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L'institution n'investira plus dans les fonds alternatifs, jugés trop chers et trop peu performants. Elle critique les pratiques du secteur, qui rognent les rendements des investisseurs.

Mieux vaut un bon sommeil qu'un bon lit. C'est en essence la conclusion à laquelle est arrivée l'université de Californie (UCLA), rapportent le « Financial Times » et le média spécialisé PI Online. L'institution, qui dispose de presque 200 milliards de dollars d'actifs, ne confiera désormais plus un sou aux hedge funds.

Ces derniers n'ont pas joué leur rôle de couverture lors des retournements de marché en 2000, 2008 et 2020, a rappelé à l'occasion d'une réunion Jagdeep Singh Bachher, responsable des investissements au sein de l'université. Au contraire, en prenant des risques inconsidérés, les hedge funds ont aggravé les pertes au sein du portefeuille. Un comble, car le principal argument de vente de ces stratégies complexes, peu liquides et surtout onéreuses est d'offrir un rendement décorrélé des conditions de marché.

Au cours des vingt dernières années, si les investissements dans les stratégies alternatives avaient été à la place dirigés vers des actions et des obligations, « le rendement aurait été identique pour un risque comparable, mais sans toutes les inquiétudes, l'illiquidité et les coûts » associés à la gestion alternative, a regretté Jagdeep Singh Bachher.

Les fonds dégagés par l'université seront donc placés sur les actions, dont le poids au sein des portefeuilles de l'institution passera de 53 % à 57 %. En moyenne, au sein de ses différentes poches, l'université visait jusqu'à présent une allocation de plus de 4 % pour les stratégies alternatives. Même si les montants investis étaient en réalité déjà bien plus faibles.

La décision de supprimer complètement l'exposition aux fonds alternatifs avait en effet été prise dès 2020. Mais alors qu'il faut en général un mois et demi à l'institution pour faire évoluer ses positions classiques, la « beauté » des hedge funds explique que ce processus ait pris cinq ans, a ironisé le responsable.

En somme, selon le responsable de l'université, les stratégies alternatives profitent d'abord aux gérants qui les exécutent. « Les hedge funds sont un secteur fantastique si vous êtes à Wall Street : vous pouvez faire payer des frais élevés et vous acheter toutes les oeuvres d'art, les jets privés et les belles propriétés », a plaisanté Jagdeep Singh Bachher.

La critique est récurrente. Au cours des dernières années, le modèle de facturation des gérants s'est éloigné du traditionnel « two and twenty », c'est-à-dire 2 % de frais de gestion auxquels s'ajoutent 20 % ponctionnés sur les profits réalisés. Désormais, les fonds optent pour des modèles de « pass-through », pour lesquels la totalité des frais sont refacturés aux clients - salaires mais aussi loyer, coûts de maintenance ou de déplacement…

Cela en dépit d'une performance de plus en plus poussive. Entre début 2015 et aujourd'hui, la performance moyenne des hedge funds dépasse à peine 60 %. Contre plus de 200 % pour l'indice élargi S&P 500 au cours de la même période.

LCHI, filiale de sélection de hedge funds d'Edmond de Rothschild calcule ainsi que les frais perçus par les fonds alternatifs ont représenté plus de la moitié de leur performance totale au cours des dix dernières années. « Je regrette, non pas d'avoir investi dans les hedge funds, mais de n'être moi-même pas gérant de hedge fund », a logiquement conclu Jagdeep Singh Bachher.

Toyota Motors is one of the world’s most buttoned-up companies. But in 2017, an executive from the carmaker’s venture arm drove into the remote Santa Cruz, Calif., mountains to see a group of engineers living together in a 1960s-style commune. As he watched, they demonstrated a remote-controlled electric helicopter they predicted would usher in an age of air taxis for the masses.

Eight years later, Joby, now a publicly traded company, says it will launch commercial air taxi flights in 2026. The first flights will be in four Dubai “vertiports,” including at the city’s airport, downtown and marina. Later in the year, Joby plans to start operations in U.S. cities, such as New York and Los Angeles.

And behind the venture is Joby’s largest shareholder, the ordinarily ultracautious Toyota, which holds a 22% ownership stake and has invested nearly $1 billion in the startup.

Joby’s tight partnership with Toyota gives it access to the carmaker’s unparalleled manufacturing expertise—critical since the startup’s success depends on building its aircraft at scale. Elon Musk famously called this problem “production hell.” Numerous electric vehicle startups have failed to navigate this stage, so Joby is tying its future to Toyota, the avatar of modern manufacturing and the world’s leading car company by sales.

I visited Joby’s Marina, Calif., manufacturing facility and wrote a long feature about how electric air taxis are moving from the realm of science fiction to reality.

