Private credit can be an important source of investment, but for the system to work for all parties—both lenders and borrowers—the chain cannot be broken.
However, fraud in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) loans has increased by double digits year over year, with most lenders expecting fraud levels to continue rising in the coming months, according to the LexisNexis Risk Solutions SME Loan Fraud Study.
More than 80% of respondents reported that fraud in SME loans increased by nearly 14% over the past year, despite lenders being less willing to issue new credit.
While SME loan fraud is steadily increasing, it is gradually moving away from the influence of the pandemic. In particular, fraud is often detected within the first month of establishing a relationship with a new client.
The majority of fraud losses are attributed to digital channels, prompting 70% of organizations to adjust their strategies to detect and mitigate fraud.
“This shift highlights a proactive approach within the sector, with many lenders tightening their mobile and online transaction policies. While smaller banks and credit unions are balancing their policies, larger institutions are taking stricter measures,” the report states.
Regarding the main methods used by defaulters, the theft of a company’s legitimate identity and the theft of consumer/owner identity have emerged as the most common forms of SME loan fraud, making detection particularly challenging.
The study offers several recommendations to prevent SME loan fraud, such as improving identity verification controls and utilizing advanced fraud detection systems that go beyond manual methods.
Additionally, it advocates for a multi-layered approach by combining different solutions to address the unique risks posed by various channels, payment methods, and products. This approach should integrate cybersecurity with fraud prevention efforts and employ advanced solutions like OTP/two-factor authentication, biometrics, and behavioral biometrics.
Finally, lenders should focus on early fraud detection and intelligence sharing. Businesses should harness the power of collective intelligence through consortia and digital identity networks. By participating in a consortium, companies can share valuable data, creating a peer-to-peer intelligence layer that allows them to gain greater context, protect their digital channels from cybercriminal networks, and make smarter, real-time risk decisions.
Are You Unsure if You Can Retire? Don’t Worry, the Global Retirement Index (GRI) by Natixis IM Shows Stability in Retirement Conditions Worldwide
According to the latest edition of the Global Retirement Index (GRI) from Natixis Investment Managers, retirement conditions remain stable globally. After nearly all developed countries improved their scores last year, the latest findings suggest that retirement remains secure.
Countries that perform best in the GRI tend to show consistent results across all sub-indices, reflecting a stabilization of global retirement prospects. The top 10 ranked countries have remained the same for two consecutive years. However, individuals are feeling the pressure as more people realize that they are increasingly responsible for financing their retirement on their own.
In this year’s index, Switzerland overtook Norway to claim the top spot with an overall score of 82%, relegating Norway (81%) to second place. The top rankings have seen little change, with Iceland (3rd), Ireland (4th), and Australia (7th) maintaining their positions. Germany and Denmark each moved up one spot from last year, securing 8th and 9th places, while the Netherlands overtook Luxembourg to claim 5th place, pushing Luxembourg to 6th. However, New Zealand showed the most significant change among top-performing countries, dropping two spots to 10th.
Created in collaboration with Core Data Research, the GRI serves as a global benchmark that incorporates a wide range of essential factors for ensuring a healthy and secure retirement. These factors include important financial considerations as well as access to healthcare, its costs, climate conditions, governance, and overall population happiness. The GRI’s rankings are relative, not absolute, based on an aggregate of average scores ranging from 0% to 100% for 18 performance measures across four sub-indices (Finances in Retirement, Material Wellbeing, Health, and Quality of Life) that together offer a comprehensive picture of the retirement environment.
“It’s encouraging to see a consistent set of results in this year’s GRI, although there’s still room for improvement in most cases, within a broader environment characterized by rising debt levels, fiscal pressures, and higher interest rates. To prevent a future retirement crisis, a key step is to invest and work with a professional financial advisor to design a resilient, well-diversified portfolio, making the most of savings opportunities that align with individual retirement goals and the current environment. Fortunately, more people are taking responsibility for ensuring their financial security in retirement,” explains Javier García de Vinuesa, head of Natixis Investment Managers for Iberia, in relation to the survey results.
