Peter Brown (pictured) moved to the grand duchy three years ago and has been running Aztec’s Luxembourg office since October 2022. Photo: Guy Wolff/Maison Moderne

Peter Brown (pictured) moved to the grand duchy three years ago and has been running Aztec’s Luxembourg office since October 2022. Photo: Guy Wolff/Maison Moderne

Aztec Group, a services provider for the fund and corporate industry, has seen huge growth in its Luxembourg office--particularly in the last five years. Peter Brown, head of the Luxembourg office, discusses related challenges and skills evolutions.

Delano: Aztec started in Luxembourg in 2007 with some 20 people… and now you’re over 600. Could you talk us through that change?

Peter Brown: We’re really proud of the growth and development of the office here in Luxembourg. If we go back to 2018 there were around 190 colleagues here, so that growth over the last five years has been well over 200%. As a group, all of the offices we’ve opened have been very much client-led. Our business has grown organically; we had clients who wanted us in Luxembourg at that point in time. I think a significant growth driver for our Luxembourg office… was the AIFMD [Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive]. Our client base is institutionally backed private capital businesses, alternative funds working in private equity, private debt and real assets. And so the regulatory environment, regulatory changes and the infrastructure put in place were really significant drivers for us--and for our clients seeking to raise capital in the European markets. And Luxembourg was the key hub for us in supporting that kind of growth.

What challenges have you met due to this growth?

For us, the most important aspect of our business is the culture, our people. We invest heavily in support, training, development, engagement, activities and [other elements] for that colleague base. And retaining that culture--which is very collaborative, very inclusive--in a business that’s now, across the group, 1,800 becomes an increasing challenge. And so a really big focus for us is ensuring that we retain the cultural bias and values [in] the individuals that we hire into the business. And the aptitude and ability to learn.

Obviously, recruiting to support that level of growth is [another] challenge for us, and for all of our competitors--and for Luxembourg as a country as well: the ability to find people and then the ability of the country to absorb those individuals [and provide] the infrastructure. We spend a huge amount of time from a recruitment perspective.

Any comment on skills changes in Luxembourg?

The increasing regulatory environment has changed, maybe, the shape and skills needed… particularly the risk compliance skill set is highly sought after, given the increasing requirement for substance on the ground and for that kind of risk and oversight. The AIFMD has also driven the need--and [the post-Brexit environment too]--for managers to have either a third party AIFM or create their own AIFM. And when you create that, you need to hire conducting officers with risk portfolio management and other core skills.

[Take] data services, for example. We, like every big organisation, have a huge amount of data kicking around… and we can produce all the backward-looking information, [but] there’s a real shift in the marketplace now to providing benchmarking and insight: how do we drive value and provide something that’s a bit more bespoke and that maybe managers or LPs [limited partners] can’t get elsewhere? That’s a big focus for the industry. At Aztec, we’ve really embraced that. We’ve recently set up a new business within the group, Lantern Limited, which is about shining a light on this.