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At this week’s Alfi European Asset Management Conference in Luxembourg, Emmanuel Gutton, Alfi’s director of legal and tax, spoke to Investment Officer’s Raymond Frenken for this edition of IO Talks Luxembourg. The topic: European Long Term Investment Funds, a new type of investment fund known as Eltifs that opens the door to private equity and alternatives to a wider group of investors, in particular wealth management clients and the “retail plus” segment. Luxembourg is keen to become a European ánd global hub for these funds.

Investment themes come and go, but investing in water has stood the test of time. Water can be central to many of the sustainability challenges facing the world. Investors seem to increasingly recognise this in recent years, creating a strong inflow of new investor money.

After years of dominance by growth stocks, dividend funds had slowly become the wallflowers of the investment universe. Investors flocked to technology, e-commerce and internet companies, which emerged as the stars in the stock market firmament partly due to the corona crisis and the resulting generous monetary policy of central banks. Barring some brief periods of outperformance, value stocks slid deeper and deeper into the mothball bin. However, a value renaissance began in late 2020, which received a firm tailwind in 2022.

Pictet Asset Management has announced the launch of Pictet-ReGeneration, a Luxembourg-domiciled concentrated global equity fund investing in companies aiding the transition to a regenerative economy. The fund is the latest addition to Pictet AM’s Thematic franchise, which now has a combined assets under management of some 62 billion dollars.

Some 21 new Reserved Alternative Investment Funds, or Raifs, were registered at the Luxembourg Business Register during January, according to information made public at the end of the month.

The following funds have been registered:

For investors in listed real estate who are deeply concerned about growth slowdowns and increased financing costs, 2022 is a year that will not soon be forgotten. For this week’s Top-5, we look at the best-performing global real estate funds in 2022. 

Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée, or UBP, has developed a partnership with New York-based Brigade Capital Management to expand its offering of credit-focused investment products. A new fund, U Access (IRL) Brigade Credit Long Short Ucits, launched in September and has close to 100 millions dollars under management.

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.

After a dramatic first half of the year where global high-yield bond funds lost 7.3 per cent of their value, the second half of last year saw a small gain of 1.4 per cent, in euro terms. The consensus among fund managers remains that despite recession fears, we will not see a wave of defaults in 2023 either. 

For this week’s Morningstar Top 5, we look at the best-performing funds investing in emerging market local currency bonds. These funds ended 2022 with a loss of 9.9 per cent, measured in dollars, or 4 per cent in euros. The outlook for this risky asset class does not seem favourable at first glance, although some fund managers say there are opportunities.