Investment Officer

Luxembourg financial regulator the CSSF announced late last Friday a “reprimand” on a Swiss private bank named Banque  J. Safra Sarasin (Luxembourg) S.A. for failing to comply with Luxembourg law on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (the AML/CFT law).

Swiss private bank Banque j. Safra Sarasin, reprimanded by Luxembourg financial regulator CSSF in a public statement last Friday, has stated that the regulator had alleged no “actual money laundering activities”.

Nuveen Infrastructure’s Glennmont Partners, a major clean energy infrastructure manager, on Thursday said it has raised 250 million euro through its energy transition enhanced credit II strategy, or ETEC II, based on a Luxembourg alternative fund.

The ETEC II fund is one of the new Reserved Alternative Investment Funds, or Raifs, that were officially registered in Luxembourg this month. 

Marking its first anniversary in Luxembourg, Warsaw-headquartered depositary services firm Q Securities on Wednesday said that it is aiming for 30 alternative funds as clients by this end of the year and 50 funds next year, up from the 20 it has onboarded in its first 12 months in the grand duchy.

“Europe does not use its single market enough as a political lever and militarily the continent does not amount to much. Our democracy and free market will be besieged on all sides. Meanwhile, the West’s willingness to protect our way of life is extremely limited. If we do nothing, we will remain a weakling in ‘the big game’.”  

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.