Asset Managers

Pictet Group has announced the appointment of Raymond Sagayam as the 47th Managing Partner in the 218-year history of the firm, effective 1 January 2024.

Sagayam joined Pictet Asset Management in 2010 as head of total return fixed income to build and expand the firm’s long-short credit capabilities. His investment and management track record led him to be appointed chief investment officer of fixed income and a member of its executive committee in 2017. 

Deutsche Börse AG on Thursday made an offer of 3.9 billion euro in cash for Danish investment software and data provider SimCorp A/S. The offer is endorsed by SimCorp’s board.

The German stock exchange said it plans to integrate SimCorp into its existing data and analytics business and that the acquisition will allow the creation of a “full scope” front-to-back investment management solutions segment. 

Equity investors may be underestimating the potential consequences of a miscalculation of the Federal Reserve interest rate path. The market is already pricing in a Goldilocks scenario of stable economic growth and low inflation. It could be a costly misjudgment.

Institutional investors expect greater transparency when investing in alternative assets, mostly with risk management in mind, according to a new survey by Clearwater Analytics.

According to a poll of 254 institutional investors, representing over $10 trillion in assets under management, the two key benefits to achieving greater transparency in alts should be better risk management (72 per cent) and a better understanding of performance (54 per cent).  

Decarbonisation is a trend expected to continue among investors during the coming years. One out of 10 fund selectors in Europe is already completely avoiding so-called “carbon emitters” or traditional carbon-emitting energy companies. Twice as many plan to do so in the next two to three years.  

Banks are keen to invest more in biodiversity but experience difficulties in finding suitable products. The concept of biodiversity is stretched and providers do not make sufficiently clear what goals they are pursuing and how these are measured. 

Sustainability regulations require asset managers and banks to take into account a number of factors on which they must also report. A large part of it deals with biodiversity, giving the topic great attention from banks and asset managers as well as from providers. 

The Luxembourg government clarified its application of the reverse hybrid rule in the EU’s second anti-tax avoidance directive (ATAD-2) last November, in 2022. It made clear that tax-exempt investors are exempt from the application of the reverse hybrid rules and clarified when they do apply to other investors. With the “quite helpful” clarification bringing simplification in one area, the quest for certainty has moved to related issues, such as allocating the potential tax burden if a given investor triggers it.

A recent European Central Bank study calling for a regulatory framework to address instability in the market for Real Estate Investment Funds, known as Reifs, has been downplayed by a growing number of real estate specialists contacted by Investment Officer in Luxembourg and London. 

The traditional private equity world has realised only in the past two years that creating products specifically for wealth and retail channels is going to be a huge area of growth over the next 10 to 15 years. Europe, said Tarun Nagpal, founder of S64 Capital Innovation, will be the “next frontier” in mainstreaming private equity for retail investors.

Although there’s consensus on clouds hanging over private real estate markets while some investors here still face a rough ride, instability in the market for Real Estate Investment Funds, known as REIFs, - unlike the European Central Bank - is not seen as an immediate systemic threat to the real economy, according to real estate specialists in Luxembourg and London.