Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
from Global Investing:
Investors investigated
We've wondered before about the validity of the British 'shareholder spring' narrative. A few high-profile casualties gave the story drama, but as we showed back in the summer, evidence of a widespread change in thinking was hard to find. KPMG has arrived at a similar conclusion this week.
This morning, FairPensions, a British charity which aims to promote responsible investment, has dug deeper into the behaviour of major institutional investors during that supposedly febrile period, and among the nuggets it has produced is the chart below of voting on contentious pay reports at annual meetings.
There are some questions which crop up straight away. What did BlackRock and Standard Life like so much about the Barclays pay deal that no other investor could spot; why did BlackRock think Martin Sorrell's potential 500% bonus was a goer; and given that, why did almost everyone think a maximum bonus award of 923% of BP CEO Bob Dudley's salary was just dandy?
(For the record, BlackRock tells us that it does not comment on voting decisions, and notes its Barclays vote was outsourced over a potential conflict of interest linked to its 2009 acquisition of BGI. Standard Life couldn't find the right people to comment directly, but a spokeswoman noted public statements that it had been pacified by concessions made by Barclays shortly before the AGM)
from Global Investing:
Survival of the fattest?
Is there room only for the biggest, most aggressively-marketed funds in crisis-hit Europe?
Europe's ten best-selling funds have attracted nearly a third of net sales across bonds, equity and mixed assets so far this year, as the grey bars show in the following chart from Thomson Reuters' fund research firm Lipper.
from Global Investing:
Winners, losers and the decline of fear
Lipper has released its monthly look at fund flow trends in Europe, and as ever, it throws up some intriguing results.
August saw bond funds again dominate inflows, pulling in a net 20.8 billion euros and just a tad down on July's record. Stocks funds continued to suffer, as British equity products led the laggards with close to 2 billion euros withdrawn by clients over the month. North American equity funds and their German counterparts also saw big outflows.
from Global Investing:
Funds will find a chill Wind in the Willows: Lipper
"Asset managers are emerging from their comfortable burrow to face a battery of lights."
Sheila Nicoll, Director of Conduct Policy at Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA), had perhaps been reading Kenneth Grahame before her recent speech, and her words are likely to have sent a chilly wind through the willows of the UK funds industry.
from Global Investing:
Making the most of the shareholder spring
We've had a fair while to ponder the implications of a British AGM season which saw investors oust a few CEOs and deal bloody noses to a few others. We've also had some data which implies the revolt wasn't as widespread as advertised, but Sacha Sadan at Legal and General Investment Management thinks we have seen something important, and something that must be exploited.
His take is that austerity is at the heart of the matter. While the public suffers in a faltering economy, and investors stomach dwindling returns, it was never going to fly that pay deals for bosses should survive unchallenged. Add to that government and media pressure on remuneration, plus a new era of investor collaboration thanks to the stewardship code, and you get an ideal set of factors to drive the 'shareholder spring'.
from Global Investing:
No BRIC without China
Jim O' Neill, creator of the BRIC investment concept, has been exasperated by repeated calls in the past to exclude one or another country from the quartet, based on either economic growth rates, equity performance or market structure. In the early years, Brazil's eligibility for BRIC was often questioned due to its anaemic growth; then it was the turn of oil-dependent Russia. Over the past couple of years many turned their sights on India due to its reform stupor. They have suggested removing it and including Indonesia in its place.
All these detractors should focus on China.
China's validity in BRIC has never been questioned. Aside from the fact that BRI does not really have a ring, that's not surprising. China's growth rates plus undoubted political and economic clout on the international stage put it head and shoulders above the other three. And after all, it is Chinese demand which drives a large part of the Russian and Brazilian economies.
from Global Investing:
Pay votes update… Spring takes a fall?
A few months ago, at the height of the British AGM season, we ran some numbers on shareholder protest votes over executive pay.
It seemed striking at the time that despite all the talk of revolution, the average vote against FTSE 100 companies' remuneration reports had only edged higher, to 8.2% from 8.0% in 2011.
from Global Investing:
Emerging corporate debt tips the scales
Time was when investing in emerging markets meant buying dollar bonds issued by developing countries' governments.
How old fashioned. These days it's more about emerging corporate bonds, if the emerging market gurus at JP Morgan are to be believed. According to them, the stock of debt from emerging market companies now exceeds that of dollar bonds issued by emerging governments for the first time ever.
from Global Investing:
Emerging corporate debt tips the scales
Time was when investing in emerging markets meant buying dollar bonds issued by developing countries' governments.
How old fashioned. These days it's more about emerging corporate bonds, if the emerging market gurus at JP Morgan are to be believed. According to them, the stock of debt from emerging market companies now exceeds that of dollar bonds issued by emerging governments for the first time ever.
from Global Investing:
LIPPER-ETF tiddlers for the chop?
(The author is Head of EMEA Research at Thomson Reuters fund research firm Lipper. The views expressed are his own.)
By Detlef Glow
The exchange-traded fund (ETF) market has shown strong growth since its inception in Europe. Many fund promoters have sought to capitalise on this, seeking to differentiate themselves from rivals and match client needs by injecting some innovation into their product offerings. This has led to a broad variety of ETFs competing for assets, both in terms of asset classes and replication techniques.
