Investment Officer

Eurozone interest rates will rise further in the near future as evidence grows that inflation has become entrenched, leaving the European Central Bank no option but to continue to hike its policy rates. At Ethenea, ECB watchers believe official deposit rates could more than double from current levels.

European Depositary Bank, a Luxembourg-based provider of banking, depositary and custody solutions that is part of the Apex Group, on Monday said it has been appointed by Arab Bank to support its real-estate ambitions in the European, Middle East and Africa  region (Emea) with digital banking services.

EDB said it has been selected to provide services for 32 bank accounts for 14 special purpose vehicles as part of Arab Bank’s 400 million euro pan-European real estate strategy.

Los Angeles-based Capital Group, a major global investment manager also present in Luxembourg, on Thursday said that Mike Gitlin from October will assume the management responsibilities of Tim Armour, chairman and chief executive officer. Armour and vice chairman president Rob Lovelace Armour and Lovelace will both step down from Capital Group’s management committee in October of this year.

Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF on Thursday published an update to its  Reporting Handbook for investment firms. The update integrates the latest version of the reporting framework designed in recent years by the European Banking Authority and introduces a module for threshold monitoring.

Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF has levied a 22,100 euro fine against alternative investment fund manager Pemberton Asset Management SA after a 2020 inspection found  “failures” in risk management, organisational requirements and supervising delegated activities under Luxembourg’s AIFM law, the regulator announced on Tuesday.

Senior private banker Alexandre Schmitz has left Degroof Petercam Luxembourg to join the Luxembourg operation of Lazard Frères Gestion, a French asset management firm which has offered wealth management services in Luxembourg since 2021.

Schmitz will join Lazare’s Luxembourg team as “director – senior private banker”.

“Alexandre’s arrival marks our desire to strengthen our presence in the local market,” said Julien Thibault-Liger, managing director of the firm in Luxembourg.

Britta Borneff, a former managing director at Fuchs Asset Management, has been appointed as the new director of events, communications and business development at the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, Alfi. 

Borneff’s professional career in Luxembourg started in 1996 with Schroders where she worked in marketing and client relationship roles for more than a decade. From 2007 to 2021 she worked as head of sales and marketing at Waystone in Luxembourg. From October 2021 she served at Fuchs, a Luxembourg investment firm,

Of the European assets flowing into ETFs last year, a higher proportion went to trackers with ESG labels than trackers without that sustainability feature. Sustainable fixed income ETFs were particularly popular in Europe.

Banks, not investment funds, are responsible for financing the most carbon-intensive activities, the European Central Bank has concluded on the basis of experimental new indicators for sustainable finance. “The companies they finance produce relatively more emissions in their business operations to achieve a given level of revenue,” the ECB said when presenting the new indicators on Tuesday.

European infrastructure investment firm Marguerite has announced the launch of a platform allowing investors to put their money towards building large-scale photovoltaic solar projects. The firm, based in Luxembourg and Paris, also announced its plans to invest up to 60 million euros in such projects across Europe.