Asset Owner

This week’s overview of people transfers and appointments includes updates from Allianz Global Investors, A&O Shearman, State Street, Titanbay, and other firms.

In 1996 I came across Cisco’s annual report, which included a CD-ROM presentation by CEO John Chambers titled The internetworking takes off. At that point, there was absolutely no sign of a dot-com hype, though Alan Greenspan thought otherwise in his irrational exuberance speech of December 1996.

A deal struck at the G7 summit in June has given American multinationals a way around rules billed as a milestone in the global fight against corporate tax avoidance.

Bitcoin Treasury Companies, firms that hold billions of dollars in bitcoin on their balance sheets, are crossing over to Europe. This raises the risk that passive investments, via index funds, could be funneled into one of the most volatile corners of the market.

Some countries are adopting a position of active non-alignment (ANA). What exactly does this mean, what are the economic consequences, and how are some ASEAN and BRICS countries putting it into practice?

Luxembourg’s financial regulator has warned that companies’ first attempts at sustainability reporting under EU rules risk overstating green progress, citing inconsistent practices and weak transparency.

Bitcoin Treasury Companies, firms that hold billions of dollars in bitcoin on their balance sheets, are crossing over to Europe. This raises the risk that passive investments, via index funds, could be funneled into one of the most volatile corners of the market.

Recently, Donald Trump urged Goldman Sachs to fire its chief economist. According to the president, he was completely off with his unwelcome forecasts about the effects of the trade war on US inflation. This raises the question of how independent economists at commercial financial institutions really are.

In recent years, global equity markets have been driven by the performance of largecaps, particularly in the technology sector, leaving smallcaps behind. That was the case in 2024, for example, when the Morningstar Global TME Index gained 25 percent while the Morningstar Global Small TME Index managed only a 16 percent increase.

The Belgian Program Act of July 18, 2025 introduces several changes to the annual tax on securities accounts (JTER), also known as the securities tax. The law now provides for new anti-abuse rules and a reporting obligation for certain transactions.