Private Banks

Warren Hastings has been appointed as group co-head of investment and head of portfolio Management at Luxembourg-headquartered Quintet Private Bank.

Hastings served for the past dozen years at Credit Suisse, first in Asia and then for the previous five years in Zurich. He was most recently head of investment management, international locations, at that firm. After beginning his career at Schroders as a pan-Asian equity fund manager in London and Singapore, he then joined Standard Chartered, also in Singapore, as head of Portfolio management.

The European banking sector has witnessed a remarkable resurgence, chalking up its best performance since the 2007 financial crisis, according to a recent Deutsche Bank research report. Notably, European banks have narrowed the long-standing performance gap with their US peers.

Anna Zakrzewski has been appointed as the new Group Chief Operating Officer at Quintet Private Bank, headquartered in Luxembourg and active across Europe and the UK. Zakrzewski will take over from Eli Leenaars, who plans to retire at the end of the year. Her role will also extend to the authorized management committee, pending regulatory clearance.

As Puilaetco, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-headquartered Quintet, nears the final stages of a high-profile partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, the Belgian private bank is setting ambitious, forward-looking objectives. The collaboration aims to tap into next-generation wealth management, with new services expected to roll out in Q1 2024.

Hamburg-based private bank M. M. Warburg & Co has announced the launch of its first real estate debt fund, WB Urban Real Estate Finance I, a Luxembourg-registered reserved alternative investment fund, or Raif, for institutional investors. The fund targets raising some 300 million euro, with initial seed financing of 86 million.

Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), a Chinese-owned systemic bank in Luxembourg, on Monday posted a robust financial performance for the first half, revealing a net profit of 103 million euro, up from 68 million in the same period a year earlier. The bank attributed  the surge to the current global financial environment characterized by central banks hiking interest rates to combat soaring inflation levels. Clients deposits have fallen 6.8% during the first half.

Chinese growth is disappointing. Global asset managers are liquidating large parts of their equity positions in the country, resulting in falling share prices. It seems like a godsend for bargain hunters, but passionate China investors are also on their toes.

China is not growing fast enough, so investors have been liquidating their positions in Chinese stocks at an unprecedented rate.

High yield bonds are positioning themselves cautiously in the spotlight as recession fears recede and credit quality improves. While junk bonds perform best during periods of robust economic growth, a region that’s closely flirting with a recession is seen as having the most potential.

Switzerland-based investment house Lombard Odier has reported a 4% increase in assets under management since the end of December 2022, reaching 198 billion Swiss francs of assets at the end of June 2023. The result is due in part to “solid contributions” due to new net inflows in its private clientèle and asset management units, the firm stated.

At the same time, the firm says it is pursuing strategic investments in its operations. At the end of June 2023, the total assets of the Group’s clients reached 308 billion Swiss francs.

German bank Commerzbank on Tuesday said it has taken a significant step in its asset management business by spinning off its active asset management segment into a new stand-alone boutique called Yellowfin Asset Management GmbH.