Asset Servicing

Blackfin Capital Partners will become the majority shareholder of Arendt Investor Services in a deal valued at 500 million dollars that is aimed at accelerating the Luxembourg firm’s growth across Europe.

Our weekly coverage of people moves.

For decades, we have embraced the rise of passive investing (hammock investing) as the ultimate democratization of the financial markets. The gospel of low costs, broad diversification, and market returns seemed infallible. But while passive assets under management have climbed to astronomical levels, a wave of critical academic research reveals a troubling paradox: the instrument designed to help investors may be structurally distorting the market and ultimately diminishing their wealth.

Fund passports were built on the same vision that shaped the Schengen Zone: shared trust and borderless movement. Luxembourg remains at the center of that idea.

It was a master plan. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation was supposed to send massive private capital flows into green investments, finance the Green Deal, and allow Europe to set an example for the rest of the world. Not a nonbinding directive, but an ambitious framework meant to discipline the financial sector and crush greenwashing.

Miami-based Allvue Systems said Tuesday it will form a strategic partnership with KPMG Luxembourg to support all client implementation work across Europe, a move aimed at helping global asset managers navigate Luxembourg’s increasingly complex fund landscape.

Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF has concluded that investment fund managers are increasingly aware of the risks associated with the financing of weapons of mass destruction, yet many of their internal safeguards remain underdeveloped.

AI is going to change the world, but which companies will benefit most from that trend? Investors who put money into trends and themes such as AI look for a solid benchmark to determine the purity of their investments. The goal is high purity. That does not always work out.

Financial markets are under pressure. Not only stocks but also other asset classes are mostly moving lower. Are we dealing with unique factors, or is there a single overarching culprit?

Dan Ariely has devoted his career to understanding irrational behavior. According to the Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics, ESG investors are the perfect test group. They focus, he says, on what is easy to measure rather than on what actually matters for returns.