Photo: Philippedelavie. Deutsche Bank pagará 629 millones de dólares para cerrar procesos judiciales por negociaciones de valores rusos
Deutsche Bank ha llegado a sendos acuerdos con la Autoridad de Conducta Financiera del Reino Unido (FCA) y el Departamento de Servicios Financieros del Estado de Nueva York (DFS). Con estos acuerdos, se dan por concluidas las investigaciones de la FCA y del DFS sobre el control para la prevención del blanqueo de capitales (AML) de la división de banca de inversión del banco, relacionadas con determinadas transacciones de valores realizadas entre 2011 y 2015 en sus oficinas de Moscú, Londres y Nueva York.
«La Autoridad de Conducta Financiera (FCA) ha multado hoy a Deutsche Bank AG (Deutsche Bank) con la cantidad de 163.076.224 libras esterlinas por no mantener un marco de control que prevenga el blanqueo de capitales (AML) adecuado durante el período comprendido entre el 1 de enero de 2012 y el 31 de diciembre de 2015. Esta es la mayor sanción financiera por fallos en el control de AML jamás impuesta por la FCA, o su predecesora, la Financial Services Authority (FSA) «, dijo la FCA en su comunicado. «Deutsche Bank fue utilizado por clientes no identificados para transferir aproximadamente 10.000 millones de dólares, de origen desconocido, desde Rusia a cuentas bancarias extraterritoriales de una manera que invita fuertemente a pensar en delitos financieros».
«En virtud de los términos del acuerdo con la FCA, Deutsche Bank acordó pagar multas monetarias civiles de aproximadamente 163 millones de libras (204 millones de dólares). El banco obtuvo un descuento del 30% gracias al acuerdo de liquidación de la investigación de la FCA en una fase temprana. La FCA señaló en sus conclusiones que el banco ha comprometido recursos significativos para mejorar sus controles AML y reconoce el trabajo ya realizado en esta área. La FCA también observó que el banco ha sido excepcionalmente colaborador prestando atención al asunto y en toda su investigación», explicó Deutsche Bank en su comunicado.
Por su parte y bajo los términos del acuerdo de liquidación con el DFS, Deutsche Bank acordó pagar multas monetarias civiles de 425 millones de dólares y contratar a un monitor independiente por un plazo de hasta dos años.
Las cantidades a desembolsar ya están materialmente reflejados en las reservas de litigios existentes, dijo el banco.
Foto: ASSY. Pan American Finance contrata a Peter Wallin como asesor senior
Pan American Finance ha anunciado la incorporación de Peter R. Wallin como asesor senior.
Wallin aporta casi 40 años de experiencia en banca de inversión en la región latinoamericana, habiendo ocupado cargos de responsabilidad en INTL FCStone, Standard Bank y Midland Bank, entre otras compañías.
En su nuevo cargo, Peter asesorará a sus clientes en fusiones y adquisiciones, financiación de proyectos y operaciones de ampliación de capital en diversos sectores e industrias, incluyendo infraestructuras, petróleo y gas, energía y real estate.
Pan American Finance es una firma de asesoría independiente que ofrece servicios de banca de inversión, incluyendo asesoría en fusiones y adquisiciones, financiación de proyectos y ampliación de deuda y capital social, a empresarios y administradores de activos, principalmente en los mercados de Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos.
Canadian asset manager British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC) has reached an agreement with Britain-based credit investment firm Hayfin Capital Management to fully acquire the majority shareholding of Hayfin from the existing consortium of institutional shareholders.
Financial details of the transaction, subject to regulatory approval, remain undisclosed.
The deal aims to support Hayfin’s long-term growth plans and simplify its ownership structure. Hayfin’s management and employees remain shareholders alongside bcIMC. Also the new majority shareholder will pour capital into Hayfin’s funds.
“Hayfin’s principal focus will remain managing assets for third parties; the day-to-day independence of the Hayfin team over operations, investments, and personnel will be unaffected by the change in ownership,” stated Hayfin, which has €8.2bn of assets under management.
Tim Flynn, CEO of Hayfin Capital Management, commented: “This long-term investment from bcIMC will provide the access to capital and streamlined ownership structure to realise our ambition of becoming Europe’s leading credit platform. What won’t change under the new ownership arrangements is the independence of Hayfin’s experienced team of credit investment professionals, or our commitment to delivering high-quality returns for the third-party investors whose capital we manage.”
Jim Pittman, senior vice president of private equity at bcIMC added: “We see this as a strategic long-term investment in a leading company that has the potential to generate value-added returns for our clients. Having known the Hayfin team since inception, I’m confident in their strategy and ability to further expand their business and raise additional capital through their funds.”
