Investment Officer

The European Central Bank on Thursday is poised to increase interest rates again. Economists and fixed income specialists expect a hike of 50 basis points - following two consecutive 75 point hikes - with markets watching for official signals that point towards further rate hikes next year.

Apex Group on Tuesday said it has been appointed by BrightEdge LLC, the impact investment and venture capital arm of the American Cancer Society, to support the ACS Impact Venture Fund with fund administration services.

Francois Mousel has been elected as managing partner at PwC Luxembourg to succeed John Parkhouse from next July, the firm announced on Monday.

Parkhouse’s second four-year mandate will come to an end next year. During his tenure, the firm’s turnover rose to 543 million euro in the fiscal year ended 30 June 2022, from 315 million euro in 2014. During that period, PwC Luxembourg added approximately 600 staff, employing 3100 people at the end of last June. PwC is the largest among the big four auditors and consultants in Luxembourg.

Supervisory practices in Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands “appeared insufficient” during the years that Brexit pushed financial services away from the United Kingdom to EU member states, a peer review among European financial supervisors has found. Luxembourg’s supervisor disagrees with the review’s conclusions.

An investment fund owned by Luxembourg-based Cube Infrastructure Managers has recently announced a first-phase investment of 50 million euros into a wholesale fiber-to-the-home/ fiber-to-the-office project in southern Italy.

When completed, this network will bring fiber broadband to 130,000 locations within two years, reaching over 20 municipalities and a number of business parks in rural and semi-rural areas. It will create new job opportunities in the region.

Vanguard, the world’s second-largest investment fund manager after BlackRock, is finding itself in a political tug of war in the US that now has led to its decision to withdraw a top international alliance of asset managers that seeks to promote sustainable, net zero investments, the Net Zero Asset Management initiative, also known as NZAM.

Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF on Wednesday said its annual online survey relating to the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing will start on 15 February next year.

The survey aims to collect standardised key information concerning money laundering and terrorism financing - “ML/TF” - risks to which firms under CSSF supervision are exposed and about the implementation of measures to mitigate these risks. 

British activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners is aiming its guns at BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, and its CEO Larry Fink, criticising the firm for its ‘hypocrisy’ over its ESG and sustainability practices while drawing attention to its failure to exercise proper ESG stewardship. The asset manager’s behaviour risks becoming “an obstructive force” to the effective functioning of capitalism, it said, calling for Fink to step down.

Following the precarious situation surrounding troubled Belgian broker Merit Capital and its financial problems, the management of its flagship Merit Capital Global Investment Fund has now been full transferred to Belgian private bank Dierickx Leys. The 400 million euro fund will be renamed Dierickx Leys Fund III.

Ministers of the 27 EU member states have backed a proposal that makes it possible for countries to exempt banks and investment funds from planned EU rules that will require companies to report their impact on human rights and the environment.