PARIS, June 24 — French investment bank Natixis said today it had pushed forward a regular audit of an asset management unit that has been hit by concerns over the liquidity of certain of its assets.
“In the context of restoring confidence in H2O Asset Management, Natixis has also decided to bring forward the periodic audit performed on this affiliate, by implementing it as of 21 June 2019,” it said in a statement.
Shares in Natixis plunged nearly 12 per cent on Thursday after a story in the Financial Times raised questions of a possible conflict of interest for the chief executive of H2O Asset Management, and investment research firm Morningstar suspended its rating one of H2O Asset Management’s funds, expressing concerns about the illiquidity and appropriateness of some of its assets.
Natixis sought to reassure investors today about the liquidity of H2O Asset Management’s assets.
“The liquidity of the securities is ensured and will allow to face potential additional withdrawals, if some clients decide to partially sell their funds due to a concern about the media coverage associated with these securities,” the bank said in a statement.
In a separate statement H2O Asset Management indicated it had sold some of its assets and had re-evaluated the worth of others.
“H2O AM teams have decided to record these securities at their transactional value in case of an immediate total sale rather than recording them at their standard market value,” said Natixis, indicating international banks had helped the determination of their current market value.
It added that these securities represent less than 2 per cent of outstanding amounts in these funds.
H2O Asset Management accounts for less than 4 per cent of the funds managed by Natixis.
Natixis shares were up 2.4 per cent in morning trading, while Paris’ main index was down 0.2 per cent. — AFP