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation has C$122bn (€86.4bn) in assets under management.
Key wealth markets are set to experience a surge of new business models and further industry consolidation akin to that of broker consolidators in the UK insurance market, as the independent financial advisor (IFA) workforce ages and new technology and capital is introduced, according to financial services research and insight firm Verdict Financial.
The company’s latest report states that one of the more optimistic predictions for the future involves the aging, predominantly baby boomer advisor base in places such as Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, and posits a novel exit strategy based on robo-advisors looking for new clients. This prediction is modeled on the broker consolidation trend in the UK, but substitutes cashed-up robo-advisors for the traditional broker-consolidator.
Robo-advisors are online wealth management services that provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management without the need for human financial planners. With many offering largely exchange-traded fund (ETF)-based portfolios, their hallmark is very low fees. Robo-advisors were arguably the hottest fintech trend in wealth management in 2016, with dozens launched around the world.
Andrew Haslip, Verdict Financial’s Head of Content for Asia-Pacific, says that with their rock-bottom fee structures, independent robo-advisors only break even with pools of client assets well above industry averages, something even the most successful companies, such as Bettermint and Wealthfront, will struggle to achieve this year even in the US, the world’s largest wealth market.
Haslip explains: “Inflows to robo-advisors, while positive, have slowed and smaller robo-advisors or those in smaller markets such as Australia will remain well below the necessary volume based on current trends. For robo-advisors looking to scale up their client assets quickly, the wave of retiring advisors, along with the current low cost of capital, offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, provided they pay for it.”
Verdict Financial believes high profile robo-advisors in 2017 could tap the market for the capital necessary to buy the client books of retiring financial advisors, whose generally affluent older customers tend not to have considered a robo-advisor.
Haslip adds: “The clients will benefit from cheaper ETF-based portfolios, while robo-advisors boost their client assets. So keep your eye out for the wealth industry’s newest trend, the robo-consolidator.”
Wikimedia CommonsFoto: Garrett A. Wollman. Allianz Global Investors aumenta su mandato con State Street
State Street Corporation ha sido elegida por Allianz Global Investors para proporcionar una amplia gama de servicios de inversión. El acuerdo amplía una relación ya existente, que parte de una asociación estratégica global con State Street para ofrecer un amplio espectro de soluciones de servicios de inversión para más de 450.000 millones de euros en activos bajo administración.
State Street proporcionará soluciones de middle office y back office incluyendo administración de fondos, servicios de depositario y fiduciario, custodia global, agencia de transferencia, cobertura de clase de acciones y servicios de consolidación de datos. El mandato sigue estando sujeto a las aprobaciones de los consejos de fondos aplicables, así como a las aprobaciones reglamentarias habituales.
«Estamos encantados de expandir nuestra relación con Allianz Global Investors y esperamos la próxima fase de esta asociación estratégica, que define un nuevo modelo de servicio para los principales gestores de activos. Las capacidades de consolidación y análisis de datos de State Street son una pieza clave para crear un modelo operativo que servirá a Allianz GI en todas las clases de activos y jurisdicciones y apoyará su crecimiento futuro», explicó Jeff Conway, director ejecutivo de EMEA en State Street.
Foto: Santi Villamarín
. Aumenta el interés entre los inversores institucionales estadounidenses por el liability-driven investment
«Los inversores institucionales se han enfrentado a una variedad de presiones a lo largo del año pasado que han hecho muy difícil lograr sus objetivos de inversión«, afirma Chris Mason, analista senior de Cerulli con respecto a la edición de enero de The Cerulli Edge – U.S. Institutional Edition. «Los desfavorables resultados que se esperan en varias clases de activos y los cambios recientes en los tipos de interés han creado incertidumbre adicional».
«El difícil entorno del mercado, incluyendo los tipos de interés en niveles históricamente bajos, ha causado estragos en los patrocinadores de planes corporativos de beneficios definidos«, continúa Mason. «Sin embargo, el reciente aumento de los tipos de interés que siguió a las elecciones ha generado un renovado interés por el derisking en las pensiones y el liability-driven investing (LDI) entre los inversores institucionales».
Cerulli cree que para atender más eficazmente a sus clientes, es necesario que los gestores entiendan cómo estos desafíos específicos afectan a las instituciones en su conjunto. A medida que los tipos aumenten, los gestores deben centrarse en destacar sus soluciones LDI. Los gestores proactivos que educan a los patrocinadores del plan sobre los beneficios del derisking serán los mejor posicionados en el mercado.