Key Index Movements
Manutara Ventures highlights that Switzerland, which tops this year’s GRI, achieved a perfect score in the unemployment indicator, reflecting the country’s impressive workforce participation rate. Despite declines in most sub-indices, Iceland retains its third position for the second year in a row. “Notably, Iceland dropped seven spots in the Health indicator (from the top 10 to 11th), despite a slight increase in its score,” they note. Meanwhile, Norway saw declines in both the Material Wellbeing sub-index, dropping from 1st to 6th, and in the Finances in Retirement sub-index, where it fell out of the top 10, landing in 12th place due to drops in the fiscal pressure, dependency ratio, and governance indicators.
Luxembourg, however, rose four percentage points to claim the top spot in the Health sub-index, driven by an increase in its life expectancy score, displacing Norway from its previous lead. Slovenia and Belgium also climbed four spots each: Belgium moved from 19th to 15th, and Slovenia just missed the top 10, moving from 15th to 11th.
Ireland leads the Finances in Retirement sub-index, improving its score by one percentage point to 74%, thanks to the continuous reduction of public debt. The United Kingdom also moved up two spots in this year’s GRI, ranking 14th due to improvements in the Health sub-index, while its scores in the other sub-indices remained unchanged.
Citizens Feel Increasingly Alone in Retirement
Despite generally positive global retirement security prospects, the Natixis Global Survey of Individual Investors in 2024 shows that the number of individuals who believe it is increasingly their responsibility to fund their retirement, rather than relying on public or private pensions, has grown from 67% in 2015 to 81% in 2023. Additionally, the number of people who believe a miracle is required to achieve retirement security rose from 40% in 2021 to 45% in 2023. One in five investors (19%) says that even if they could save $1 million, they still wouldn’t be able to afford retirement, including 18% of those who have already accumulated $1 million.
The report also identifies key risks individuals face, highlighting four in particular. First, they point to interest rates. “While low rates had been a key risk for retirees in the more than 15 years following the Global Financial Crisis, today’s higher rate environment presents new risks. Specifically, with more than $6 trillion invested in money market funds, deposits, and similar instruments, investors need to be aware of how the current cash trap could prevent them from meeting their need for a sustainable long-term income source,” they explain.
Second, they highlight inflation. While the worst may be over, as inflation slowly returns to central bank targets, the post-pandemic price surge serves as a stark reminder of how quickly and severely inflation can rise. Now, 83% of investors acknowledge that recent events have reminded them of the great threat inflation poses to their retirement security, and they must act accordingly to ensure they’re prepared for any future inflationary episodes.
Another risk is public debt, which in OECD countries has more than doubled in the first quarter of the 21st century, as policymakers responded first to the Global Financial Crisis and then to the Covid-19 pandemic. While these measures were necessary to avoid short-term economic collapse, policymakers now face the long-term task of paying down this debt. A growing number of people are concerned that they’ll be asked to foot the bill, which could lead to cuts in public retirement benefits—the cornerstone of many retirement plans.
Lastly, they identify “people themselves” as a risk. “A secure retirement is a journey, not a destination. Success requires realistic expectations and significant individual commitment. While many may appreciate this in concept, not all investors set reasonable assumptions or establish realistic goals. GRI survey results show that investors lack a consistent view of what it takes to succeed,” the report concludes.
As part of its second venture capital fund, the specialized investment firm Manutara Ventures announced a $750,000 investment in the foodtech startup Atomic Kitchens, which operates in the food industry. The purpose of the funding, they explained, is to support the company’s expansion across Latin America.
The early-stage venture capital vehicle shared details of the deal through a statement, noting that the investment was in equity and marked their entry onto the tech firm’s board.
In addition to regional expansion, the financing aims to develop new business lines that synergize with the current business model. The foodtech company has set the ambitious goal of doubling its partner networkbetween October 2023 and October 2024.
Founded in 2020 in Chile, Atomic Kitchens focuses on creating and connecting food franchises with restaurants and ghost kitchens—also known as dark kitchens—that have unused capacity.
