Asset Managers

Private assets might have dropped significantly in value since the “good years” of 2020 and 2021, but despite a bad year in 2022, they’re still outperforming public market returns by quite a margin, explained Schroders Capital’s chief investment officer Nils Rode at his firm’s private assets 2021 outlook this week.  History shows that private assets investors could have a strong year in 2023 despite the bad overall macroeconomic conditions, he argued.

New York Life, America’s largest mutual life insurer, has named Naïm Abou-Jaoudé as chief executive officer of New York Life Investment Management.  Vincent Hamelink (photo), Candriam chief investment officer, will succeed Abou-Jaoudé as CEO of Candriam.

The EU’s top financial markets authority on Thursday invited the European Commission to clarify new sustainability reporting requirements for European companies and to make its legislation for non-financial reporting standards more consistent with other pieces of EU legislation.

Los Angeles-based Capital Group, a major global investment manager also present in Luxembourg, on Thursday said that Mike Gitlin from October will assume the management responsibilities of Tim Armour, chairman and chief executive officer. Armour and vice chairman president Rob Lovelace Armour and Lovelace will both step down from Capital Group’s management committee in October of this year.

Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF has levied a 22,100 euro fine against alternative investment fund manager Pemberton Asset Management SA after a 2020 inspection found  “failures” in risk management, organisational requirements and supervising delegated activities under Luxembourg’s AIFM law, the regulator announced on Tuesday.

Banks, not investment funds, are responsible for financing the most carbon-intensive activities, the European Central Bank has concluded on the basis of experimental new indicators for sustainable finance. “The companies they finance produce relatively more emissions in their business operations to achieve a given level of revenue,” the ECB said when presenting the new indicators on Tuesday.

European infrastructure investment firm Marguerite has announced the launch of a platform allowing investors to put their money towards building large-scale photovoltaic solar projects. The firm, based in Luxembourg and Paris, also announced its plans to invest up to 60 million euros in such projects across Europe.

Luxembourg’s fund industry has high hopes for Eltif 2.0, the revised European regime for long-term investment funds that is set to be approved next month by the European Parliament. Thanks to the updated rules, products like private funds can be targeted directly at retail investors in all 30 countries in the European Economic Area with one single AIFM passport.

Investors concerned about uncertainty need to understand that it is fundamental to investing, but humans have a difficult relationship with it. Aswath Damodaran, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a prolific writer and social media publisher, is an expert on corporate valuation, finance and portfolio composition and is known as the “dean of valuation.”

How asset managers vote on corporate resolutions every year determines the future of our planet, but the world’s very biggest investment corporations continue to block progress on environmental and social issues. 

Researchers from non-profit organisation Share Action, in the latest edition of the Voting Matters report released this week, outlined how 68 of the world’s largest asset managers voted on 252 ESG-related shareholder resolutions.