After two years of serving a select group of leading real estate investment managers, Juniper Square announced the launch and general availability of its market-leading investment management software.
Clients such as Beacon Capital, The Reliant Group, and Cortland Partners rely on Juniper Square to help them manage nearly 20,000 investment positions and over $25B in capital. More than 8,000 investors use Juniper Square to access reporting on nearly 1,000 investments, and Juniper Square customers are currently raising capital for more than 130 offerings using its software.
Juniper Square’s technology integrates many capabilities into a single capital markets software system: a CRM designed for real estate; a secure data room and automated subscription process to streamline fundraising; a powerful investment accounting system that can scale to the most complex funds; and an automated, best-in-class investor reporting capability designed to meet the needs of even the most sophisticated investors.
«Moving from our previous system to Juniper Square was like night and day. Having a common source for our latest fund and investor data has enabled our accounting, investor relations, and fundraising teams to work together more efficiently. In addition, our investors value having self-service access to comprehensive investment data through Juniper Square’s easy-to-use portal,» said Dane Rasmussen, Managing Director and Head of Investor Relations, Beacon Capital.
«Real estate managers today are buried under mountains of spreadsheets and struggle with antiquated systems that are hard-to-use and don’t talk to each other. Juniper Square puts an end to that with an easy-to-use, integrated system that supports the entirety of the capital markets operation, from front office to back. Whether they have ten investors or thousands, our software frees up managers to focus on what they do best: buying, selling, and leasing real estate, while providing an unparalleled experience for their investors,» said Alex Robinson, Co-Founder and CEO of Juniper Square.
Confirming this trend, in its 2016 Global Private Equity Fund and Investor Survey, EY found a «seismic shift» in the importance of reporting when investors select a manager, stating, «In just one year, we see a 400% increase in investors that now rank a private equity firm’s ability to handle reporting requirements as the most important when selecting a firm.»
Juniper Square’s modern, easy-to-use software helps real estate sponsors of all sizes respond to the growing demands of the industry. Whether the challenge is seamlessly managing relationships with thousands of individual investors, or meeting sophisticated institutional reporting needs, Juniper Square enables real estate firms to focus on the real estate instead of the back office.
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) published itin January is latest Investment Funds Industry Fact Sheet, which provides net sales of UCITS and non-UCITS for October 2016. 28 associations representing more than 99 percent of total UCITS and AIF assets provided with net sales data.
Bernard Delbecque, Senior director for Economics and Research at EFAMA commented: “Despite anemic net sales of equity funds since January 2016, UCITS continued to attract robust new investment in October thanks to net inflows into bond, money market and multi-assets funds”.
The main developments in October 2016 can be summarized as follows:
Net inflows into UCITS and AIF totaled EUR 62 billion, compared to EUR 51 billion in September.
UCITS registered net inflows of EUR 47 billion, up from EUR 30 billion in September.
AIF recorded net inflows of EUR 15 billion, down from EUR 21 billion in September.
Total net assets of European investment funds stood at EUR 13,756 billion at end October, compared to EUR 13,836 in September and EUR 13,320 billion at end 2015.
Going into further detail:
Long-term UCITS (UCITS excluding money market funds) recorded net inflows of EUR 22 billion, compared to EUR 28 billion in September.
Equity funds recorded net outflows of EUR 1 billion, compared to net inflows of EUR 2 billion in September.
Net sales of bond funds increased slightly from EUR 16 billion in September to EUR 17 billion in October.
Net sales of multi-asset funds decreased slightly from EUR 7 billion in September to EUR 6 billion in October.
UCITS money market funds recorded net sales of EUR 25 billion, compared to EUR 2 billion in September.
Secure growth companies could be forced out of the limelight by turnaround stories in US equity markets following a period of significant gains for online retailers and other internet stocks, according to Legg Mason affiliate ClearBridge Investments.
Margaret Vitrano, a manager with ClearBridge, says the dearth of economic growth in the US in recent years has caused investors to focus on ‘secure growth’ names.
However, she believes better opportunities to access higher growth rates have emerged in unloved sectors experiencing reversals in their fortunes.
“There is a dearth of growth and this explains why high-flying internet companies performed well in 2015 and 2016,” she said. “There has been a focus on secure return and a very low appetite for turnaround stories because of market nervousness.”
As a result, Vitrano argues that opportunities have arisen in cyclical sectors, with valuations too attractive to ignore. “Energy is a good example, as in a cyclical recovery we think companies in this sector have a lot of earnings growth ahead,” she says. “It has also had less focus recently from investors so you can find value there.”