This startup’s work, they explained, is supported by the development of its own data analysis technology, which allows them to optimize kitchen capacity, implement marketing strategies, and improve the offerings of these franchises.
Under this model, the company helps expand food franchises or brands without requiring large initial investments, while assisting established kitchens and restaurants in boosting their sales and operations. Their mission is to support and empower small food entrepreneurs.
Currently, Atomic Kitchens has over 900 franchises from its brands distributed across Latin America, with operations in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. They have also launched a B2B marketplace in their main markets, reporting double-digit monthly growth.
Manutara Ventures, also founded in Chile, operates in Miami as well, offering entrepreneurs a platform to access U.S. markets and experience. The private equity firm has built an ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors, helping to grow its portfolio of renowned startups. This includes Xepelin, ETpay, and OpenCasa—three young firms that, together, exceed $1 billion in valuation.
In the press release, Cristián Olea, Managing Partner of the venture capital firm, highlighted Atomic Kitchens as a startup with “high potential.” “Although the investment is recent, it’s highly likely that we’ll invest in them again if they continue with their current strong performance and traction, to avoid too much dilution in the next round,” he said.
Meanwhile, Atomic Kitchens CEO and co-founder Uriel Krimer stated that the investment “represents significant support for our vision and long-term goals.” He added, “We are committed to using this capital to drive sustainable growth, improve the profitability and professionalism of our partners, and expand our presence in both current and future markets, always with a focus on innovation and leadership in our sector.”
According to the team at Insight Investment (BNY Investment), as markets reach a mid-point in 2024, now is an ideal time to increase allocations to fixed income.
“With bond yields returning to pre-financial crisis levels, investors no longer need to take on the equity-like risks or sacrifice liquidity to meet their investment goals. Simply put, yields are back, and they’re here to stay,” the firm argues.
Their analysis suggests that despite some signs of inflation stabilization and easing rate hikes by mid-year (both the European Central Bank and the Bank of Canada cut rates in June), central banks are expected to operate in higher interest rate ranges over the coming years, which should keep bond yields elevated.
“It’s likely that market participants will take some time to adjust to the idea that extremely low interest rates aren’t coming back. After all, some investors have only known an era dominated by central bank easing and quantitative easing policies. However, we believe that optimism around rate cuts will be tempered by the persistence of inflationary pressures. Globalization, which had exerted significant downward pressure on goods prices, is now giving way to increasingly protectionist rhetoric, and we think this will be one of the factors making it harder for central banks to control inflation sustainably,” Insight Investment adds.
At the longer end of the yield curves, high government debt issuance and the reduced proportion of debt held on central bank balance sheets should keep yields elevated. Over time, this is expected to slowly become ingrained in market psychology, keeping bond yields at levels similar to those seen before the global financial crisis.
In this context, Insight Investment believes that long-term return objectives can be achieved with fixed income alone. Many segments of fixed income markets currently offer yields comparable or even higher than the long-term returns of the MSCI World Index.
“We believe this creates the opportunity to lock in long-term returns similar to equities but in fixed income markets and sectors like global high yield,” they add.
Volatility Check
Insight Investment points out that fixed income markets, largely income-driven, tend to be less volatile and more predictable than other asset classes like equities. In many cases, this can lead to more reliable returns, lower downside risk, and diversification benefits. “An active management strategy can allow a manager to add value above market yields. With low interest rates and quantitative easing behind us, volatility may be structurally higher in the coming years, providing market disruptions that managers can exploit. The more flexibility a manager has, the broader the range of potential opportunities they can explore,” they argue.
Corporate Health
From a corporate perspective, Insight Investment notes that many companies are well-positioned at this stage of the cycle. Corporate balance sheets look healthy, as do debt profiles. Many treasurers took advantage of low interest rates during the pandemic to lock in favorable funding levels for an extended period. This has insulated many companies from rising rates, giving them time to plan for higher financing costs.
“As global investors, we believe an increasingly asymmetric equity world makes a fixed income allocation even more appealing. While the rise of the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ reflects a period of exceptional profit growth, their dominance means that many equity investors are now more concentrated than they realize,” Insight Investment experts comment.