Investors have responded strongly to the arrival of these aircraft, known as electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs. Joby shares have surged 120% year to date, including 48% last week on the news that the company doubled production capacity in Marina. Later this summer, Joby plans to start production at a new plant in Dayton, Ohio, which will eventually pump out 40 aircraft a month.

Toyota’s largesse has bankrolled much of this expansion.

The four-passenger Joby aircraft looks definitively sci-fi, an intimidating combination of the insectlike body you would expect, topped by six helicopter-style rotors and wings. What fundamentally distinguishes these from today’s helicopters is their quiet, battery-powered motors. There is no scary whoop-whoop, and no dipping your head as you approach in fear of a decapitation.

CEO JoeBen Bevirt says that at first these flights won’t be cheap—he expects fares running about the same as Uber Black, which can cost roughly $150 or $170 from John F. Kennedy Airport to Manhattan. The price will come down, he expects, and Joby flights will compete directly with UberX, which is about half the Uber Black fare.

For Toyota, the size and intensity of the bet on Joby may seem surprising. But it makes sense if you’re thinking about survival amid a massive shift in how people move.

The Japanese company deliberately took a pass on EVs the last few years. Instead, it doubled down on hybrids, which it argued would be good enough for consumers, and it has largely ignored driverless technology. Meanwhile, Chinese EV makers have gobbled up market share in Asia and elsewhere.

Other EV laggards in the West are doing the same: Stellantis pledged to spend $370 million to help Joby rival Archer Aviation ramp up its manufacturing capacity. Porsche is helping Brazil’s Eve Air Mobility build its air taxi.

Geopolitics are aligning with these moves: Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring electric air taxis and drones strategic industries, and ordering pilot programs to “maintain United States leadership in eVTOL flight.”

At the state level, Michigan, pivoting off Trump’s order, last week carved out a 40-mile air corridor in which eVTOL startups can test their aircraft, including a vertiport and charging infrastructure at the University of Michigan—an apparent first for the country; eVTOL companies generally don’t have large spaces for testing their aircraft.

Trump’s move followed a similar directive by Beijing, which even gave the new industry a name—the “low-altitude economy.” China is engaged in an all-of-government effort to dominate this economy: Six Chinese universities have announced fall undergraduate programs in low-altitude technologies, which also include drones and low-orbit satellites, and businesses have formed the China Low-Altitude Economic Alliance. Chinese electric air taxi developer EHang plans to begin the world’s first commercial eVTOL flights later this summer, with service in the cities of Guangzhou and Hefei.

Toyota is everywhere inside Joby. About 50 of its engineers are embedded in nearly every facet of Joby’s facilities. They heavily influence its production decisions, down to how workers place their tools on tables, and weigh in on the startup’s choice of suppliers.

I walked around the Marina plant with Eric Allison, Joby’s chief product officer. Allison and other senior Joby executives spoke of Toyota with extraordinary deference, saying in almost every conversation that Toyota played a central role in their plans. They cite the Japanese company’s culture, including acronyms like “5S,” a system of rigorous workplace rules.

The citation of Toyota’s acronyms seemed a bit cultish, though I can see why the Joby crew is embracing them, given how central manufacturing problems have been in the demise of other EV companies.

The Toyota hand goes pretty far: Overhead video cameras capture all of the workers’ moves. Toyota engineers review the videos later in Japan, where the company has built a close mock-up of the Marina facility.

“From one workstation to another, we would videotape and time every function, and then assess the effectiveness of every action, from which direction you put the scissors that someone’s going to access to how a handoff happens from one station to another,” Didier Papadopoulos, president of Joby and head of manufacturing, told me. “This is where I think the strength of Toyota and their decades of expertise has been phenomenal.”

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After Elon Musk left Washington and ignited a feud with President Donald Trump last month, the Trump administration reviewed the government’s contracts with Musk’s SpaceX and thought about cutting some of them.

In the end, it didn’t—after deciding they were too vital to the Defense Department and NASA.

The review reflects how quickly the relationship between Musk and Trump has deteriorated. Meanwhile, the fact that the White House didn’t cut any of the contracts highlights SpaceX’s enormous importance to the government as the world’s leading commercial space-exploration business.

Authorities also accused social media company of ‘fraudulent’ data extraction

The French government has launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over “the alleged manipulation of its algorithm” and “fraudulent” data extraction, the social media platform said.

In a statement on Monday, X said that French authorities had requested access to the company’s recommendation algorithm, as well as data “about all user posts on the platform”.

X said it “remains in the dark” about the specific allegations, which it denies, and that it “has not acceded to the French authorities’ demands”.

It also criticised the investigation as politically motivated.

The French police and prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.