As well as energy names, Vitrano is unearthing opportunities in the healthcare space, where valuations have lagged the wider market. “We have a very broad definition of growth – it is not just revenue growth, it can be margin expansion, and some of those diamonds in the rough look attractive to us,” she says.
“Healthcare and biotech in particular look really interesting right now. In the case of biotech stocks, they underperformed substantially last year so valuations are attractive.” Looking at broad market levels, Vitrano says that, although indices such as the Dow Jones are close to hitting all-time highs, valuations are only approaching “fair value” given the backdrop of record low rates and quantitative easing.
However, she cautions that financials appear expensive on current valuations, with the risk growing that too many rate hikes have been priced-in to forecasts for the sector. “Yes, rates are probably heading higher, but if there is one thing we have learned about what this Fed is doing, it is incorporating multiple data points – not just here but outside the US,” she says. “So I would caution that between here and 2018 a lot could happen to change the shape of the interest rate curve.”
Vitrano is avoiding large financial stocks such as money centre banks because, as a growth investor, such stocks cannot deliver the requisite rates of growth. However, she does see value in specific companies in the sector.
“We don’t own big financials as we think we can find better growth elsewhere, outside of the large money centre banks, but we are now entering a period where you may have a double whammy of potentially higher interest rates and less regulation, or even a triple whammy if we get tax cuts,” she says.
“The fundamental landscape has improved for the whole financials sector, and we do like Schwab, for example, as we see it as a secular growth opportunity which will also be a beneficiary of higher rates.”
Foto: Craig Sunter
. Betterment lanza un servicio que completa su oferta digital con humanos
Betterment, el mayor asesor digital de inversión independiente, ha anunciado esta mañana el lanzamiento de una nueva oferta que expande la plataforma de la compañía para ofrecer asesoramiento multi-plan con acceso a profesionales CFP y expertos financieros con licencia.
La compañía puede así –explica en su nota- satisfacer las necesidades de sus clientes que quieren invertir o recibir asesoramiento, ya sea a través de la oferta digital existente o trabajando con un equipo de expertos. Estos profesionales ayudarán a los clientes a supervisar sus cuentas, responderán a sus preguntas financieras y les darán consejo.
Los diferentes niveles de servicio que ofrece el roboadvisor son:
Digital: los clientes obtienen acceso a su actual tecnología, con algoritmos de ahorro de impuestos y asesoramiento digital, a un costo muy bajo.
Plus: los clientes reciben una llamada de planificación anual por parte de un equipo de planificadores profesionales acreditados y expertos financieros que también supervisan sus cuentas a lo largo del año.
Premium: los clientes obtienen acceso ilimitado a un equipo de planificadores financieros acreditados (CFP) y expertos financieros con licencia que supervisan sus cuentas y les brindan asesoramiento y planificación financiera durante todo el año.
Los clientes que deseen un consultor financiero independiente pueden ser referidos a un RIA que utiliza la plataforma Betterement for Advisors para gestionar las inversiones de sus clientes a través de la Red de Asesores recientemente anunciada.
La firma cobrará una tarifa plana del 0,25% en su plan Digital, un 0,40% en el Plus y un 0,50% en el Premium. Los saldos mínimos requeridos son 100.000 dólares para el servicio Plus y 250.000 para el Premium. Para los tres planes, los honorarios solo se cobran en los dos primeros millones del saldo.
“En los últimos cinco años en Betterment, he aprendido que mientras que la mayoría de los estadounidenses realmente necesitan asesoramiento financiero, no todo el mundo lo quiere de la misma manera. Quieren hablar con una persona, algunos necesitan ayuda de vez en cuando, y otros necesitan una orientación cuidadosa y continua. Hace aproximadamente un año nos propusimos ampliar nuestra oferta de asesoramiento humanizado, a la vez que la hacíamos más accesible», dice Alex Benke, vicepresidente de asesoría financiera e inversiones.
«Estamos comprometidos con la capacitación de los clientes para que ellos hagan lo mejor por su dinero, para que puedan vivir mejor”, añade Jon Stein, fundador y CEO de la firma. «En Betterment, nos comprometemos a actuar siempre en el mejor interés de nuestros clientes. Desde el principio, hemos construido lo que nuestros clientes nos han pedido priorizar, y lo que tendría el mayor impacto para ellos. Ahora con los planes Plus y Premium podemos ofrecer a los clientes lo mejor de ambos mundos: nuestra tecnología más inteligente y acceso a expertos financieros”.
Betterment gestiona más de 7.000 millones de dólares en activos para más de 210.000 clientes.
