...or so says Bloomberg. It's always difficult to gauge how badly-hit the asset management industry has been by the financial crisis. Assets under management are down. That's natural. But people are also making less money and are more fearful of putting what money they do make into managed funds. What's more, the people who asset managers like to court most - the moderately wealthy and the coveted high net worth individual - are getting sparser, a trend that might not reverse anytime soon. According to the survey described by Bloomberg, there are now 242,000 people living in the UK with over £1m in assets, down from 489,000 in 2007.

These numbers reflect "the collapse in the property market, the fall in the values of shares and the 70 percent drop in City bonuses," Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the UK's Centre for Economics and Business Research, said per Bloomberg. "With property prices near to bottoming out, we would expect the number of millionaires to start to rise again in 2011."

The three funds include a quantitative BRIC fund (it invests in Brazil, Russia, India and China), an Asia ex-Japan fund and a Global Equity fund-of-funds, according to this article.

"With this partnership, Salama has demonstrated yet again its commitment to bring the best fund managers and funds available in the Islamic space from across the globe to the doorstep of UAE residents," Noel D'Mello, a general manager at Salama, is quoted as saying.

Salama, aka the Islamic Arab Insurance Company, is a listed company in Dubai. It's also the largest Islamic insurance (takaful and re-takaful) group in the world. Credit Agricole, meanwhile, is France's largest retail banking group.

Note: The original version of this post mistakenly said Salama was partnering with Credit Suisse. I regret the error.

Adding to the decidedly mixed results we've been seeing from Gulf-based asset managers and financial firms, The National Investor, an Abu Dhabi-based investment bank, today said it booked a Dh6m first-quarter profit. That compares favourably with its peers in the region, many of which have been announcing large losses this year. Shuaa Capital, a Dubai-based firm, recently said it lost $54m in the first quarter (though that was better than it had done in previous quarters).

TNI has yet to release full financial results, but according to a press release, its investment banking, asset management and private equity arms had good quarters.

"In the most difficult of economic climates, we have seen a return to profitability for the Investment Banking division, which has won three new cross-border advisory mandates," TNI's CEO, Orhan Osmansoy, said. "Our Private Equity team closed two significant transactions in India and Saudi Arabia. In Asset Management, our funds have continued to outperform the market and the division continues to benefit from the strong track record of the firm's first absolute return fund.  We are keen to continue growing our business, while being mindful of the competitive landscape and cyclical nature of the industry in which we operate."

Following on a dismal fourth quarter during which it lost over $1bn, Global Investment House, one of the largest investment firms and asset managers in Kuwait, said last week that it booked almost $240mn in losses in the first quarter of this year.

The company attributed the losses to "impairment from principal investments" and "losses from share of results of associates". The "results of associates" line appears to refer to  the fact that businesses in which Global has invested lost money, primarily in the financial service and property sectors. Global's fortunes "continued to be impacted by global and regional market turbulence and material decline in overall investment and investment banking activities in the region," the firm said in a statement. Yet "the reduced pace of decline" was "reassuring".

Global said when it announced full-year results for 2008 that it would shift focus to fee-generating business that in the past has proven profitable - and move away from proprietary investing, which seems to have generated most of the losses. It also said it was embarking on cost-cutting measures, reducing personnel and trimming overhead.

Ever since it defaulted on a $200m loan last December, triggering cross-defaults across its loan portfolio and prompting severe ratings downgrades, the troubled firm has been in negotiations with creditors over restructuring its debt. Those negotiations continue, Global said in its statement today, though it remains unclear if or when a final restructuring agreement will be worked out. Here's Global's statement on restructuring:

Progress on restructuring process

Global continues to work constructively with the lending banks with the aim to reach an agreement for restructuring its loans. Global presented a comprehensive restructuring plan to its lending bank group in February 2009 and is currently executing the terms of the plan. The company also assisted in the completion of a valuation of the Company's principal investment and real-estate portfolio, prepared by an independent accounting firm appointed by the lending bank group and has continued to meet all its debt service requirements as they fall due.

