Investment Officer

Global insurers are diversifying their portfolios and most of them - 87 percent - plan to increase allocations to private investments over the next two years, which would represent a three percent average increase versus their current allocation, Blackrock’s latest global insurance survey shows.  

Pictet Asset Services, the asset servicing business line of the Switzerland-based Pictet Group, has launched a new platform where its clients and asset managers can monitor ESG risk exposures.

The platform enables external asset managers and institutional clients to monitor their portfolios’ ESG risks with a detailed environmental, social and governance risk analysis as well as carbon and physical risk analysis.

The world economy is slowing down at a faster pace than expected as a result of the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, said on Monday. Further interest rate increases are needed in most major economies to halt inflation, it said.

This IO Talks Luxembourg podcast episode with Corrine Lamesch, chair of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI), sheds light on the growing popularity of alternative investments in Luxembourg, addresses the complexity of ESG and sustainable finance regulation, and hears about the role of the grand duchy as a global distribution centre for financial products.

Unregulated investment funds in Luxembourg, in particular Reserved Alternative Investment Funds known Raifs, showed the biggest increase the Grand Duchy’s fund industry last year. According to the latest Monterey Insight report, the value of these funds increased 71.4 percent last year to some 330.8 billion euro.

Other unregulated funds, such as LuxLPs and Soparfi’s, reached a value of 470 billion at the end of 2021. That is an increase of 61.5 percent in assets.

Top market experts at Europe’s biggest fund manager, Amundi, do not believe that the upcoming elections in Italy will trigger much volatility in Italian bond markets, although a spike could present a buying opportunity. Italy’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for the end of this week, Sunday 25 September.

Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF has found shortcomings in the application of measures to fight money laundering and terrorism finance at fund services provider Maitland Luxembourg SA and issued a fine of 266,000 euro. 

Belgian police authorities have launched a criminal investigation in Antwerp-based stockbroker Merit Capital, a Belgian press report said on Thursday. The probe is linked to its transactions with H2O Asset Management.

Merit Capital’s future is up in the air after several attempts to find a buyer failed. Luxembourg’s Fuchs & Associés was forced to step back as a possible buyer last month. 

German state-owned bank KfW has become the first to have issued a total of more than 50 billion euro in green bonds on the Luxembourg Green Exchange, known as LGX, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange said. This achievement was marked by a LuxSE bell ceremony on Monday.

KfW issued its first green bond 8 years ago and has since issued about 100 green bonds, raising some 50 billion euro for green projects. Its significant green funding programme makes KfW one of the 10 largest sustainable bond issuers in the world.

Apex Group, a Bermuda-headquartered fund services provider with substantial operations in Luxembourg, has opened a new office in Stockholm from which it will service clients in the Nordics region. The firm also has announced it acquired the parent company of IIS and InvestNow  in New Zealand.