Van Lanschot Kempen struck deeply by death of Paul Gerla

Paul Gerla was among those pivotal to the success of Kempen Capital Management, which grew into a leading Dutch asset manager under his leadership. He also drove the organisation’s international expansion and oversaw its opening of offices in London and Paris.

Karl Guha, Chairman at Van Lanschot Kempen, said: “Today, we have lost a top professional and one of the architects of Kempen Capital Management’s current success. Paul was a very amiable person, a valued colleague and a leader who knew exactly what was going on in our organisation.

A positive person, Paul saw opportunities everywhere and never quit. He took on his illness with great courage and energy, and continued to fight for a good outcome. It was not meant to be.

Our thoughts go out to his wife, children, family and friends.”

News & Knowledge

2019, 05 December

Asset Allocation Outlook December

The MSCI global equity index noted gains for the third month in a row in November. A difference was discernible though between industrialised countries, which saw prices rise, and the slight price decreases in emerging markets. Capital market yields rose further, while the US saw an end to falling yields at the short end of the yield curve. This caused the spread on long-term and short-term yields to widen, which is a positive sign for the business cycle. The reasons behind the positive mood on the markets continue to be hopes of a trade agreement between the US and China, the diminishing risk of a hard Brexit and the bottoming-out of a number of leading economic indicators. We have reduced our cash position by expanding our overweight in emerging market debt. Our underweight in equities has been kept unchanged, however, as we still believe that the equity markets have priced in an excessively positive scenario for corporate earnings.

2019, 29 November

Kempen's Commentary

Before you start reading: please don’t take the following personally. It’s others and not you. The reason for this is that I have some bad news: we are not getting any smarter. In fact, we are all getting dumber. At least that’s what recent IQ tests suggest.

2019, 25 November

High yield in a broad perspective

The size of the fixed-income investment markets has grown considerably over the past decade. Existing investment classes have grown significantly, but also new fixed-income asset classes have become available to investors. The accommodative policy of central banks with low interest rates has spurred a search for yield that has led to an increase in capital made available for lending. At the same time, the past few years’ robust economic growth has led to a credit demand for growth, investments, mergers, and acquisitions. In emerging economies, particularly fixed-income markets in local currencies have shown significant growth.