Asset Managers

The long-term financing of the storage of German commercial radioactive waste is being provided in part through a Luxembourg Raif that was established earlier this year. Kenfo, the German sovereign wealth fund that established the fund, has given InvestmentOfficer.lu some more details about its investment purpose.

Jasmine Kang, Hong Kong-based portfolio manager at Comgest, recently visited Luxembourg and explained to Investment Officer how China sees the current global financial conditions as an opportunity to “decouple” and become more self-sufficient. China’s centrally managed economy is well placed in a world where rising interest rates, surging commodity prices and increasing geopolitical tension continue to haunt global investors.

Accompanying Luxembourg’s finance minister Yuriko Backes on her official visit to Stockholm, Luxembourg’s financial community this week sought to strengthen its financial ties with Sweden, considered a “natural partner” for the Grand Duchy. Backes also discussed plans to support the reconstruction of Ukraine with her Swedish counterpart.

Travelling back to Luxembourg, Backes said on Twitter that her visit had been “very productive.” Backes was accompanied by a Luxembourg for Finance delegation and several representatives of Luxembourg’s financial services sector.

A university-sponsored wealthtech startup based in Liège, Belgium, is keen to make life easier for European fund managers that currently face sleepless nights. In 77 days, in the middle of the summer holidays, additional client suitability requirements will enter into force in the EU. It can change the way wealth managers interact with their clients.

An increasing number of chief executives recognises that sustainability is one of the main challenges they face over the coming years, a new survey among 3,000 CEOs said.

Anthos Fund & Asset Management BV, the asset manager of the Brenninkmeijer family’s holding company Cofra, takes pride in moving with the times. It is working on a major transformation, no mean feat in view of the international laws and regulations. Once the veil is lifted, Anthos will transform from a single to a multi-family office. 

Frankfurt-based Renell Bank AG, which publicly announced the acquisition of Belgium’s Merit Capital last October, remained silent on Monday on the demise of the Antwerp-based brokerage firm whose trading licence is being revoked.

Marc Renell, CEO of the German private bank, told Investment Officer that he is unable to comment. “I cannot speak about this topic. Go ask Merit in Antwerp,” he said when answering the bank’s general number listed on its website, before hanging up the phone.

Growth in funds registered as Reserved Alternative Investment Funds (RAIFs) in Luxembourg has slowed in February and March, according to a data analysis by Investment Officer Luxembourg.

It was one of the worst stock market quarters in a long time, but Warren Buffett did not stare like a rabbit in the headlights. He seized the correction to buy more than 41 billion dollars worth of promising and punished shares. Result: his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway outperformed the S&P 500. 

Although it noted a “sharp slowdown” since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Europe’s biggest asset manager Amundi saw its assets under management top 2,000 billion euro during the first quarter, buoyed by the integration of Lyxor and persistent inflows from retail clients.

Amundi, part of the Paris-based Credit Agricole group, said on Friday that its assets under management rose 15 percent to 2,021 billion euro in the first quarter when compared to the same period a year earlier.