Luxembourg

Although its overall market share contracted slightly, Luxembourg last year held on to its number one spot among Europe’s top 10 investment hubs for both Ucits and Alternative Investment Funds, with a market share of 26.8 percent, compared to 27 percent that was reported for the previous year, according to the latest annual reported released by the Association for the Luxembourg Fund Industry, or Alfi. Ireland’s share of the pie increased to 18.6 percent last year from 18 percent reported for 2020. 

Luxembourg has frozen some 4.3 billion euro in Russian assets, mostly held in shares, bonds and bank accounts, as part of the international sanctions against Russia, the finance ministry said.

The Luxembourg Business Register, at the request of the finance ministry, so far has identified more than 90 persons and 1,100 legal entities registered in the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) for which there are details of persons included in the sanctions lists. 

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.

If there is one economic lesson my father, a construction engineer, taught me, it’s that mortgage rates in Europe always follow what’s happening in the United States. When rates go up across the Atlantic, they’re bound to do the same in our part of the world. So when it comes to locking in a good mortgage rate, look west.

Even as limited trading resumed on Moscow’s exchange on Thursday, prospects for emerging market funds exposed to Russia remained cloudy as determining accurate asset values continued to be nearly impossible. Fund managers now await guidance from financial supervisors before taking next steps on suspended funds.

M&G Investments is preparing to transform its Luxembourg hub for further growth in Europe with the objective of generating half of total group revenue within the next few years, its managing director Micaela Forelli told Investment Officer Luxembourg.

Luxembourg’s financial system has weathered the pandemic well, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict poses new risks to Luxembourg’s economy while the surge in housing prices from recent years threatens the attractiveness of the Grand Duchy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded after a two-week mission.

Luxembourg’s space sector is about to undergo a top level strategic review, with a reassessment to be made of the ambitious approach taken in recent years. This takes place against the background of the country’s satellite giant SES SA also reorienting itself.

Luxembourg has joined the international move to impose sanctions against Russia for its ruthless invasion of Ukraine. It has followed steps taken by other European and global countries and organisations, including condemning Russia’s aggression, even sending some weaponry and equipment to Ukraine’s beleaguered defenders. But there’s one area where Luxembourg appears to be out of step: the high profile application of the sanctions to Russian oligarchic assets held in this country.

Russian interests have found Luxembourg’s expertise useful as a European business hub for several decades. Here we look at the state of this relationship before the invasion of Ukraine, and how these arrangements might be affected by the subsequent sanctions and the decisions of business leaders and politicians in Luxembourg.