Investing

Fidelity International, via Luxembourg, is launching a new climate impact fund leveraging the need for improved performance of existing commercial real estate buildings in Europe. Investment Officer sat down with Aymeric de Sérésin, Fidelity’s director of European real estate investments.

Luxembourg’s reputation for excessive house prices is facing macroeconomic clouds looming over European and international housing markets. However, several country-specific factors will likely minimise the price drops seen in other markets, including tax measures, cheaper housing across the border, and a small development community.

Of the European assets flowing into ETFs last year, a higher proportion went to trackers with ESG labels than trackers without that sustainability feature. Sustainable fixed income ETFs were particularly popular in Europe.

Inflows into alternative investment funds in Europe rebounded in November when compared to massive outflows during October, as inflows for Ucits funds fell significantly, according to data released by the European Fund and Asset Management Association, or Efama.

New York-based Blackstone, also present in Luxembourg as a CSSF-regulated AIFM, has raised a record 22.2 billion dollars in commitments for its Strategic Partners IX fund, one of two such vehicles in its inaugural continuation fund strategy under the Strategic Partners GP Solutions label.

Data analysis of transactions of Universal Investment’s institutional clients shows that alternative investments once again proved to be supporting pillars of their portfolios, writes Sophia Harrschar, the firm’s country head Luxembourg in her latest contribution as IO knowledge partner. Private equity scored with 9.8 percent in the one-year range and with 10.3 percent per annum over five years.

China celebrates New Year on Sunday, marking the start of the year of the rabbit, a symbol for longevity, peace, prosperity and hope in Chinese culture. The year could provide some interesting investment opportunities, China specialists at Comgest and Mainfirst Asset Management said in separate notes to investors.

Luxembourg’s fund industry has high hopes for Eltif 2.0, the revised European regime for long-term investment funds that is set to be approved next month by the European Parliament. Thanks to the updated rules, products like private funds can be targeted directly at retail investors in all 30 countries in the European Economic Area with one single AIFM passport.

Not Davos, but Tokyo has the markets’ attention this week. The Bank of Japan earlier today defied market expectations by keeping its Yield Curve Control interest rate policy unchanged, at least for now. Markets question however how long the BoJ can sustain this now that global government bond yields are rising. Japan could be sitting on Pandora’s box.

With economic growth slowing down in all three of the world’s major economies, investors are best advised to opt for the geographical region with the least messy outlook, leading international economist Mohammed El-Erian has told a Nordic conference. “The cleanest dirty shirt is in the US.”