Investment Officer Luxembourg

Quintet Private Bank today announced the launch of the “world’s first multi-asset, climate-neutral investment fund”, Essential Portfolio Selection (EPS) Quintet Earth after raising some 280 million euros in funding. This UCITS fund “combines equal exposure to green bonds and low carbon equities”. The fund offsets associated carbon emissions through reforestation activities.

Integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) can be “a real challenge” for financial institutions and regulators, Luxembourg’s financial regulator the CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier) said last Friday in a white paper on distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain (a type of DLT, the CSSF noted). 

The new corporate taxation rules from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) join earlier reforms that collectively pose economic and fiscal risks to the Luxembourg economy, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Tax experts say it is possible that some non-financial multinationals located here might decide to leave because of the new OECD rules.

Investors are watching the recovering raw materials market with suspicion. There is even a commodities supercycle on the way, according to Jeffrey Currie, the global head of the commodities research department at investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Currie  is not alone in this expectation. According to the Dutch research bureau Alpha Research, which carried out a survey among 58 asset managers, 46 per cent gave a buy recommendation.

KPMG Luxembourg has named Annick Breton and Christian Guertler as partners in its asset management consulting business. They will work closely with Yves Courtois, Head of Advisory and the Advisory Partners group. Both Breton and Guertler have a strong track record in international asset management, KPMG has announced. 

Hopes are high in Luxembourg that the Grand Duchy this year will be able to claim a sizeable chunk of a growing European market for Collateralised Loan Obligations (CLOs), a structured financial product pooling corporate debts. With an update in its securitisation regime that allows active management Luxembourg wants to be competitive and seduce CLO managers from other countries, notably Ireland, to move their business.