Agefi Communiqué de presse - Selectra Management Company SA

11 JUIN 2015
AGEFI
Fonds / Bourse
Les espoirs d’une accélération de la
croissance économique risquent d’être déçus
faiblesse de l’euro, même si les surprises
économiques positives sont devenues
moins nombreuses depuis le début
du mois d’avril. Au Japon, l’activité
économique ne montre toujours
pas de tendance claire alors qu’elle
continue à faiblir dans les pays
émergents.
U
ne croissance du PIB nettement inférieure aux
Etats-Unis, des statistiques conjoncturelles un
peu plus favorables en
Europe, l’absence de tendance claire au Japon et la poursuite de la faiblesse dans les
pays émergents: conformément aux dernières années, les
espoirs d’une accélération de la
croissance économique en cours
d’année risquent d’être déçus.
C’est ce que prétendent Guy
Wagner (cf. portrait), chief
investment officer de la
Banque de Luxembourg,
et son équipe dans l’analyse mensuelle, les
‘Highlights’.
«Conformément aux dernières
années, les espoirs d’une accélération de la croissance économique en
cours d’année risquent d’être déçus»,
affirme Guy Wagner, chief investment officer de la Banque de
Luxembourg et administrateur-directeur de la
société de gestion
BLI - Banque de
Luxembourg Investments.
Aux Etats-Unis, la croissance du
PIB a été nettement inférieure aux
attentes au premier trimestre, principalement
à cause des conditions météorologiques difficiles
en hiver et des grèves dans les ports de la côte
ouest du pays. En Europe, les statistiques conjoncturelles étaient un peu plus favorables grâce à la
Des prix pétroliers
stables empêchent un
recul supplémentaire
des taux d’inflation
Suite à la stabilisation des prix pétroliers, les taux
d’inflation consolident à de faibles niveaux. Aux
Etats-Unis, l’inflation est passée de 0% en février
à -0,1% en mars, tandis que dans la zone euro, le
taux d’inflation est remonté de -0,1% en mars à
0% en avril.
gataires dans la zone euro. Aux Etats-Unis, les
taux obligataires se sont également tendus.
La banque centrale chinoise réduit
le taux des réserves obligatoires
des banques commerciales
«Malgré leur remontée, les taux longs européens
restent à des niveaux peu attrayants. Les obligations d’Etat américaines demeurent la seule alternative valable dans les pays industrialisés, étant
donné qu’elles disposent encore d’un potentiel
d’appréciation si l’activité économique ralentissait
davantage», dit l’économiste luxembourgeois.
La Réserve fédérale aux Etats-Unis n’a pas donné
d’indications nouvelles quant à l’échéancier d’un
premier resserrement monétaire éventuel. Les
analystes tablent dorénavant sur une première
hausse des taux en septembre au plus tôt.
En Europe, la Banque centrale continue à racheter
des emprunts d’Etat à hauteur de 60 milliards
EUR par mois. En Chine, la banque centrale a
réduit le taux des réserves obligatoires des
banques commerciales de 19,5% à 18,5% et envisage d’accepter comme collatéral les emprunts
émis par les gouvernements régionaux.
Les rendements des obligations d’Etat
en Europe et aux Etats-Unis remontent
En avril, les rendements des obligations d’Etat de
la zone euro se sont tendus. La hausse des taux en
Allemagne, en Italie et en Espagne semble avoir
été déclenchée par des positions «short» entamées
par le monde des fonds «hedge» suite au niveau
dérisoire de la quasi-totalité des rendements obli-
Les actions restent le placement par défaut
Les marchés américains et européens se sont
maintenus à des niveaux élevés en avril, alors que
les bourses japonaises et asiatiques ont même
continué à progresser.
Guy Wagner: «Compte tenu de la bonne performance de la plupart des actions depuis le début
de l’année, une correction boursière à l’entrée de
la période de mai à octobre, qui historiquement a
été nettement moins favorable pour les bourses
que la période de novembre à avril, ne serait pas
particulièrement surprenante.»
En l’absence d’un choc externe, les actions
devraient toutefois maintenir leur statut de placement par défaut en raison des perspectives
d’une poursuite de l’environnement de taux zéro
dans les mois à venir.
SELECTRA event “New Opportunities for the Luxembourg Investment
Funds Environment” gathered top experts and decision makers
T
he conference “New Opportunities
for the Luxembourg Investment
Funds Environment” successfully
gathered more than 60 key decisionmakers of the Luxembourg financial sector.
The event was hosted by SELECTRA
Management Company S.A., in cooperation with Elvinger Hoss & Prussen, Kneip,
SEFEA and sponsored by Amicorp.
Attendees filled the Neumünster Abbey
on June 4th 2015 and experienced panels
and peer-to-peer networking.
The conference started with the panel
“Luxembourg Funds Environment: the
Management Company Ecosystem” in which the
debate, moderated by Jérôme Wigny, Partner at
Elvinger Hoss & Prussen, focused on the development and new challenges for ManCos, not just from
a regulatory perspective, as well as new trends in
service outsourcing. Among the speakers: Mr
Marco Cipolla, Partner at Selectra ManCo, Mr
Giuseppe Rizzo, Manager at Amicorp, Mr
Antonello Argenziano, Manager at KNEIP and Mrs
Chrystelle Veeckmans,Partner at KPMG.
