Investment Officer

Managers of active funds, including hedge funds, are under increasing pressure to back up their investment ideas and performance with qualitative data. By using data science, they can better justify the level of their fees.

That’s according to a survey entitled “The Art of Alpha”, all about investment data science done by custodian bank Northern Trust among 300 CIOs and portfolio managers of asset managers around the world. 

Oddo BHF Asset Management and Métropole Gestion announce the acquisition by Oddo BHF Asset Management SAS of 100% of the share capital of Metropole Gestion, subject to approval by the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).

This was learned by Investment Officer Belgium, Investment Officer Luxembourg’s sister publication, from the companies in question.

The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has today published its latest monthly Investment Fund Industry Fact Sheet, providing data on net sales of UCITS and AIFs sold in June 2021, at a European level and by fund domicile.

Where growth stocks won the “battle” of value stocks for many years, value stocks recovered well late last year. Although growth stocks have recently regained ground, several fund houses are still expecting a continuation of the rally by value stocks. 

T. Rowe Price, for example, sent out a market outlook last week in which it wrote to stick with value stocks despite the recent gains by growth stocks. According to the fund house, the valuations of growth stocks are too high and value stocks have a chance to get some support.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating DWS. The stock market watchdog is investigating an accusation that the German asset manager falsely made certain sustainability claims.

Sachin Vankalas, the Managing Director of LuxFlag, has passed away unexpectedly. The LuxFlag Board of Directors and the LuxFlag team are deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Vankalas, the organization said in a brief press release. 

The general manager of LuxFlag, Luxembourg’s sustainable finance lobby group, has died of Covid-19 after battling the disease in hospital, a spokesperson confirmed. Vankalas, who worked at LuxFlag for 10 years, died at the age of 38.

During question time after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate decision, Jerome Powell made a very bold statement about monetary policy in the future. When asked when we should expect a less aggressive monetary policy, Powell replied that the economic recovery is far from complete (labour market and unemployment) and that we should not expect any monetary tightening before the end of 2023. 

Acolin, a Zurich-based provider of regulatory and cross-border fund distribution services across Europe, has acquired Luxembourg-based Global Fund Analytics (GFA), a SaaS-based data collection and analytics platform for asset managers and distributors.

The Netherlands’ NN Group announced on Monday it is reviewing “strategic options” for its asset management division, NN Investment Partners (NN IP). These include a sale, merger and listing.

The number of institutional investors implementing ESG criteria has risen by almost 20% in two years, and almost 9 in 10 fund selectors want to maintain or expand their ESG offering. This could easily turn into a bubble, Natixis Investment Managers has warned.