Risk Considerations
Finally, Insight Investment highlights risk as a key consideration. “All markets carry some degree of risk. However, while fixed income markets experience periodic declines, they tend to be shallow and brief. For instance, the long-term returns of global high yield have been similar to those of global equity markets. Overall, this asset class has experienced less severe downturns and has recovered more quickly than equities.”
Income Generation
Lastly, they note that as income generated in fixed income markets offsets price declines, this creates natural protection against losses, provided that yields are high enough and the time horizon is long enough.
They also point out that government debt, and to some extent high-grade credit markets, offer another useful attribute. Economic recessions, when equity markets typically fall and economies contract, tend to be some of the best periods for fixed income returns.
“When central banks ease policy to stimulate growth, longer-term bond yields typically fall, and this drop in yields results in capital appreciation in fixed income markets. The negative correlation between fixed income and equities during severe equity market declines means that high-quality fixed income investments can complement holdings in higher-risk assets like equities,” Insight Investment states.
In this regard, the firm’s experts pose the question: What path should fixed income investors take? Their answer is straightforward: “For the remainder of the year, we believe that rising yields have created an opportunity to secure attractive long-term income streams. With yields returning to pre-crisis levels, income should once again dominate fixed income returns. In this context, more customized and sophisticated fixed income portfolios can be built to meet the specific risk/return objectives of a wide range of investors,” Insight Investment concludes.
Over the past 12 months, there has been a significant shift towards in-office work: currently, 47% of companies follow a work model focused on in-person attendance, compared to 36% last year, while 45% follow a hybrid model (down from 53% last year). According to a study by Grant Thornton, if companies push too hard for a return to the office, they may inadvertently undermine gains in female representation in key positions that have been made possible through flexible work practices. The study’s main conclusion is that it is essential to ensure that at least one senior female executive is involved in decision-making on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“This shift appears to be driven by male CEOs: 50% of companies led by a man follow a predominantly in-person model, compared to 40% of companies led by a woman,” states Grant Thornton’s Women in Business (WiB) study, based on a survey of around 10,000 business leaders from 28 countries. To foster and retain female talent in the workplace, companies must carefully evaluate the work practices they offer. The research suggests that following certain decisions made by male executives, it is necessary to ensure that a senior female executive is involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion decisions. Pushing too hard for a return to the office could unintentionally undo some of the progress made in promoting women to leadership roles, which was achieved through the adoption of flexible work practices.
Regional differences are also notable. In North America, 39% of companies have adopted a primarily in-office work model, compared to 53% in the European Union. Many large companies have begun implementing guidelines and incentives to encourage employees to return to offices, such as Goldman Sachs’ “office-first” approach, which required employees to attend the office five days a week. Amazon, Disney, and Boeing have also enacted return-to-office policies in recent months, according to a report by *Inc.*
Companies where employees predominantly work in offices are the only ones where the percentage of women in senior leadership positions falls below the global benchmark.
The ability to choose where to work offers substantial benefits to women in companies, not just at the leadership level but also for the talent pipeline. “A work model that combines in-person and remote modalities is great for both men and women, as it allows for a much better work-life balance. On the other hand, it’s also important that younger employees don’t feel neglected, so being available in person when needed is crucial,” says Grant Thornton Chile.
Finally, the study emphasizes, “When female employees have taken maternity leave and are ready to return to work, offering a hybrid model is essential to retaining them and helping them advance in their careers.”
From Left to Right: Jaime Estevez, Principal at KKR for Latin America & Karim Aryeh, Chapter Executive at CAIA and Director at Deutsche Bank
Members of CAIA’s Florida network gathered for a networking event on September 10 at Hutong in Miami.
Industry representatives gathered in a space organized by CAIA and sponsored by KKR to connect and network in South Florida.
From left to right: Andrew Rasken, Enrique Conde, Charlie Rua y Karim Aryeh
The event was attended by CAIA Florida board members, including Karim Aryeh, Scott Greenberg, Miguel Zablah, Brian Heimowitz, Jim Ulseth, and Gabriel Freund.
