10Apr
Former directors of Cintra, Mediobanca and Equitix create an energy and infrastructure manager

The founding partners are Enrique Díaz-Rato, Álvaro Elío and Juan Sánchez Salas, as well as the family office Luxembourg Finance House.

The founding team of Pinpoint Equity Partners.

A new alternative fund manager sees the light. Pinpoint Equity Partners has started its activity as an independent investment and asset management firm of infrastructure and energyas reported in a statement.

The founding partners of the firm are the former CEO of Cintra, Enrique Diaz-Rato; the former director of Mediobanca, Alvaro Elio, and Juan Sanchez Salas, from the British infrastructure manager Equitix. Pinpoint’s fourth partner is Luxembourg Finance House (LFH)a family office based in Luxembourg.

Pinpoint’s model consists of identifying mid-cap opportunities, selecting from its portfolio of investors the most efficient capital for each investment opportunity (based on its risk and return profile) and investing by structuring the operation through separately managed accounts. (SMAs).

This management team has successfully closed more than 35 operations with a total volume of capital invested of more than 4,000 million euros and has managed assets worth 25,000 million euros in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. .

Between institutional investor portfolio Pinpoint includes funds of funds, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies from across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.

Sustainable commitment

“With our business model, the institutional investor is provided with a greater degree of visibility and control over their investments and, therefore, they are no longer passive investors,” said Díaz-Rato.

From Pinpoint they also assure that one of their fundamental objectives is the commitment with the sustainable and responsible investmentintegrating environmental, social and corporate governance (ASG) factors into its processes.

2Apr
The assets of the world’s largest pension funds grew by 11.5% in 2020, to 18.3 trillion

The largest pension fund in the world is that of Japan, with 1.4 trillion euros, followed by Norway and South Korea.

The Japanese flag carried by the Tokyo 2020 volunteers.

The value of the assets of the 300 largest pension funds in the world experienced a increase of 11.5% during 2020 despite the pandemic, standing thus at the end of the year in 21.7 billion dollars (18.3 billion euros)according to a report prepared by the consultancy Willis Towers Watson.

By geographical area, North America is the largest region in terms of volume of pension fund assets under management, with 41.7% of the total. Behind are Europe and Asia-Pacific, both with 27.5%.

Of the 300 pension funds covered by the Willis Towers Watson report, almost half are sovereign or public sector (141). In addition, these funds accumulate in their hands 68% of the assets covered by the study. In second place are corporate funds: 101 funds that accumulate 17% of total assets. Independent private funds (58 out of 300) manage 15% of the volume of assets.

The top 20 pension funds invest predominantly in equities (46.6% of total assets), while fixed income accounts for 36.3% and alternative investments stand at 17.1%.

At the end of 2020, the largest pension fund in the world was that of Japan (Government Pension Investment)with 1.7 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) in assets, while Norway’s (Government Pension Fund) reached 1.3 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros) and that of South Korea (National Pension) stood at 765,446 million dollars (more than 644,500 million euros).

21Mar
March relaunches its profiled funds with more ESG and lower prices for large clients

It creates a new class of shares in these funds with more advantageous commissions for investments of more than one million euros.

March Asset Management reinforces its commitment to sustainability with the relaunch of its renewed range of profiled funds (March Defensive, Conservative, Moderate and Determined Portfolio)offering “a suitable product for each type of investor, according to their needs and risk profile”, according to their statement.

The four funds of funds that make up this strategy are made up of globally diversified portfolios of fixed income, absolute return and variable income funds to cover all profiles, from the most defensive to the most determined, which is determined by their exposure to variable income (15%, 30%, 60% and more than 70%) and its maximum volatility (3%, 5%, 10% and 25%).

The “active management, flexibility and scope of the management team” allows optimizing the composition of each one of them with a “sophisticated offer of national and international funds from the most recognized managers in the world”. In addition to having daily liquidity, March AM creates a new share class in these funds with More advantageous commissions for investments of more than one million euros.

