Mike Gordon

A global effort to strengthen the international tax process to make it more fully inclusive and more effective is garnering worldwide support. The OECD? No. Many advocates of this tax reform project are less than impressed by the OECD’s accomplishments to date, with some mocking its “low” 15% global minimum. It is happening at the United Nations, and votes from supportive countries, including certain tax havens and the Russian Federation, have given it a certain momentum.

Those who make money in Luxembourg’s real estate sector are still in shock after the arrival in this country of the long-ago predicted 2023 global real estate correction.

Amid widespread cautionary optimism, some economists say the global economy is still at risk of a recession, and that we may not be out of the inflationary woods quite yet. Guy Wagner, chief investment officer at Banque de Luxembourg Investments, or BLI, lays out the bear case.

“The fact that up to now the recession has not yet happened does not mean that it will certainly never happen,” said Wagner at a press event in Luxembourg last week. BLI manages assets worth about 15 billion euro.

Investment specialists are singing from a common hymn book in predicting the world is on a path to lower inflation and treasury yields, though they carefully call attention to possible transitional effects, Investment Officer heard while covering two recent investment events in Luxembourg hosted by J. Safra Sarasin and Capital Group.

A data analysis by Investment Officer makes clear that alternative investment fund managers in Luxembourg increasingly prioritise launching new sub-funds or compartments under established Reserved Alternative Investment Funds, known as Raifs, instead of launching new primary structures.

The European Union’s Retail Investment Strategy is teetering on a tightrope.

Private banks will have to get serious about outsourcing if they want to prosper once interest rates come down, says Pascal Martino, partner at Deloitte and co-author of a new report on tech leadership in private banking.

A recent update of a Luxembourg sustainable finance report notes that two-thirds of the assets under management of Luxembourg UCITS – 2.8 trillion euros at the end of June 2023 – report under one of the two designations set out by European rules for green investing. However, mention of investment-related greenwashing is conspicuous by its relative absence in the report.

UK financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority has announced plans to introduce a new overseas fund regime in April 2024. The FCA has also said it will hold a consultation in advance of the new system taking effect.

Luxembourg’s Financial Intelligence Unit is key to fulfilling Luxembourg’s international anti-money laundering/terrorist financing prevention obligations, reducing the perception that this country’s financial sector is somehow “above the rules”. Investment Officer recently had an opportunity to speak with FIU director Max Braun.