Jaime Estevez, KKR’s Principal for Latin America, also participated, along with Karim Aryeh, CAIA Chapter Executive and Director at Deutsche Bank both of whom encouraged attendees to recognize the importance of such events in strengthening the industry.
Funds Society participated as the event’s media partner.
The FOMC concluded its September meeting this Wednesday with the announcement of a 50 basis point interest rate cut.
The monetary authority announced the half-percentage-point cut, thus beginning an easing policy it hadn’t implemented since the early days of the pandemic.
“In light of progress on inflation and the balance of risks, the Committee decided to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate by half a percentage point, bringing it to between 4.75% and 5%,” said the Fed’s statement.
Additionally, FOMC members said that when considering further adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, “the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolution of the outlook, and the balance of risks.”
However, the FOMC “will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities, agency debt, and agency mortgage-backed securities.”
The Fed’s Monetary Policy Committee members remain “firmly” committed to “supporting maximum employment and bringing inflation back to its 2% target.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced in August, during his final conference at the Jackson Hole symposium, that the time for monetary policy adjustment had arrived. However, he clarified at the time that the pace would depend on macroeconomic data.
“The time has come to adjust monetary policy. The direction is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on new data, the evolution of the outlook, and the balance of risks,” Powell said, according to the speech published by the Fed.
However, August employment data solidified expectations of a possible cut this Wednesday. The question was whether the cut would be 25 or 50 basis points.
Most analysts expected a minimum cut of 25 basis points, with the prospect of a more gradual monetary policy easing. However, the Fed has been bolder than analysts expected, deciding on a 50 basis point cut.
With this move, the Fed ends the policy it had been following since June 2022, when inflation peaked at 7.1%, forcing the monetary authority into a series of rate hikes throughout 2023 and part of this year.
There are long periods when investors simply and plainly turn their backs on fundamentals. But just as there are people immune to trends, there are asset managers capable of distancing themselves from the surrounding noise. One of them is MFS, a firm celebrating 100 years in 2024, amidst a market regime change that theoretically will favor its investment culture.
When everything is turned upside down and decades of economic doctrine no longer hold in day-to-day reality, managers like MFS serve as an anchor because they adhere to fundamentals and remain steadfast in their convictions. They survived the 1929 crisis and all those that followed. In this very unique 21st century, they aim to weather the rise of passive management, as Mike W. Roberge, CEO of the company since 2017, explains.
“The next 30 years will not look like the last 30. And looking at the next five or ten years, we expect markets to be more challenging, with more volatility. Central bank policies are now much more symmetrical. Because it was sort of a one-way trend, with interest rates only going down for a very long time. But now there are changes, such as higher inflation, a new dynamic in globalization, and higher rates. And so our view is that the significant advantage that passive investing had over active investing will be partly neutralized,” says Roberge.
The concentration of equity indices in the United States has created more risk, according to the firm.
“Clients should ask themselves if the benchmark index is the right measure, right?” says the MFS CEO. “Because if, in the past year, they’ve slightly underperformed the benchmark index and the markets are still up 20%, what’s the correct metric—absolute or relative performance of what is a risky benchmark index?” adds Roberge.
Time is the investor’s best ally
Through what MFS does and doesn’t do, Mike W. Roberge defines the firm’s policy: “We remain committed to what we do, which is long-term active management. We believe it is very difficult to identify what will work in the short term and then figure out how to capitalize on that. It’s much easier for us to identify trends and the companies we own. That’s why we haven’t made any acquisitions, entered the alternative assets market, or launched passive products, because ultimately we believe there are many options, and we want to stay very focused on what we do well.”
“We believe we manage risk well, and the market hasn’t worried about risk for a long time. I can guarantee you that the one thing that is cyclical is risk—it will return, people will start to worry about risk again, and we haven’t reached that point yet, but we believe it’s inevitable,” adds Roberge.
