Asset Managers

During negotiations on the fee that asset managers charge institutional investors for the management of a mandate, providers give an average discount of 5 to 15%. However there is no transparency about the average price that providers actually charge for mandate management, explained Duncan Higgs and Kathryn Saklatvala, following the publication of their research into fund house fees last week.

“The world needs to be prepared for a debt crisis in emerging markets. Rising interest rates will draw capital away from vulnerable countries”, warned Kristalina Georgieva, director of the IMF. For the time being, not everyone feels moved by this warning, “emerging market debt is a paradise for active investors”, according to Wouter van Overfelt, senior portfolio manager EM debt at Vontobel, in an interview with Fondsnieuws, Investment Officer Luxembourg’s Dutch sister publication.

The exuberance in the equity markets is a little too much for the managers of JP Morgan’s €6 billion Global Macro Opportunities Fund. “This was the reason for the investors to increase the number of short positions in shares, via options on the S&P 500 and individual short positions in a few individual titles. We’ve reduced the risk”, said Nicola Rawlinson in an interview with Fondsnieuws, Investment Officer Luxembourg’s Dutch sister publication. 

The US-British asset manager Columbia Threadneedle thinks it can significantly strengthen its position in Europe after acquiring the EMEA asset management business of Canadian firm BMO Financial Group. It provides more scale, especially in Europe and it provides many complementary strategies and products. 

The warning that climate-related damage will be more difficult to insure is growing. A challenging time is coming for real estate investors, as their investment horizon becomes riskier.

Riccardo Lamanna has recently become the Luxembourg Country Head for State Street. He entered the position after spending more than 30 years in the business, having worked in Milan, London and Paris at various institutions, including JP Morgan, Paribas, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group and over the past 11 years, at State Street.

Despite much debate in the market about the hows and whys of ESG integration, impact investing is steadily making its way into the financial mainstream. In 2021, the first year in two decades in which extreme poverty once again rose, with lasting consequences for the world’s most vulnerable people in particular, the financial industry once again demonstrated the importance of real, tangible impact.

The consolidation battle in the asset management world continues unabated. American firm T. Rowe Price has bought credit manager Oak Hill Advisors for USD 4.2 billion in cash and shares. In addition, private equity parties GTCR LLC and Reverence Capital Partners have acquired Wells Fargo Asset Management.

How do you achieve a year-to-date return of more than 31 per cent? “Well, common sense. That is our only strategy. We have no more information than the market. We don’t use a complex box with all kinds of variables”, said Theo Vermaelen, one of the four managers of the Buyback USA Fund.

The Luxembourg financial sector has long-discussed the blockchain or as it’s also called “distributed ledger technology (DLT)” as way to strengthen the Luxembourg financial sector. As it was put by Ananda Kautz of Luxembourg’s banks and bankers association the ABBL: “Digital strategy, digital ledger technology, most commonly known as blockchain, has been a key strategic topic for ABBL since many years now.”