Investment Officer Global

Necessity breaks laws, but it also breaks existing patterns, paradigms, and drives innovation. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention. Not abundance or curiosity, but circumstances in which delay is not an option.

Imagine this: you predict stock returns for January 2026 using company data from all of 2026. Data that only becomes available during that year (or even afterward). Sounds absurd? Yet this is exactly the methodological foundation of one of the most cited findings in climate finance: the carbon premium.

Evergreen funds are pushing private markets toward a wider investor base. Olivier Dauman of CA Indosuez says that expansion has clear limits. “I think evergreen is a nice evolution of this market. I don’t think it’s the El Dorado of private equity,” he told Investment Officer.

Global shipping is slowing as surging fuel costs and mounting risks in the Persian Gulf begin to strain the industry’s finances, forcing companies to cut speeds, seek emergency credit and rethink whether voyages are still viable.

A strong start to the year for smallcaps does not guarantee outperformance in 2026.

European banks have little direct exposure to the Middle East, says European credit rating agency Scope. However, as tensions in the region threaten to push up energy prices and slow economic growth, the risks for lenders may emerge elsewhere: in the balance sheets of the companies they finance.

This week’s European transfers section includes updates from Langham Hall, Aviva, DZ Privatbank, Trustmoore, Edmond de Rothschild and Pia.

Sebastiaan Hooghiemstra and Gabriël Storm at Loyens & Loeff examine the latest EU-level guidance on Target Funds under ELTIF 2.0 and its implications for ELTIF managers and product structuring going forward.

An unprecedented wealth transfer is underway. Over the next two decades, an estimated 124,000 billion dollar in assets will shift globally from the baby boomer generation to younger generations.