Lerbacher Runde. Once a year, bankers, asset managers and family officers meet at Schloss Bensberg to provide wealthy investors with inspiration and guidance. While the autumn of 2020 was still dominated by the pandemic and economic recovery, new questions are now being asked: What is happening with inflation? Are we witnessing the turnaround in interest rates? What would that mean for the price of real assets, which have experienced an unprecedented boom thanks to zero interest rates? And how should investors deal with climate change? The experts know the answer. "We are living in exciting times," says Kai Röhrl, Head of Wholesale, Robeco Germany, opening the twelfth Lerbach Roundtable: "The economy and capital markets have barely come...

Political opportunities and risks. The state is increasingly intervening in society and the economy. This is a trend that the Lerbacher Runde believes will continue. For capital investors, this will reshuffle the cards. "It feels like we see greater government intervention in the private economy after every crisis," notes Fabian Strube, Robeco. "The massive spending programs after the pandemic, the discussion about the stability pact in Europe, tax increases or the regulator's interventions in China are just a few examples." But there are also hard facts to support this sentiment. For example, Germany's government spending-to-GDP ratio climbed above 50 percent for the first time last year. "The first thing to note, however, is that...

Economy. After the economic slump in 2020 global economic momentum initially picked up rapidly in 2021. Now supply bottlenecks are putting the brakes on. How does the Lerbach Roundtable view the short- and medium-term prospects for the global economy? "The question of the economy is, of course, always at the beginning of every investment strategy session," outlines Kai Röhrl, Robeco, "because growth means more sales and higher profits. This should then also be reflected in the equity markets." Although the recovery has stalled somewhat recently due to material shortages, supply bottlenecks and a spike in Corona numbers, the Round remains confident looking ahead to 2022. In the U.S., they have real growth of 4.2 percent on the books, and...

Inflation. Prices are rising faster than they have in 30 years. Is this really just a temporary phenomenon? Or is the genie of inflation now out of the bottle? And above all: how will the central banks react? The Lerbacher Runde analyses. If the Lerbach Round is to define the question that will decide the investment trend in 2022, the answer is clear: Is the rise in inflation really just temporary, or will prices continue to rise and a real turnaround in interest rates occur? "After all, the current valuations in the equity and real estate markets are hinged on one variable alone - low interest rates," explains Lutz Welge, Bank Julius Baer. "First of all, we should not overestimate the current figures," classifies Thomas Neukirch, HQ...

Market Analysis. The prices of tangible assets - shares and real estate - have risen extremely sharply over the last ten years. Is this boom justified? Can it continue? Or will it be followed - as so often - by a slump? The Lerbacher Runde does the research. In retrospect, the last decade will go down in the history books as the decade in which investors became very wealthy more quickly than ever before. As the boom decade. As the era of asset price inflation. Some numbers: Over the past decade, the overall cost of living in Germany rose by about 15 percent and collectively agreed wages by 25 percent. At the same time, the MSCI World, which aggregates companies from industrialized countries, climbed 250 percent. That was also almost 15...