Investment Officer Luxembourg

The market is expecting a 75 basis point rate cut by the Federal Reserve after a six-month pause. According to Invesco, the likelihood of that happening is much lower than the market thinks. This is good news for emerging markets, said Wim Vandenhoeck, senior portfolio manager for EMD and global bonds.

When the long wait for the retail investment strategy finally ended on Wednesday at a European Commission press conference in Brussels, Commissioner Mairead McGuinness gave the financial industry three years to hit her targets for transparency, costs and retail investor participation, or an outright ban on kickbacks will be back on the table.

Alternative investment funds last year took a bigger slice of the Luxembourg pie, a new study said on Wednesday. In terms of assets under management, alternative funds accounted for more than a third of the total last year, compared to a quarter a year earlier.

The data stems from the latest edition of the Observatory of Management Companies, published annually by PwC Luxembourg.

One of the elements that Bitcoin investors cite is the cryptocurrency’s performance when the stock market is doing poorly. These coins are then often described as a “flight-to-safety” investment: an asset that rises in value when the rest of the portfolio goes down. Is this really the case?

Global financial services provider Apex Group claims being the first in the industry to offset its entire lifetime of carbon emissions. The Bermuda-headquartered firm has offset its emissions back to 2003 with certified and audited offsetting projects, it reports in its first Sustainability Report.

Fund management companies in Luxembourg registered some 22 new reserved alternative investment funds (Raifs) in April 2023, according to publicly-released data updated on 15 May. This development brings the total for this year so far to 128. Considering only the first four months of the year, the total number was down 20 per cent from last year during the same period.

Fears in the financial sector that the reputation of institutions - banks as well as fund managers - might suffer as an indirect consequence of stringent sustainable finance regulations might deter firms from developing new ESG products or could make them reluctant to finance companies that claim to be green or sustainable.

Financial services provider Apex Group on Tuesday said it has closed its acquisition of the data and analytics division of troubled London-based asset services provider MJ Hudson Plc. The deal includes part of MJ Hudson’s business in Luxembourg. The acquisition of the firm’s regulated business units remains remains to be closed as it is still subject to regulatory approval, Apex said. 

Europe’s top financial supervisor on Tuesday said it has opened up a consultation on the draft technical standards for European Long Term Investment Funds, or Eltifs, to collect input from the industry. Interested stakeholders have until 24 August to provide input.

The standards, known formally as the ‘RTS’, shed more light on the redemption policies and matching mechanism for Eltifs. The consultation also asks the industry to comment on the proposed disclosure requirements for costs of Eltifs.