La Française, focus on total return strategies

“This strategy may be suitable both for institutional and retail investors”, said Peri, who about 2016 answered:“2016 is a challenging year, it will be very difficult to identify market trends and investment opportunities in a negative rate environment”

The divergence in monetary policy between Europe and the US, as well as the downward revision of global economic prospects over the medium term, are points to watch out for, in an environment that we expect to be more volatile. This is the view of La Française, that has been cut the equity exposure, while retaining a bias for eurozone equity. Her fixed-income components are keeping their duration low through peripheral debt and targeted exposure to credit (Euro investment grade and subordinated financial debt).
According to analysts of the French group, low growth and zero inflation in all major regions (Europe, the United States, Japan and China) are reason to believe that interest rates will remain low. “However, we must keep in mind that YoY prices will rise very shortly to approximately 2% in the Usa and 1% in the eurozone”, they said. In this market contest, the experts remain positive about the Euro credit component due to the ECB’s accommodative statements and the slowdown in the primary market before year – end. Moreover, they are more confident about the dollar component because the Fed’s interest rate hike will most likely be gradual.
Lmf International asked Marco Peri, Country Head for Italy of La Française, to illustrate the strategy to adopt in this scenario and to take a picture of 2015, including the targets for this year.

What is your target for your products (institutional or retail) and what strategy do you suggest to adopt in a contest of low interest rates and high market volatility?
In a zero rate environment both institutional and retail investors will need to look more and more at total return strategies.
You can manage a total return fund in many ways. In Italy La Française is proposing a multi asset Global Macro fund, “La Française Allocation”. The strategy of this fund is based on a central scenario in which the manager can select specific investment themes, with a long/short approach on equities, bonds and currencies.
The risk management approach is systematic in order not to put the fund’s performance at risk.
This strategy may be suitable both for those institutional investors willing to improve the risk/return profile of their portfolios, but also for retail investors that can delegate to experienced portfolio managers the investment choices to be taken in a complex and challenging market.

About La Francaise, could you take a picture of 2015 (clients, sales, profit etc)?
Year 2015 has been particularly positive and full of news for La Française Group.
At the beginning of the year we signed a new partnership with an important Us manager, Alger, wich enabled us to enrich the range of products offered to our investors. We also signed a joint venture with a Swiss Bank, Gonet&Cie, strenghtening our local presence in this country.
In Italy the assets have grown by more than 250%. The number of clients also grew, as well as the number of distribution agreements. La Française is now a well known brand with a diversified client base.

What do you think about 2016 and what are your goals? Are you planning the launch of new products?
2016 is going to be a challenging year in which it will be very difficult to identify market trends and investment opportunities in a negative rate environment.
The Group is going to keep the focus on the commercial activity in Italy, targeting both institutional and retail clients, with the aim of showing our managing capabilities to the Italian public.
We will certainly launch new products but the focus will be to consolidate the existing ones and to improve the company visibility in Italy.