CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 25, 2010 Bluefin Insurance Services The Axa-owned broker has hired a senior property team from risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage Aon. Ed Brown is the first member of the team to join Bluefin. He was formerly a client manager at Aon and now becomes an executive director in Bluefin’s real estate division. He will soon be [...]
Axa buys $1.9bn private equity funds from BoA April 22, 2010 AXA Private Equity yesterday bought a $1.9bn (£1.2bn) portfolio of private equity funds from Bank of America, one of the industry’s biggest-ever deals and a sign of returning confidence after the crisis. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Vincent Gombault, Axa Private Equity managing director for funds of funds, said the current environment [...]
IMF plan: the wrong kind of reform April 21, 2010 IT is a quote that sums up the new cross-party consensus on London’s financial services industry. Reacting to proposals from the International Monetary Fund, which would hit all financial firms – including hedge funds and insurance companies, not just banks – with two very large new taxes, Alistair Darling had this to say: “The recognition [...]
With a global fund, the world is your oyster April 20, 2010 TRADITIONALLY, British institutional investors have been interested mostly in regional funds, leveraging local knowledge to bring returns. But there are signs that global funds – which cover all sectors and regions – are growing in popularity. Data from Lipper, the fund management research firm, shows that 16 and 20 global equity funds available to UK [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS April 20, 2010 MORNINGSTAR RATES NEW FUNDS Fund information company Morningstar has just assigned ratings to four funds available for sale in the UK. GLG’s Japan CoreAlpha Equity fund receives an elite rating thanks to the experience of fund managers Stephen Harker and Neil Edwards who are “talented stock pickers who have put their long experience to excellent [...]
NAB’s £8.5bn bid is vetoed by watchdog April 19, 2010 Australia’s competition watchdog blocked National Australia Bank’s (NAB) A$13.3bn (£8.5bn) bid for AXA Asia Pacific, putting the agreed deal in limbo and allowing rival bidder AMP to make a comeback. AXA Asia Pacific, owned 54 per cent by French insurer AXA, is Australia’s sixth-largest wealth manager and a hot takeover target in a £650bn market [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 19, 2010 Bluefin Corporate Consulting The consulting firm, part of Bluefin Advisory Services, which is owned by Axa UK, has appointed Sean Glasgow as its new head of investments. Glasgow previously worked in a variety of roles both in the UK and internationally. He has held senior positions at soft drinks giant Coca-Cola and in the investment [...]
PRIVATE EQUITY FAT CATS COME OUT TO PLAY April 14, 2010 SIR Peter Paul Rubens’ beautiful and ornate painted ceiling gazed down upon the most successful figures in the private equity industry last night, as they gathered in the Banqueting Hall on Whitehall for the Private Equity News Awards for Excellence in Private Equity. Executives from the likes of CVC Capital Partners, Axa Private Equity, Coller [...]
Opportunities for growth in green Asia April 13, 2010 TAKE a trip around emerging Asia these days and you won’t just see skyscrapers and coal-fired power plants growing out of places where there were once nothing but fields. Wind turbines, solar energy plants, incinerator manufacturers, water treatment plants and microirrigation developments are just as likely to spring up before your eyes. There is now [...]
Thiam set for £5m payday April 7, 2010 TIDJANE Thiam, the architect of the biggest M&A deal of the year so far, Prudential’s audacious £23.4bn takeover of the Asian assets of AIG, is in line for a remuneration package worth up to £5.22m if he delivers on the insurer’s performance targets. Thiam could receive shares worth up to £2.7m as part of a [...]