Rob Almeida, Global Strategist at MFS, believes the market “is entering a new regime or a different paradigm, where we will learn that the direction of interest rates is not what matters to investors.” According to the expert, there are risks in the market that investors are not properly assessing due to this mindset: “I think investors have been trained over the last 15 years to believe that central banks drive risk assets. But central banks don’t create wealth. Companies create wealth.”
Contrary to the widespread perception in the market that, if stocks and bonds crashed in 2022 due to the sharp rise in interest rates, they should now perform better with the first rate cuts, Almeida emphasizes the need to stay grounded and conduct thorough fundamental analysis to understand risks and opportunities: “Every financial asset in the world is simply a representation of future cash flows, that is, the return on capital. Returns on capital have been at historic highs over the past 15 years not because of robust economic growth, but due to the massive suppression of costs via low interest rates and globalization, and both trends have come to an end.”
Fundamentals Matter
Risk management has been in MFS’s DNA since the creation of the first open-end fund in modern history, the Massachusetts Investors Trust (MIT), launched in 1924, exactly a century ago.
It was the Roaring Twenties, and business was booming in the United States as the stock market began a continuous rise toward historic highs.
Families wanted to invest, but the market was somewhat “wild” and unregulated; all funds were closed-end (and opaque) until Edward Leffler, one of MFS’s early managers, conceived a more ethical and transparent investment vehicle: a fund that could issue additional shares if new investors were interested in the product and, most importantly, could guarantee shareholders the right to sell their shares back to the fund at any time. In short, managing risk by taking the risk of launching a vehicle never before seen in the market.
At the time, it was a bold move, and since then, MFS’s long-term and prudent approach has placed it among the most conservative asset managers.
Being resistant to trends doesn’t mean being unwilling to change. Since that early paper version of the MIT, the definition of diversification has evolved, Massachusetts has become small in the world, and MFS has grown into a global investor that can have strong U.S. strategies but can also compete in European equities. Overall, MFS manages $600 billion on behalf of its clients (as of December 2023).
Maintaining an ethical code and an open mind is the work of Alison O’Neill, Co-CIO of Equity and portfolio manager of the famous MIT. What’s it like to have a century of experience behind you when investing? The words the expert repeats most during the interview are “philosophy and team.”
“If we look over time, most of our managers are also investors. And we try to maintain that balance because most of us came into this industry because we loved investing,” says O’Neill.
“MIT has always prided itself on working closely with our global research platform. That’s probably what has changed the most since its inception. When it started, there were a handful of people in Boston who made up that research team, but now we have a global presence, with eight global sector teams composed of members from all over the world,” she adds.
The MFS Co-CIO talks about “intellectual leadership” when it comes to identifying new stocks to buy, through comparisons between companies in different geographies, evaluating fundamentals, and identifying the most attractive companies within different regions. Many of these companies compete globally.
Trends matter, but always through that careful (almost microscopic) analysis of companies to form a picture of the world. It’s globalization, MFS style.
Alison O’Neill explains: “In general, as part of building MIT, we try to be more or less sector-neutral. So, we don’t make significant sector bets unless we see very attractive or unattractive fundamentals on the other side. For example, within industrials, at this moment, we have a slight overweight in capital goods because we’ve identified several interesting companies. Thinking about reshoring after the COVID-19 pandemic supply chain disruptions, many companies realized they wanted to bring their supply chains closer to where they are producing and selling to customers. So, we identified several names within industrials around this theme, which led to a slight overweight in capital goods.”
Regarding U.S. equities, with the concentration in the so-called “Magnificent 7,” MFS’s investment team does its own curation, overweighting some companies but not investing in others. On the other hand, the asset manager remains firm in its investments in the U.S. infrastructure sector, where it foresees a necessary modernization.
“We meet with companies all the time, with management teams, CEOs, and CFOs,” says O’Neill. What MFS is seeing are increasing issues within the lower-income consumer segment in the U.S., but at the same time, a resilient labor market, where no significant waves of layoffs have been detected.
