Wealth Managers

Belgian private bank Puilaetco, a unit of Luxembourg-headquartered Quintet, is integrating fintech Abbove’s technology solution into its wealth advice service offering.

The bank’s clients will now be able to use the Richer Life Plan service, giving them a broader view of their wealth planning, said Puilaetco’s Country CEO Ludivine Pilate (photo) and Abbove’s CEO Guillaume Desclée. 

Infrastructure is not immune to the current economic malaise, but it is important to isolate macroeconomic variables for each investment. “Analysing sectors or asset classes is not enough: you have to analyse each asset to determine its macro impact.”

So says Heiko Schupp (photo), infrastructure fund manager at Columbia Threadneedle, in an interview with InvestmentOfficer.be.

While industry’s investment losses are beginning to show, the strong performance from recent years makes institutional investors reluctant to change their investment course. “Not an easy situation,” says the chief of Europe’s biggest pension body.

Inheritance planning is one area where tokenisation can provide benefits, the experience of VP Bank in the Alpine state shows. The bank’s specialists recent spoke in Luxembourg to explain how tokenisation can be applied once the EU MiCA regulation enters into force.

Social responsibility, sustainability, ESG and SRI are more than buzzwords for the world’s leading pension funds. While some still question the current classifications, taxonomies and regulatory timelines, many of these major institutional investors see it as a way to provide stewardship, being a long-term stakeholder in society. “So are we going to be good ancestors? Or not?”

British asset manager Fundsmith follows a simple strategy: invest in strong companies, don’t pay too much and then keep them in the portfolio, preferably forever.

Unregulated alternative investments continued to be dynamic and successful in Luxembourg last year thanks to the modernisation in recent years of the Grand Duchy’s regulatory regime for private markets, consultancy firm PWC Luxembourg noted when releasing the latest version of its Observatory for Management Companies.

Jasmine Kang, Hong Kong-based portfolio manager at Comgest, recently visited Luxembourg and explained to Investment Officer how China sees the current global financial conditions as an opportunity to “decouple” and become more self-sufficient. China’s centrally managed economy is well placed in a world where rising interest rates, surging commodity prices and increasing geopolitical tension continue to haunt global investors.

Accompanying Luxembourg’s finance minister Yuriko Backes on her official visit to Stockholm, Luxembourg’s financial community this week sought to strengthen its financial ties with Sweden, considered a “natural partner” for the Grand Duchy. Backes also discussed plans to support the reconstruction of Ukraine with her Swedish counterpart.

Travelling back to Luxembourg, Backes said on Twitter that her visit had been “very productive.” Backes was accompanied by a Luxembourg for Finance delegation and several representatives of Luxembourg’s financial services sector.

A university-sponsored wealthtech startup based in Liège, Belgium, is keen to make life easier for European fund managers that currently face sleepless nights. In 77 days, in the middle of the summer holidays, additional client suitability requirements will enter into force in the EU. It can change the way wealth managers interact with their clients.