“The success of Luxembourg in attracting investment funds is based on the reputation of the
Luxembourg brand in the investment fund industry concerning the regulatory environment including accessibility, knowledge and responsiveness of
the regulator, stability, political, economic and social
environment as well as the legal framework and
taxation regime” says Marco Cipolla, Partner at
Selectra ManCo. “This meant we had a lot of great
topics to discuss. I look forward to the positive
impact these discussions will make on our industry
moving forward” he adds.
Guest speaker was Minister Nicolas Schmit,
Ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de l’Economie
Sociale et Solidaire of the Grand-Duchy of
Luxembourg. In his speech, Mr Schmit stressed the
attention on the more and more growing weight of
a social return in economy, introducing the panel on
Impact Investing. In fact, this particular subject
represents a new challenge for the sustainable funding market for social entrepreneurship in the
whole world and in Europe in particular.
Led by Mr Francesco Stocco, from the Law Firm
Lambertini e Associati, the panelists debated firstly
among the importance, but at the same time difficulty, to provide a specific definition of impact
investing. Then, the discussion deepened in the
technical areas of EU regulation, new potential markets and metrics used to measure the economic
return of impact investments.
Speakers highlighted the fact that Luxembourg is
the second largest investment fund center in the
world as well as a global center of expertise in crossboarder distribution and that by granting a label to
responsible investment funds, the Country gives
confidence to investors and helps asset managers to
raise capital for responsible investment.
Among the speakers were present Mr Franco
Amelio and Mrs Silvia Dallai, Deloitte Italy, Mr
Fabio Salviato, General Manager at Société
Européenne Finance Ethique et Alternative –
SEFEA, Mrs Anne Contreras, Of counsel at Arendt
& Medernach and Mrs Annemarie Arens, General
Manager at Luxflag.
After the break, and before the networking session,
a last panel moderated by Mr Sebastian SilibertoNeri, from Selectra ManCo and composed by Mr
Ingo Werner, FIA Asset Management, Mr Fabio
Mastrosimone, Managing Director at Amicorp, Mr
David Mandiya, Managing Director at Quercus
Investment Partners, London and Mr Alain Mestat,
Managing Partner at Luxinvest Capital Advisors
presented a selection of successful cases from
Europe to Latin America, from finance to art.
Deleveraging REITS to replicate direct
property performance and preserve liquidity
S
everal academic studies
have demonstrated that
adding real estate to a
mixed asset portfolio can be
expected to provide a higher level
of return for the same
amount of risk.(1)
However, the relatively
illiquid nature of the asset
class poses a challenge for
some investors. Listed real
estate is a natural alternative as it offers investors a
more liquid solution for
gaining property market
exposure.
short term listed property behaves more
like the stock market rather than direct
real estate. Notably, the five year holding
period analysis demonstrates that listed
property starts to behave more in line
with direct property over the long run.
The price of liquidity
While the listed property sector offers
more liquidity, it comes with the added
cost of increased short term volatility –
primarily in the form of equity market
risk. As illustrated in Figure 1, over the
Academic studies show that differences
in return and volatility between listed
and direct property can be
reconciled by adjusting for the
use of leverage. Once leverage
is accounted for, data suggests
that there is indeed a long-term
relationship between the performance of listed and direct real
estate.(2)
This is a theoretical long run average
allocation and in practice, dynamic rebalancing could allow investors to adjust
the allocation between REITs and real
estate debt depending on the current
position in the property cycle. For
example, allocations to REITs might be
relatively overweight during recovery
and expansion phases and then reduced as the cycle peaks. Such rebalancing
is far from trivial and requires expert
knowledge of real estate equities, real
estate debt and direct property.
Putting theory
into practice
With this back drop, the
question to answer is
whether deleveraging
listed real estate could
replicate the direct real
estate market’s riskadjusted return performance.
Since the 1990s, the significant
growth of the global REIT
industry has created an investment universe of sufficient
scale and liquidity.
There is also a growing trend
for listed property companies
to focus on a particular property sector, which allows investors to be more tactile in their allocations
to real estate.
cycles, and
- Exacerbates the extent of the valuation
declines in down cycles.
Leverage is a key
driver of volatility
In addition to broader equity market
volatility, the use of leverage by listed
property companies is another key
contributor to the volatility observed in
listed property performance. The impact
of leverage:
- Drives stronger performance in up
Figure 2 shows that
this is possible, illustrating that a portfolio
comprised of 55.2% REIT
exposure and 44.8% exposure
to real estate debt has a similar
risk-adjusted return to the
direct property index.(3)
Importantly for investors, in using listed
real estate and real estate debt, the blended strategy may be more liquid than
direct property.
This blended strategy would arguably
provide investors with access to an asset
class for which they might not otherwise have access. A blended liquid real
estate portfolio that includes flexible allocations to listed property company debt
and equity, could allow investors to capture property-like performance by effectively replicating the balance sheet structure of listed property companies.
Frédéric TEMPEL
Head of Investment Team, AXA Framlington
AXA Investment Managers
1) This has been confirmed by various academic reports
including: Hoesli, Lekander and Witkiewicz, 2004;
MacKinnon and Al Zaman, 2009; Brounen,
Porras Prado and Verbeek, 2010
2) Clayton and MacKinnon 2001
3) Comprised of the Bank of America property bond index
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Vorstlaan 36/3 Boulevard du Souverain - 1170
Brussels. Regulated as Portfolio Management
and Investment Advice Company RPR
Brussel / RPM Bruxelles - BE 0458.289.564.
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