Asset Managers

The 55 million euro high security, high value storage facility formerly known as the Luxembourg Freeport – now known officially as the High Security Hub (HSH) – was back in the headlines recently as auditor BDO Audit drew attention to what it termed  “significant uncertainties” about the firm’s ability to continue its business activities “on a going concern basis,” in its corporate audit report of HSH’s balance sheets, filed to the Luxembourg Business Register in mid-July.

A recent study conducted by Boston-based State Street has found evidence of “green shorting”,  a phenomenon in financial markets where investors borrow shares of companies with a weak sustainability profile and sell them in the hope they can buy them back cheaper when the price declines.

Swing pricing “has become common market practice” in the Luxembourg fund sector to manage liquidity at times of volatility in the market, according to a recent industry survey by the Association of Luxembourg Fund Industry.

Global asset managers are concerned that the European Union’s regime for corporate sustainability reporting does not fully match their needs and that it could risk making Europe less attractive for international investors as the rules remain to be aligned with an alternative international approach that is gaining traction in international accounting discussions in the IFRS community.

In the United Kingdom, the National Employment Savings Trust, known as Nest, is the country’s leading  defined contribution workplace pension scheme. It was set up to facilitate automatic enrolment as part of the government’s workplace pension reforms under the Pensions Act 2008. It has 11 million members with 24 billion pounds in assets under management.

“We are really strong advocates of stewardship,” said Nest CEO Helen Dean (pictured), speaking at a recent World Pensions Council conference in Paris.

When it comes to ESG, those who confine themselves to the paper reality may believe that asset managers are becoming increasingly similar. Those who look deeper however see a different picture: European asset managers not only remain in the lead, but are also converting their paper promises into actual ESG integration. 

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which officially took ownership of NN Investment Partners at the beginning of this year, on Wednesday announced a number of changes at the top of the Dutch-based asset manager. Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijzen, NN IP’s current chief investment officer, has been appointed global head of sustainability for public investing.

Germany and France are Oddo BHF Asset Management’s core markets, but the asset manager now wants to expand further into Belgium and Luxembourg. In Belgium, this is done mainly through wholesale and through contacts with brokers. And private equity is democratising.

Semiconductors everywhere you look, the end of cash, the development of digital entertainment utilities and technology-driven warp speed healthcare innovation will be some of the trends, already visible today, that will define our lives in 2030, according to a long-term lookahead presentation by Capital Group. The overall message in was that yes, the world has changed, but there will still be plenty of opportunity, much of it related to technological development.

Nearly two-thirds of investors in Europe are concerned about greenwashing, even though EU regulation has been in place for more than a year, a new survey released on Thursday showed. More than half of all European investors remain very concerned about the lack of transparency and reported data.