Investing

Interest in renewables is playing into the hands of alternative investment funds. Listed closed-end impact funds continue to invest in new energy projects, and investor inflows are following suit. Yet for now it is mainly British investors who recognise the benefits.

Schroders Capital on Wednesday said it has launched its first European Long-Term Investment Fund, or Eltif. The fund is called the Schroders Capital Private Equity Eltif 2023 and is classified as a ‘green’ Article 8 under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

Schroders Capital Private Equity Eltif 2023 will focus on lower and mid-market private equity buyout and growth investments primarily in Europe but with the flexibility to allocate to non-European companies with high operating exposure to Europe, the firm said.

The market for European long term investment funds, or Eltifs, is set to triple in the coming years as high-net-worth clients increasingly look to diversify their portfolios by increasing their exposure to private markets, according to US fund manager BlackRock. “We have, I would say, aggressive plans to expand.”

European Ucits and AIF investment funds experienced net outflows of 278 billion euro last year, the biggest level since the financial crisis of 2008, according to industry statistics compiled by the European Fund and Asset Management Association, Efama.

There you are with all those fancy indicators like yield curves, ISM Manufacturing, and housing markets. They all point in the same direction, down! But the incoming US macro numbers are in no way pointing to a recession, nor to a soft landing. Spend it!

The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation marks its second anniversary next month. Although it was quickly adopted as a sustainability label, its actual purpose was to provide a framework for communicating the extent to which sustainability plays a role within an investment fund. Adjusted rules that took effect in January 2023 caused a stir in the sustainable fund landscape.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday (15 February) adopted the eagerly anticipated upgrade of the EU regulation for long-term investment funds, a package known as Eltif 2.0. An overwhelming majority of 492 members, or 70 percent, voted in favour.

LPeC, an international association for listed private capital, has become part of Invest Europe, the Brussels-based trade association for the European private equity, venture capital and infrastructure sectors. LPeC will continue as Invest Europe’s Listed Private Capital Roundtable.

The US economy created more than half a million jobs in January. That was almost three (!) times more than expected. Most importantly, such a job growth figure does not fit with a coming recession, but neither does it fit with a much hoped-for soft landing. On the contrary.

It indicates that the US labour market is still glowing even after 450 basis points of tightening.

The European Securities and Markets Authority, the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor known as Esma, on Thursday warned investors that they should prepare for further market corrections, given a “confluence of high risks”.