Investment Officer

Following an accident in December, Antonio Corpas, chief executive officer of The OneLife Group, passed away last Saturday, the company has announced. He was 54 years old. 

The European Union’s top supervisory authority for financial markets has started the new year with a new visual identity and logo that underlines its drive for efficient and resilient markets, the role of sustainability and innovation in its mission, and that should make the organisation“more accessible” to the public.

As the year ends, asset managers across Europe are anticipating the launch of even more stringent requirements for sustainable investments. At the same time, it’s increasingly becoming clear that EU regulation leaves ample room for investment managers to choose for themselves how they describe their ESG or impact investments.

In a year when war broke out in Ukraine, the S&P 500 lost about 20 percent of its value, the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates seven times and when the global inflation rate spiked, investors looked for wisdom in market research reports on bubbles, grey swans and investing in niche markets, a look at the most popular reports downloaded from Investment Officer shows.

Commodities will be the best-performing asset class next year, achieving returns of more than 40 per cent, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in their recently published Commodity Outlook for 2023, ‘An underinvested supercycle’. The first three months will be “bumpy”, but then scarcity will ensure rising prices. 

The first of January marks a significant milestone in the European Union’s efforts to promote sustainable and responsible investing. The EU introduces the level 2 Regulatory Technical Standards for the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR. This requires sustainable investment funds to make a bigger effort to explain how they seek to achieve a positive impact.

Engaging with investors on sustainable investing requires answering two questions: How do sustainability factors impact returns? How do investment choices impact the world? “Good Practices in ESG Reporting” is the topic of this Benelux webinar hosted by Morningstar and Investment Officer.

Law firm Clifford Chance has appointed Simone Schmitt as counsel in its corporate practice in Luxembourg.  Schmitt joins the firm from  Linklaters, where she had been for more than seven years.

Schmitt is a qualified lawyer in Luxembourg and has extensive experience in advising multinational clients on acquisitions, restructurings and joint ventures. She is an expert in managing transactions for private equity players in Europe and the United States, the firm said.

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.

The number of private equity portfolios in the secondary market is increasing as both fund managers and investors in private equity funds seek liquidity opportunities. 

In its private markets outlook, BlackRock focuses on private equity, private debt, infrastructure and real estate. “Given the long lead time between the decision to sell a private equity asset and the sale, we expect more of these opportunities in 2023.”