Credit Suisse (México), S.A. de C.V. and Santander Investment Securities Inc.