Full financial details are said to be forthcoming on Global's website. Full earnings release after the jump.

Majid Al Futtaim's asset management arm got off to a running start today, announcing the launch of an open-ended MENA equity fund to be seeded with $150m. It'll be domiciled in Luxembourg and report a weekly NAV. It'll have two share classes with differing fee structures: one with a minimum investment of $500,000 and another with a minimum of $25m. No word yet on exactly what those fees will be - I can't seem to find them in the prospectus, weirdly enough.

The fund, to be called the Elite MENA Equity Fund, will have a broad focus, its managers said today. While it'll be benchmarked against regional indexes, it won't be prohibited from going outside the region, when suitable opportunities present themselves. The fund also can invest in fixed income, which would seem to belie its name.

Officials at the fund said it'll be one of the largest in the region when it starts with $150m, although that's just a pittance in the context of the global asset management industry. It's also actually not near the top of the rankings in terms of size among funds in the region: according to Zawya, it would rank 34th out of 366. To be fair, though, the fund hasn't yet started raising money, so it's hard to tell how popular it will be.

The fund is basically a spinoff of Majid Al Futtaim's family offices. In the absence of a track record, the company released performance numbers for its regional stock portfolio since 2002. The numbers look good, generally: it's up by well over 200 per cent since inception, and made money in every year except 2008, when it lost 40.77%. Ouch. But hardly unexpected, given the massive declines in stock markets across the region.

The management team includes:

Iyad Malas, the chief executive officer. Malas joined Majid Al Futtaim Group in 2007, havin worked before that at the International Finance Corporation as regional director for south Asia. Before that, he'd worked in Egypt, including as COO of EFG-Hermes. (Pictured above)

Ian Galvin, the chief operating officer. Galvin was COO of Majid Al Futtaim Trust since 2007, and has worked in the past for Sovereign Global Investment, ING Barings, Ernst & Young and the KIA.

Faris Abdulrazzaq, senior portfolio manager. Like Galvin, Abdulrazzaq came from Majid Al Futtaim's family office, where he'd been since 2003. He's been working on the family's MENA portfolio since 2006. Before that, he was at EFG-Hermes in Cairo and at Arthur Andersen Egypt.

Habib Oueijan, portfolio manager. Another alum of the family office, Oueijan joined MAF in 2002. Before that, he worked for five years at Shuaa Capital in Dubai, helping set up their successful Arab Gateway funds. Like Malas, he had previously worked at the IFC; also like Malas, he's a George Washington University grad.

Mahmoud El Safty, associate portfolio manager. Yet another family-office guy, he joined MAF in 2005. He'd come from Commercial International Bank in Egypt before that.

Souheil Hajjar, head of international investments. Worked since 2008 for the family office. Before that, he'd spent time in various asset-management, investment banking and treasury-department positions at banks in the US and Europe. Like Ouijan and Malas, he's a George Washington University alum.

Shakir Mahmood, managing director. Worked in the family office since 2002. Before that, he worked in private banking in Europe, managing money for clients from the Middle East.

Charles Stauffer, head of marketing and business development. He came to the family office in 2008 as a fixed-income portfolio manager. Previously, he'd worked as a banker and trader in Europe. He's one of four people on the MAF team with a degree from George Washington University.

This comes from the brilliant MR Raghu of Markaz in Kuwait: Funds in the GCC aren't holding their assets well. Assets under management for GCC funds declined by 46 per cent in the last half of 2008 alone, and lost another 23 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

That doesn't bode well for asset managers in the region, many of whom had hoped that the recent market declines would lead individual investors to seek professional assistance with their portfolios. There is a (slight) silver lining to all this, however. First, a lot of this decline in assets under management is surely attributable to market performance, which had been abysmal across the GCC until the past month or so. Second, Islamic funds, on which plenty of managers have pinned their hopes, aren't declining in assets under management as much as conventional ones.

