Quintet’s chief investment officer Daniele Antonucci is steering the private bank’s investment strategy through 2024’s volatility—adjusting exposures in tech, bonds, and cyclicals as clients increasingly pivot toward thematic investing and geopolitical resilience.
Quintet had a number of wins this year. In November, it was named best private bank in Luxembourg at the 2024 Global Private Banking Awards, run by the Financial Times Group. In April, it deepened its cooperation with global asset management leader Blackrock, launching the first in its new series of multi-managed Ucits funds. The year also marked the bank’s 75 anniversary, which it formally marked in May.
What started back in 1949 as a team of five has now grown to 1,650 employees based in more than 30 cities in Europe and the UK. The team includes 50 investment specialists—led by Daniele Antonucci, co-head of investment and chief investment officer—who are roughly split between research and portfolio management. Antonucci, who arrived in Luxembourg from London last summer, said he has been impressed with the multinational, multilingual talent at the Luxembourg headquarters.
‘Masterclass in unpredictability’
While Antonucci called 2024 a “masterclass in unpredictability”, he anticipates more normalised growth for the year ahead, plus eurozone and US interest rates normalising to around 2 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively.
Speaking with Investment Officer, he said this is “because of the likely fiscal stimulus that will come through once the new [US] administration is up and running, and the eurozone also likely settling in its usual slow, normal pace of growth.”
Downside risks, however, could come from US tariffs, the impacts of which may extend to emerging markets, as well as geopolitical tensions between the US and China, for instance. These are among the reasons the bank has adjusted European exposure and emerging market assets to neutral. Meanwhile, it has held its equity overweight, preferring US equities—which, as Antonucci pointed out, means overweight in technology, given that over one-third of the S&P 500 is dominated by the “Magnificent Seven”.
Nevertheless, “that doesn’t mean that we don’t apply risk management, for example, to some of the large names that everyone is familiar with,” he added. “In some cases, we have been reducing our exposure. We’ve been taking profits because we didn’t want it to become a particularly large part of our single line equity portfolio.”
‘The rally will broaden’
Quintet anticipates that “the rally will broaden” as AI spreads to other sectors; rather than adding tech, Antonucci said they’ve diversified away from it, adding exposure to other, more cyclical sectors. “We added US equities that have more emphasis on financials, which could benefit from the deregulation that might come through, or industrials, which might benefit from US policies,” he added.
The bank has also upped its exposure to European government bonds, preferring those that are short-dated, and “reducing our exposure to European and US investment-grade corporate credit, as we do not believe valuations adequately compensate for risks,” Antonucci noted.
Investment trends
Quintet has identified five longer-term structural trends that it anticipates will shape the future for investors: geopolitical fragmentation (a more multi-polar, less US-centric world); regulatory waves, sustainability, demographic & social shifts, and technological progress (from AI enablers to beneficiaries).
Meanwhile, there are also some notable investment trends Antonucci has seen in his line of work. The first is broader diversification, with investors asking themselves what the next trend could be after the “Magnificent Seven”, as well as questioning how certain thematics will play out in private markets.
He has also noted the trend of investors to think less regionally, more thematically. “Normally the building blocks were regions and sectors—is it the US, Europe, emerging markets? Is it tech, as opposed to financials or industrials?” Antonucci explained. “Now they think a lot more about the theme—is it AI? New infrastructure? Circular economy, cybersecurity? This is quite present across the European client base.”