Speaking with financial services professionals in Luxembourg over the past couple of months, the consensus take is that things in the sector here are just OK. Things could definitely be worse, but circumstances are less than ideal. The hope for 2024 is that the situation does not deteriorate. A noticeable improvement would be a bonus.

I get the impression that everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but no one knows if it will be a heavy hiking boot, or maybe just a house slipper.

The list of worries is a familiar one: continued market and geopolitical turmoil, rising costs and regulatory pressures forcing players to bulk up or bug out, a cavalcade of conferences and sessions about how AI could upend finance, corporate HQ cracking down harder on budgets, meanwhile attracting fresh assets and sussing out investment opportunities are getting trickier for many, while recruitment and retention is getting trickier for all. Have I missed anything?

, chair of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, seemed to sum up the mixed atmosphere at Alfi’s Private Assets Conference in late November, when he in his opening remarks that the funds industry has seen better days, but that “not everything is bleak.”

Indeed, while assets under management in Luxembourg did drop over the past year, that was predominately due to market declines, not an exodus of investors’ cash or firms shifting operations out of the grand duchy. (Although I suspect will heat up a notch in 2024.)

Green investing

Two years ago I that I was optimistic about investing. That optimism was at least partially well : in June 2022, of Luxembourg-based Ucits assets were invested in funds classified as . A year later, that number had risen to . Even though -- --, surely that’s a signal. Maybe not of optimism, but at least of less pessimism.

So while we’re waiting to hear if that other shoe is a wooden clog or a beach flip-flop, here’s hoping for more forward steps on sustainable investing.