Disruption is the only constant
According to MFS, every generation has its disruptors, and over the past 100 years, the asset manager has invested in numerous examples. Television was invented in the 1920s, although its widespread adoption didn’t come until the 1950s. Cable brought hundreds of channels in the 1980s, but today, streaming services continue to grow their market share. During this process, established operators were challenged by competition, and new companies and sectors emerged in the market.
This serves as a reminder that while the development of new technologies is unstoppable, their long-term impact is not always clear from the start. And this brings us to Artificial Intelligence, the hot asset of 2024.
“We’re at a point where we need to ensure that the investment people are making is really paying off in terms of return. Therefore, we believe that at first, there was a kind of arms race where everyone wanted to order as many high-powered chips from semiconductor companies as they could. But as companies begin to use them, they must ensure that a return is actually generated, or else it makes no sense,” says the Co-CIO of MFS.
“All companies are telling us that AI will help with costs, efficiency, and productivity. On the other hand, what AI is already doing is increasing competition, and that’s the part the market isn’t thinking about,” says Rob Almeida, the Global Strategist of MFS.
He uses large-cap consumer staples companies as an example, which used to rely on their large balance sheets as their main competitive advantage; now, Almeida believes that thanks to AI, entry barriers have been lowered due to the cost reductions that AI brings. This allows companies to launch products, promote them, and sell them directly to consumers at very affordable costs.
In line with this, the expert explains that MFS has found investment opportunities within the software segment over the past year and a half: “We want to ensure that we don’t have software companies whose value proposition is no longer viable, because AI is going to offer the same service for free.”
“We’re also finding opportunities in companies that supply components to improve the power grid, as AI is expected to increase energy consumption,” he adds.
MFS CEO Mike Roberge speaks about the adoption of AI within the asset manager itself: “I think we’re in an AI hype curve, and what usually happens is that things go up and down, and then ultimately, it’s like the internet. It revolutionized how we worked 30 years ago, but most of the pioneering companies no longer exist today. We’re going to go through the same with AI, so it doesn’t make sense for all companies in the world to spend money on AI. We’ll be users of the best technology, but we’re testing it.”
Kemp Klein Law Firm announced the addition of Margaret Lindauer as Associate Attorney.
Lindauer will be integral to several practice groups, including estate planning, probate and trust administration, elder law, and tax planning.
She is dedicated to guiding her clients through the design, preparation, and implementation of their estate plans, and she also assists them in navigating probate and trust administrations.
Brian Rolfe, CEO and President of Kemp Klein, stated, “We are very excited to welcome Margaret to our team. Her versatility and experience will allow us to perpetuate the firm’s accelerated growth.”
Lindauer grew up in Chelsea, Michigan before moving to Chicago to complete her studies. While she was in Chicago, she attended DePaul University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences in Political Science in 2017.
“I am thrilled to join the Kemp Klein team. I look forward to bringing my legal and tax experience to the firm to serve clients and contribute to the firm’s practice teams,” said Lindauer.
She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law in 2020. During her time there, she was a member of the Moot Court Team and gained experience working with the Cook County State Attorney’s Office, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, and The Chicago Community Trust. She also holds ICLE’s Probate & Estate Planning Certificate.
The network of independent advisors, Insigneo, has added Jerry Orosco in Miami.
“We are pleased to announce that Jerry Orosco has joined our team as Vice President, under the leadership of Jose A. Salazar, head of the Miami Market at Insigneo,” the firm announced on LinkedIn.
Orosco has over 27 years of experience, having worked at Intercontinental Companies for more than 26 years as a trader and portfolio manager.
Additionally, between 2023 and 2024, he worked at Corient for one year as a portfolio manager and wealth advisor, according to his social media profile.
“We are delighted that Jerry has chosen Insigneo as the platform for his base of international clients, and we look forward to growing together in the coming years,” commented Salazar.
Orosco holds a bachelor’s degree in business and administration from The University of Texas at San Antonio.
“I am excited to join the talented team at Insigneo and contribute to the company’s inspiring vision. I look forward to this exciting journey ahead!” said Orosco, according to Insigneo’s statement.