Here's Mr Raghu's analysis:

GCC markets went through a rollercoaster in 2008, with H1 being positive for the six economies followed by an abysmal second half which saw assets under management (AUM's) of GCC funds contract by a massive 46%. There continues to be a cloud of uncertainty over the local, and international, financial landscape, with equity markets trading sideways, liquidity being tight and good news being somewhat scattered, although governments have shown proactive measures aimed at bolstering their economies. However, AUM's continued to decline in the first quarter of the year; the good news is that the shrinkage seems to have steadied somewhat. AUM's for both country specific and pan-GCC funds contracted by 23% in the QTD period to USD 9.0 bn. The QTD decline was led by Qatar and Kuwait, which saw their AUM's shrink by 29% and 34%, respectively. Saudi Arabia's AUM contraction has moderated though; declining by 10% QTD after plunging 55% between April - December 2008, in line with the market stabilizing. Conventional fund AUM's declined by 26% in the QTD period while those for Islamic funds declined by 19% to USD 3.59 bn. Most Equity funds continued to languish in the red, but there were some gainers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Majid Al Futtaim is getting into the asset management biz. The huge conglomerate is leveraging the expertise of its family office to start the Majid Al Futtaim Group, to be regulated by the DFSA. No word yet on what funds or other financial products are in the pipeline. Release after the jump.

You'd think that there would be healthy interest in a fund that proposes to invest in Gulf infrastructure, given its importance as the foundation for the region's ambitious development plans. And there is - sort of. Today, a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi Investment Company and UBS announced that its MENA infrastructure fund had secured commitments of "up to" $250m (I'm assuming some of those commitments are contingent). But it also said it was looking to raise another $350m, bringing its total to $600m. That's a sizable funding gap to fill.

The fund plans to invest its cash in the next three to five years. I'm not entirely clear on what they're going to do with it, although from the press release it appears they're looking at making deals with governments to build infrastructure projects on previously undeveloped land: "Most of the fund's investments will be in 'greenfield' assets but because we are talking about primarily government concessions or long-term contracts with solid partners, cash flows are predictable and the risks less than in pure private sector deals," Vincent Gilles, the CIO of the JV, said in the release.

Saad Zaman, formerly the deputy CEO of Dubai Islamic Bank's DIB Capital, has been appointed CEO of the unit. He had been deputy since 2007 and has been with DIB since 2004. Before that, he worked for Citigroup in the region. Release after the jump.

(Photo: Saad Zaman; supplied)

Had an interesting roundtable today with the folks at Franklin Templeton in the DIFC. Vivek Kudva, FT's recently-promoted head of India and what they're calling CEEMEA (Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa), was there, as were Dhiraj Rai, the sales director for the region, and Michael Jadalla, the marketing director.

Kudva didn't reveal all that much about Franklin Templeton's plans in the Gulf. But the mammoth American fund firm (it still has $391bn in assets under management as of the end of March) does appear to have something in the oven. They've certainly devoted a good amount of resources to the region, having moved their institutional head from London to Dubai in April and recently increased their stake in Algebra Capital, one of Dubai's super-rare independent fund managers. Interestingly, Kudva also said FT had the right (but not the obligation) to build on its 40 per cent stake in Algebra and take a controlling interest in the company. He wouldn't say what the timeframe was for any potential further stake-increases, but indicated that the plan for now was to maintain the status quo. "Algebra has a great team that has worked together for 10 years," he said. "They're a very strong team, and we would like to maintain that."

Kudva said Templeton would focus on "opportunities" in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the institional side, and look towards the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on the retail side. They're also keen to get into the world of Islamic finance, perhaps launching a fund with Algebra as manager by the end of the year. "We will look at Shariah and sukuk opportunities with Algebra," Kudva said. "It's a function of what investors want."

Templeton may also use Algebra to help set up a private equity fund in cooperation with Darby, the firm's private equity subsidiary.

(Image above: Vivek Kudva of Franklin Templeton; supplied.)