Investment Officer Luxembourg

Sofia Harrschar, head of alternative investments & structuring at Universal Investment, delves into the shift towards alternative investments among institutional investors.

Luxembourg’s Commissariat aux Assurances (CAA) slapped Lombard International Assurance with a record 1.68 million euro fine for lapses in its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) controls. This enforcement action underscores the regulator’s stringent stance on compliance in the financial sector.

The roller coaster ride of the private markets hit a notable dip in 2023, per McKinsey & Company’s annual deep dive. Last year, the industry saw a global fundraising decrease of 22 percent to a little over one trillion dollars, marking the lowest point since 2017. This downturn reflects broader economic pressures, from rising financing costs to market uncertainty, but there’s more to the story.

Growth has turned into our modern-day holy grail—a beacon that politicians, companies, and individuals relentlessly chase, often with promises and aspirations that border on the fantastical. Every election cycle, candidates tout it as their deliverable. Businesses chase perpetually climbing profits, and personal discontent brews if our earnings stagnate or our living spaces don’t expand. Yet, ironically, the signs increasingly suggest that, deep down, we might not truly crave this endless expansion.

We embark on the second quarter with the launch of a revised feature: the Morningstar Fund Radar. In this weekly column, succeeding the previous Top 5 analysis, Morningstar’s fund analysts examine the state of affairs within a particular asset class, then delve into one or several mutual funds, with the primary selection criterion being the Morningstar Medalist Rating. As customary, we commence the new quarter with an overview of global equity funds.

Apex Group on Wednesday claimed to have become the first fund administrator to utilise blockchain technology as a book of record. It will leverage blockchain technology to service the 3.7 billion euro Hamilton Lane Global Private Assets fund.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) on Wednesday has announced that it has launched its Short-Term Alternative Finance Fund under its newly created umbrella fund platform leveraging the Luxembourg regime for Reserved Alternative Investment Funds, or Raifs. The move comes in response to growing investor demand for such credit strategies, the firm said.