Luxembourg jobs at risk as Nordea, M&G plan layoffs

Nordea and M&G on Thursday said they intend to cut jobs because the asset management industry is facing difficult market conditions. Both firms have a significant presence in Luxembourg. “The reason for the adjustment is the need to adapt to the market environment, because macroeconomic uncertainty remains high, and the asset management industry is facing significant mid-term uncertainty and volatility,” Nordea said.

Robeco takes Morningstar awards for best asset manager

Asset manager Robeco on Wednesday won the award for best asset manager in Morningstar’s Luxembourg Awards for Investing Excellence in 2023. The firm also won the new award as best asset manager in sustainable investing.

Dutch-based Robeco, with assets under management of approximately 200 billion euro, since 2016 is fully owned by Japanese financial services conglomerate Orix. With its awards Robeco beat competition Vanguard, J O Hambro, BNP Paribas and Candriam.

FATF: art market needs to improve AML-CFT

The world’s top body to fight money laundering and financial crime on Monday warned that the international high value art and antiquities market has become vulnerable to money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The Financial Action Task Force called on art dealers and governments to up their efforts to fight illicit funding in these markets.

BeeBonds offers €3 mln bond on Bettembourg project 

Belgian crowdlending platform Beebonds is offering investors an opportunity to cofinance the Arche coliving project in Luxembourg. The investment is offered through a 3 million euro green bond, the firm said.

The Arche project is located in Bettembourg, one of Luxembourg City’s main peripheral municipalities. It is the first joint project of the company Picaroon SA. This Luxembourg-based company, founded in 2011, is active in the sale, rental and purchase of ships, as well as in setting up real estate projects.

Amundi study: News signals influence short-term prices

Trading shares during the day that a company releases its earnings reports by going long on ones with positive news and short on the ones with negative news can generate a daily return of 1.3 percent.

That is the bold conclusion of a study conducted jointly by the Amundi Institute and the Toulouse School of Economics. Using artificial intelligence software from Causality Link and a long-short portfolio, the researchers were able to confirm that news signals influence short-term price movements.

Jan Kemper surprises by resigning as CFO at N26

Jan Kemper will step down as chief financial officer and chief operating officer of German neobank N26, he announced in a post on social media. He only joined the challenger bank in July 2021. 

N26, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintechs with more than eight million clients, is partly owned by Luxembourg-based venture capital firm Ilavska Vuillermoz Capital. Ilavska is among a range of VC firms who collectively have invested 1.8 billion euro in N26.