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By PWM Editor

BBH hires Haberlin

Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), the US back-office player which has shaped a new business as the link between banks building open architecture solutions and their fund providers, has appointed Keith Haberlin as head of Infomediary sales in Europe. According to BBH, the Infomediary “multi-party STP connectivity platform” has carved a prominent place in the global outsourcing arena. It has over 40 clients in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific.

The poaching of Mr Haberlin from SWIFT is something of a coup for BBH. Mr Haberlin is a down-to-earth individual, not afraid to speak his mind on industry issues, with relationships across a range of fund houses and investment banks. He also has prior experience at Fidelity and Cogent.

Record bond flows

Emerging market bonds funds recorded their strongest flows in the second week of August since the first quarter of 2004, according to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR).

Falling US Treasury yields and some restoration of carry trades has given emerging market bonds and the funds that buy them a new lease of life, said EPFR, which collects flows and allocations data from 7000 funds with assets of $3000bn (E2435bn).

EPFR also reported that investors have pulled money from Japan equity funds for the first time in 11 weeks.

“Investor sentiment towards Japan has taken a hit from record oil prices, since Japan imports nearly all of its oil and second quarter GDP growth was slower than anticipated,” said Brad Durham, managing director of EPFR.

Defensive stance

State Street Global Markets, which monitors the investing patterns of the US bank’s custody clients investing $9100bn (E7400bn), has reported an inflow of institutional money into defensive sectors and out of cyclicals and high beta groups.

“Investors have shed risk since early this year, but took a break in May to ‘bargain hunt’ underperforming groups in hopes of a follow-on rally,” said State Street.

“This time however, there is no evidence institutional investors are positioning for a market recovery. They are avoiding underperformers.”

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