Investment Officer

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. 

Central bank gold reserves have risen to their highest level in nearly half a century. Particularly emerging market central banks bought the precious metal big this year, influenced by a strong dollar and international sanctions against Russia.

Although the global economy finds itself in a slowdown phase, it continues to demonstrate resilience thanks to domestic consumption in the US and government relief measures to reduce energy bills in Europe, Guy Wagner, Chief Investment Officer at Luxembourg asset manager BLI - Banque de Luxembourg Investments, said in his latest investment report. Over the next year however, he expects the global slowdown to deepen.

A total of 43 new Reserved Alternative Investment Funds, or Raifs, were registered in Luxembourg during November, indicating that the market for these alternative investments is not slowing down after all, according to data released by Luxembourg Business Register.

Referring to a regulatory environment that is “still evolving”, Amundi, Europe’s largest asset management company, said it has taken a “conservative” step and reclassified almost all of its most sustainable investment funds, worth around 45 billion euro, to Article 8 from Article 9 under the EU’s sustainable finance disclosure regulation.

BOS Wealth Management SA, the Luxembourg-based European wealth management arm of Bank of Singapore, has been handed a 210,000 euro fine by Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF for non-compliance with laws designed to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.