Investment Officer

The superior performance of growth stocks, exposure to companies that are often below average on sustainability and the big impact the corona pandemic had on seemingly certain dividends has made dividend funds unpopular among investors. However, with the rotation towards value stocks under way, there is hope for a revival for income-oriented equity funds.

European mutual funds that promote green investments saw assets increase by some 22 percent in the fourth quarter, to more than 4,000 billion euro, and will overtake traditional ‘grey’ assets in terms of asset volume no later than the summer of 2022, Morningstar said in a research report on the effects of the SFDR sustainability regulation introduced last year.

Luxembourg retained its lead last year as the biggest global hub for sustainable investment funds. Nearly half of all ESG assets in Europe now have a home in Luxembourg, according to LFF, while the appeal of the Luxembourg Green Exchange continues to grow.

It is a well-known fact: supertankers do not change their course easily. But once the decision is made on the bridge, the change of course is pushed with significant force and mass. Take BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. It lagged behind in making its policies more sustainable, but now, according to a letter, is offering its clients a veritable ‘one stop shop’.

As the year of the tiger starts, it is time to get excited about Chinese equities, writes InvestmentOfficer/FondsNieuws columnist Han Dieperink.

Today, the year of the tiger starts. A year ago at the start of the year of the ox, it was time to swap Chinese stocks for Chinese bonds. Economic growth had peaked and so did the earnings cycle. Moreover, Chinese stocks had risen sharply during the first year of the corona crisis.

Net sales of investment funds in Europe were at their lowest in November - apart from bonds - as investors worried about the new Covid-19 Omicron variant while awaiting reactions by the world’s central banks to rising inflation, the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) said on Monday.

Top-level European securities markets regulator ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) has announced it will be examining the valuation of UCITS and open-ended alternative investment funds (AIFs) across the EU.

Integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) can be “a real challenge” for financial institutions and regulators, Luxembourg’s financial regulator the CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier) said last Friday in a white paper on distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain (a type of DLT, the CSSF noted). 

KPMG Luxembourg has named Annick Breton and Christian Guertler as partners in its asset management consulting business. They will work closely with Yves Courtois, Head of Advisory and the Advisory Partners group. Both Breton and Guertler have a strong track record in international asset management, KPMG has announced. 

2021 was one of the worst calendar years for emerging markets in the last decade, according to senior manager research analyst Ronald van Genderen of Morningstar, in his contribution for this week. Only 2013 saw a (narrowly) bigger loss. That year, the market was hit by concerns about the so-called “taper tantrum”. The situation today is similar, with increasing concerns about rising inflation that may trigger interest rate actions by Western central banks.