News

Housing markets in major cities across the world face a “prolonged stagnation” in purchase prices and a price correction. House owners and real estate investors should not expect the market to trend sideways. It’s “game over” for housing markets, Swiss bank UBS writes in its latest Real Estate Bubble Report.

With a rise in interest rates, finance costs have increased while financial markets across the world have been rocked by geopolitical developments and severe declines in asset prices. 

For international hackers and data thieves, Luxembourg appears to be attractive as its domestic lack of cooperation undermines its cyber security efforts. “Luxembourg comes onto the radar because some of the systems that we have are vulnerable,” says an expert.

Luxembourg-based Cube Infrastructure Managers has agreed to acquire Firstcolo Datacenters GmbH, a Frankfurt-based data centre business providing colocation, dedicated servers, managed services and private cloud solutions, for an undisclosed amount.

Firstcolo owns two-state-of-the-art “Tier III+” data centres in Frankfurt (photo), both of which are powered by green electricity. 

Luxembourg’s bank clients remained conservative in 2021, keeping nearly all - or 80 percent - of their assets in savings, even when interest rates are low, a survey conducted jointly by the Luxembourg bank association ABBL and financial regulator CSSF shows.

This survey showed a significant increase in deposits and in the number of loans granted. It also confirmed underlying trends such as the increasing use of online services. The figures for employment and the number of customers remain stable. 

Plans by Paris-based Caceis to take over RBC Investor Services’ European business are raising redundancy fears among the firm’s 900 or so Luxembourg-based staff members in Belval.

US-based Strive Asset Management knows how to address sentiment among a section of Americans. Strive launched two ETFs this week. One is called “God Bless America” with the ticker symbol YALL. The other ETF has the ticker DRLL and invests mainly in oil and gas (76 per cent). They have since been dubbed as anti-woke ETFs in the media.

As real estate markets worldwide move in tandem by showing clear signs of a downturn, two major international financial bodies this week have reiterated their concerns over the housing market’s potential impact on financial stability. Both the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have raised a red flag. Investment Officer looks for answers to some key questions a moment that mortgage rates are at their highest since 2006.

BlocHome, a Luxembourg blockchain real estate investment platform, has arranged a guarantee that will allow it to finance the first security token-based residential project in Europe, an eight million euro housing project in Luxembourg known as the “Clapton Residence”, without waiting for further fund-raising. The guarantee was arranged after the firms’s first project attracted 2.15 million euros in tokenised investments from 280 investors.

FundRock, a Luxembourg-based third-party management company part of the Apex Group, said on Monday that it has expanded its relationship with UK-based fund manager Fundsmith to now include distribution services in Europe, particularly Italy.

In addition to existing ManCo services, FundRock’s distribution unit will now provide distribution services, enabling Fundsmith to distribute its funds in Europe. FundRock will provide specific resources and support to Fundsmith in the Italian market, the firm said.

The OECD’s latest global tax plan is in trouble. Dubbed “BEPS 2.0”, the Inclusive Framework Pillar One and Two proposals – which has the political backing of 137 countries – is facing political difficulties, including within the EU and the US. The “Ecofin” meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday in Luxembourg will seek to break the logjam in Europe. How is Luxembourg positioned?