Wealth Managers

In recent years, the regulatory framework for the duties and responsibilities of the board of directors or management board and for the control functions within Luxembourg investment fund managers has evolved significantly. Among others, CSSF Circular 18/698 has tightened the regulatory requirements for the authorisation and organisation of Luxembourg investment fund managers (“IFMs”).

SFDR Article 8 has become a ragbag of investments that can be both green and grey, several experts say. Fund houses offering Article 8 products do not seem to set the bar very high.  

While Article 8 products promote environmental or social features, they do not have a sustainable investment objective. While this does not detract from the fact that such products can still be green, fund houses do not seem very ambitious in their sustainability goals for Article 8 funds.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s (GSAM) recent marketing of the Private Market Eltif demonstrates that the firm is keen to broaden the horizon for private investors. Giving the retail segment access to its 420 billion dollar alternatives-platform is not a mere experiment, but part of a “big, bold commitment,” according to Barry Fricke, GSAM’s Head of EMEA Alternatives Distribution Wealth Management. Goldman Sachs AM now wants to launch a new private market Eltif every year.

Indosuez, the wealth management arm of French bank Credit Agricole, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Degroof Petercam from six Belgian families that wanted to sell their shares in Belgium’s largest private bank. The transaction will create a European wealth and asset management firm with some 200 billion euro in assets under management.

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. 

There is an unwavering demand on the debt as well as on the equity side of private markets, writes Martin Groos, member of the management board at Universal Investment Luxembourg.

Luxembourg life assurance and wealth management company OneLife has been fined 580,000 euro by the country’s insurance supervisor Commissariat aux Assurances (CAA) after “certain failures” were detected in the firm’s anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML-CFT) systems.

Luxembourg’s Fuchs & Associés Finance SA is no longer allowed to provide services in Belgium after its Luxembourg licence as a financial services professional was revoked by CSSF, Belgium’s financial markets supervisor FSMA said.

Four private banks in Luxembourg have received the highest ranking in the latest “High Net Worth” report by London-based rankings and insights intelligence company Chambers and Partners.

Bank Julius Baer Luxembourg S.A., Banque de Luxembourg SA, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg SA and Pictet & Cie (Europe) SA - in alphabetical order - were each assigned a ‘band 1’ ranking, the highest in Chamber’s ranking system from one to six.

Through various legislative acts over the past 10-15 years, the EU’s push to democratise private markets has transformed how private equity does business, with a heavy helping of technology and fund management tools allowing for what could be a massive influx of smaller-denominated investors. Market participants are feeling their way forward into the new paradigm, some being quite certain that change has now come in the impending form of the new European Long-term Investment Fund.