More responsible returns

“These four funds respond to a world in constant evolution and promote sustainability by incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects into the investment decision-making process, while seeking to maximize profitability,” he explains. Xavier ScribeCEO of March AM.

With the recent addition of March AM to the United Nations Global Compact for Corporate Sustainability and the achievement of sustainable development objectives, the manager of Banca March is approaching its goal of “get more responsible returns for your customers.”

Its sustainable and responsible investment policy includes: combining ESG criteria in the investment process (analysis and decision-making) with traditional financial criteria; the increase in the involvement of the manager with the companies in which it invests, through greater participation in corporate governance decisions, and open dialogue with the companies in which it participates on issues related to ESG factors.

5Feb
Caja Ingenieros investment funds exceed 1,000 million assets

The manager, who is celebrating 20 years, has 80% of the managed volume recognized as article 8 of the SFDR, that is, as sustainable.

A branch of Caja de Ingenieros.

Investment funds managed by Caja Engineers Management have exceeded €1 billion of equity, according to a statement issued by the entity.

The general manager of the Barcelona manager, Xavier Fàbregas, explained that this fact coincides with the 20th anniversary of the entity and that the period “has been characterized by major milestones in terms of sustainability”.

The manager has a rating of sustainability of 4.8 planetsout of five possible, according to the rating of sustainability Morningstar and Sustainalytics, and 12 of the 13 funds of the firm have the recognition of the Morningtar stars in both the category ‘overalls‘ like in the three year old.

Managed assets have grown by 33% year-on-year in 2021 and have accumulated an increase of 73% in the last five years. In addition, 61% of the equity incorporates the socially responsible investment (ISR) label in its name.

Secondly, 80% of managed assets is recognized as article 8 of the European Union Sustainable Finance Regulation (SFDR), such as funds that promote sustainable, environmental or social characteristics.

29Jan
BBVA and Liberbank expand their hedge fund showcase

The blue bank has launched a private debt fund of funds and the second has launched a global fund with a lot of freedom to invest.

BBVA headquarters in Madrid.

Hedge funds continue to dominate the new managers’ grills. BBVA Asset Management and Liberbank Management They have been the last to launch products of this type.

BBVA AM has launched a private Debt Fund Of Funds, which is added to the five funds in the range of investment solutions in illiquid alternative assets that the manager has launched in recent years. BBVA Private Debt 2021 invests its portfolio in funds that finance private equity funds and small and medium-sized companies for their growth.

The fund has a time horizon of six years from the end of the year in which the marketing period ends, extendable for eight years from the first closing (December 31, 2021). Once the sale has ended, the fund will remain closed until its maturity. The interest distribution will be incremental during the life of the fund. The distribution will be made via automatic reimbursement of shares, explains the manager of the blue bank.

The management team, led by Jose Luis Segimonhas the support of the team of third-party fund selectors specialized in this matter of Quality Funds. All the private market funds that will make up the BBVA Private Debt 2021 portfolio receive a rating on their degree of integration of sustainable criteria based on their own methodology, in line with the BBVA Asset Management Sustainability Plan.

On its side, the manager of Liberbank -already under the umbrella of Unicaja- has launched Liberbank Alpha,with global philosophy. His degree of freedom is such that he can invest between 0% and 100% of his assets, directly in securities or indirectly through other funds, in equities, fixed income and financial instruments whose return is linked to raw materials, risk credit, volatility, variance, financial indices, interest and foreign exchange and inflation.

The door is open to retailers

These types of investment vehicles are gaining more and more followers due to the low interest rate environment. Also, Economy has opened the door this summer for retail investors to enter hedge funds (the Anglo-Saxon term for hedge funds, which are the Spanish version) and venture capital funds since the 10,000 euros and not from 100,000, as it has been so far. In the first case, with two limitations: that there is financial advice involved and that the investment does not exceed 10% of the client’s total assets.