Business
Franklin Templeton
Nathalie Deltgen
VALEDICTORIAN
20 YEARS
A native of Bettange-sur-Mess, Nathalie Deltgen completed a degree in mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London before returning to the Grand Duchy to work at Dexia BIL. This spring she graduated top of her class at the Luxembourg School of Finance, and moved to BCEE’s structured products desk. AG: What did you get from this programme? ND: I am able to understand more properly what I’m doing on a daily basis; I know what’s behind it. For the future, connection wise, some of the professors are people that are good to know, here in Luxembourg and all over the world. AG: Is it gruelling? ND: You’re taking courses that at other universities take a semester, and here you’ve got maybe four or five days. The subjects are very crammed together. It’s very tough to jump from one subject to another. There’s a lot of self-study. The professors are there to present a topic, but to really get into a subject you have to do it yourself. AG: What are some of the highlights? ND: The diversity of the class. Out of a class of 23, there were only two Luxembourgish people. The others came from China, Cambodia, El Salvador, all over the world. The residential week in New York is great, the time you spend at Stern Business School. AG: How do you think it helps your career? ND: Well, it already helped me get a new job. I got a couple of offers and I took this one. www.Isf.lu
Luc Delflorenne (archives)
Olivier Minaire
The mutual fund leader celebrates two decades in Luxembourg this month. How has it evolved with the four UCITS regimes?
This month marks a series of 20th anniversaries for American fund giant Franklin Templeton in the Grand Duchy. June 1991 saw the opening of its Luxembourg office, SICAV, and Templeton Asian Growth Fund, one of the first UCITS funds the company offered. From relatively modest beginnings, it has grown to Europe’s largest single SICAV, according to Lipper, and Luxembourg’s most widely distributed crossborder fund family, according to PwC. Franklin Templeton had been doing sub-advisory work for a few years in the Grand Duchy when it decided to take advantage of the original UCITS regime, explains the firm’s conducting officer, Bill Lockwood. “Part of the idea of setting up in Luxembourg was to provide administrative support for German [retail] shareholders” and to reach the UK expat market. “Very quickly we found it was a platform that served many different purposes. Before long we had relationships with many institutions” across the EU and began marketing its Luxembourg funds beyond Europe.
bill lockwood: looking forward to another 20 years of innovation
“It wasn’t an easy sell then,” he says. “You were knocking on doors and trying to explain what a UCITS fund was even before you tried to sell.” He adds: “Just opening up in each [new] market, that was a lot of the work we did in the early days.” After the first year, the division only offered 14 funds, managed about 40 million dollars, and most support was provided by its offices elsewhere or was outsourced. “The business has developed quite a lot over time,” says Harry Nash, the company’s general manager in Luxembourg. Today its local operation has 70 funds, manages 145 billion dollars, and much more management is done locally. “Now in Luxembourg there are a lot more people with the appropriate technical and oversight skills to run funds,” he says. With the fourth UCITS regime coming into effect in July, Nash is optimistic about the firm’s prospects. “We have a number of different brands and styles… to offer the right product to the client and the right time. And for us to innovate as is AG necessary.”
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08.06.2011 14:58:06 Uhr