Raymond Frenken

Is private equity, like Amundi’s Chief Investment Officer Vincent Mortier recently said, a Ponzi scheme? Or is there another reason to fear this asset class?

Luxembourg’s private equity business has experienced a boom in recent years as the Grand Duchy’s improved regime for alternative investments helped it benefit from strong growth in global private markets. For professional investors - family offices and pension funds alike - private markets have become an important asset class.

Pascal Blanqué, Chairman of the Amundi Institute and former Chief Investment Officer at Amundi, on Thursday said he believes that market thinking behind widening spreads among eurozone government bond yields poses a risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hillary Clinton, former US State Secretary, took the stage on Friday at the 2022 Amundi World Investment Forum in Paris to share her views on some of the biggest geopolitical challenges that the world is facing today. “We are in a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy.”

European central bank policy makers will meet in Amsterdam on Thursday at the invitation of Klaas Knot, the Dutch central bank governor who is known for his hawkish approach to interest rates and his support of a 50 basis point rate hike in July. And: when will the ECB start discussing Quantitative Tightening, like the Fed?

Sustainable finance poses a compliance risk you can no longer afford to ignore, no matter whether you are green or brown. Offering green investment products without actually doing so can get you into serious trouble. Asoka Woehrmann, the chief executive officer at DWS, Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm, can tell you all about it. 

Amid lingering fears of stagflation and a possible recession, investors are hard pressed to find opportunities in today’s markets, if any. Market experts at JP Morgan Asset Management believe that those willing to look at fundamental factors underpinning equities, also in Europe, can find ways to enrich their portfolios with some specific quality growth stocks if they know where to look.

Investment services powerhouse State Street, leader in Luxembourg’s asset services market, is undergoing a transformation. The upcoming integration of Brown Brothers Harriman, data management, ESG requirements, digital asset management and the rollout of its upgraded Alpha business platform are on top of mind for country head Ricardo Lamanna. “We create an environment where we progressively shift from being an operational organisation in Luxembourg to being a client-facing organisation.”

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.

Fund administrators active in Luxembourg will be required to produce an annual report on their governance and internal organisation from next year onwards as part of a long-awaited effort by financial supervisor CSSF to modernise a 30-year old supervisory framework in this field.

Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands have all put forward candidates to succeed Klaus Regling as the head of the European Stability Mechanism, the 500-billion-euro eurozone bailout fund known as ESM. On Monday, the Eurozone finance ministers are due to decide on a successor for Regling, who steps down after a ten-year tenure and leaves behind a legacy at the Luxembourg-based ESM.