Paris traders brace for new transactions tax

(Full story)

By Lionel Laurent

(Reuters) - French traders hoping for a summer break from the eurozone crisis are instead likely to be grappling with the fine print of a new tax on financial transactions, due to come into force on Wednesday.

Critics say the levy - which charges 0.2 percent on purchases of any securities issued by more than 100 top French companies - will add to brokers' woes. It comes at a time of high stock-market volatility, eroding brokerage margins and growing bets on an impending French stock-market slide.

The legislation also includes taxes on high-speed trading and the purchase of contracts that insure against a European Union sovereign-debt default, a package that politicians say will raise at least 1.6 billion euros ($1.96 billion) in a full year but which detractors say will hurt earnings and investment.

"The worst-case scenario is that the tax will encourage businesses to invest elsewhere at the expense of Paris as a financial centre," said Yannick Naud, portfolio manager at Glendevon King Asset Management

SocGen staff reps approve sale of TCW -sources

(Full story) (exclusive to Reuters and the first acknowledgment inside SocGen that the deal was on)


By Lionel Laurent

PARIS, July 27 (Reuters) - French bank Societe Generale's labor unions have signed off on the sale of its Los Angeles-based asset management arm TCW, two union sources told Reuters on Friday.

The deal is at a very advanced stage and will be signed in the coming days, they said. The name of the acquirer and the price of the transaction were not disclosed at the meeting.

"The works council has met ... It is decided that we are selling TCW," said one of the sources who attended the meeting.

Hedge funds pin hopes on French revolution

(Full story)

By Lionel Laurent

PARIS | Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:36am EDT

(Reuters) - France's small band of hedge fund managers, long dismissed as risk-addicted buccaneers in their home market, are betting on a renaissance as investors burned by stocks and sovereign debt look elsewhere for returns.

It is a Europe-wide trend but one that matters in France, where big investors such as insurers and retirement funds - holding 2 trillion euros ($2.5 trillion) assets - are more risk-averse and put less into hedge funds than peers abroad.

The optimism of some hedge fund managers is even trumping fears for the future of French finance under Socialist President Francois Hollande, who has pledged to tax top earners more and crack down on risky trading.

"More French assets are going to go to the hedge funds. It is inevitable," said Amit Shabi, co-founder of Bernheim Dreyfus, a fund that makes bets on whether mergers succeed or fail. "The only question is how long it takes. It may be one year or five."