What do Donkeys, Jude Law, not being important and the 10×6 Female founders event (by Paperjam + Delano Business Club) have in common? 10 female founders had six minutes each to share their stories. Among them was Prisma’s CEO Carole Miltgen!

I can relate to the previous German chancellor, Mrs Merkel, who once said in an interview -I draw a distinction between those who fought all their life for women’s rights and people like me who merely had to find their way to contribute. My importance to women came automatically by simply being a woman and being powerful.- This is exactly how I feel. 

Carole Miltgen

Did you miss the event?

Carole Miltgen talked about her thoughts on company culture and creating a company of trust where everyone is their own entrepreneur. Don’t worry if you have missed it.

Watch her speech here.

When you found a company in 2006 and your client is Lehman Brothers, you have sleepless nights in 2008, worrying how to pay your team..

Carole Miltgen

Read the interview with Carole Miltgen: It is my job to create a culture of trust

Our CEO, Carole Miltgen, joined the 10×6 Female Founders event. 10 women had only six minutes to share their experience on entrepreneurship, founding companies and the challenges along the way.

What does Jude Law have to do with all of this? Listen to the Carole Miltgen’s talk at the 10×6 Female Founders event here.

Paperjam conducted an interview with the Prisma CEO:

What has fascinated you about your field and how has this passion been the catalyst for the creation of your company?

Carole Miltgen. – “I want to be the master of my destiny as I do despise any kind of dependence. After what felt like the end of my world, I didn’t know what direction to take, so I decided to go straight ahead, take my destiny in my own hands and work at my rhythm, creating a company that I would have liked to work for when I was young.

What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned during your entrepreneurial journey and how has it shaped your approach to professional challenges?

“Oh, there are so many. If I had to pick just one, I’d say it is consistency. Enthusiasm fluctuates – consistent actions accumulate! This is valid for all aspects in life, not only work life. Whether you want to learn the piano, win a sports competition or run a company. If you rely on your motivation, some days will simply be difficult. If, however, one consistently does a good job, at one’s best ability, one will be successful, because a bad day does not mean a bad life.

How would you describe your leadership style and how do you think it contributes to your company’s culture and success?

“ ‘Be the least important person in the company!’ I always considered it my job to create a culture of trust in which this is possible, and I’m happy to see that I have achieved this. My goal has always been to share all my knowledge and slowly let go of the day-to-day activities. I have provided a full toolbox to my team members, enabling them to be their own entrepreneur of their own project in a safe environment. This said, I will always have their back, as ‘being the least important person in the company’ does not mean dropping anyone in the thick of it, but rather trusting and appreciating their own way of handling their work. Mind you, if Prisma was a country, they could hold a coup against me and gain total power if they wanted to, LOL…”

Learn more:

Read the full Paperjam article

10×6 Female Founders

Do you use AI systems to generate machine translation?
Sometimes it’s a bit risky right? What could possibly go wrong?

• Lack of culture nuances
• Limited in technical and specialized domains
• Less precise in specific fields

We can assist with proofreading the translated documents as proofreading is the last step of editing before a document is published or used—your last chance to make sure your writing is as good as it can be.

And failing everything, we can translate your documents to make them look good and easy to understand.

Test us! Ask us about a quote.

Just another Manic Monday. Another week full of new document production and regulations in the financial world. Here are our tips for a successful start into the new week:

• Define your goals and to-dos for the week.
• Use Friday afternoons to prepare for Monday.
• Start the week with a Monday morning meditation.
• Make time for things you enjoy.
• Create a Monday Motivation playlist for your commute.

• List the things your are grateful for.
• Plan fun Monday evening activities to look forward for.
• Make room for little breaks.
• Use the Pomodoro technique to keep your focus.

Still feeling the Monday blues when looking at SFDR documents, Annual reports, Shareholder mailings or PRIIP KID? Contact Prisma, we guide you through the document jungle.

Buon giorno or Hei! Prisma translates financial documents from and into many languages. Here are some fun facts about Italian, Icelandic and Finnish.

We translate into Italian 

• Speakers worldwide: around 85 million people 
• The language evolved from Vulgar Latin. 
• It is an official language in Italy, San Marino, Vatican City and Switzerland. 
• The Italian speaking Swiss cantons are called: Ticino and Grisons. The largest Italian-speaking city outside of Italy is Lugano. 
• Standard Italian is based on Tuscan and the Florentine dialect. 
• The word “ciao” comes from the Venetian language. 

We translate into Icelandic 

Around 314,000 people speak the West Scandinavian language. 

• Faroese is the closest relative. 
• Icelanders regulate loanwords. New terms should be coined from existing Icelandic words. 
• Did you know that Icelandic speakers can read Old Norse easier than other Scandinavians?
• Have you ever seen the Northern Lights? In Icelandic, the term is: “Norðurljós”. 
• Jólabókaflóð (The Christmas Book Flood) – Following the release of many new books before December, books are a popular present on Christmas Eve. It only gets cosier when enjoying the books with hot chocolate during cold winter nights.  

þetta reddast

Live by the Icelandic motto “it will all work out okay”. 

We translate into Finnish 

• Finnish is a Uralic language in the Finnic family. 
• Helsinki’s nickname is Stadi, from the Swedish word for city. 
• Sauna – a Finnish term – is used in many other languages. 
• It is considered as a Level III language, meaning Native English speakers will have a tough time learning the language. 

J.R.R. Tolkien was fascinated by Finnish and described it: “like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before.” The language even influenced his fictional languages. 

Financial translation at Prisma

Are you looking for a financial translation into Italian, Icelandic, Finnish and many other languages? We work with experiences financial translators and offer all Western European, most Asian and Middle Eastern languages. Contact us at https://www.prisma.lu/contact/ 

Did you know that we translate into Japanese? Japan or 日本 (Nihon) also known as the country of the rising sun. The island nation is home to a wonderful language and vibrant culture.

Here are some facts that you might not know about Japanese:

• Speakers worldwide: 125 million
• Descended from: Proto-Japonic
• Three writing systems are used
• The language reflects the hierarchical nature of the society in Japan
• Kawaii means the concept of cuteness – and kawaii (cute) handwriting exists

• Although the word ‘Bon-sai’ is Japanese, the art it describes originated in the Chinese empire
• The language uses Chinese characters, however the language isn’t based on Chinese
• There are no articles or plurals
• It is a very fast language
• Thank you means: Arigatō

Translation services at Prisma

At Prisma, you have a dedicated project manager that guides you in every translation project. Are you looking for advice? Don’t hesitate to ask.

We translate into many languages worldwide with experienced financial translators and proof-checkers. A quality check ensures that your high expectations are met. Are you looking for a financial translation into Japanese or other languages? Contact us

… many languages worldwide. Your financial translation is handled by a dedicated Prisma Project Manager.

French

Speakers worldwide: approx. 76 Million

Language family: Indo-European.

French is a romance language.

Descended from: Colloquial Latin

The language is spoken in 29 countries.

How to say “Nice to meet you”: Enchanté de vous rencontrer

Swedish

Speakers worldwide: approx. 10 Million

Language family: Indo-European.

Swedish is a North-Germanic language.

Descended from: Old Norse

It is spoken in Sweden and in parts of Finland

How to say “Hello”: hallå or hej

Japanese

Speakers worldwide: 125 million

Japanese uses three writing systems

Descended from: Proto-Japonic

The language reflects the hierarchical nature of Japanese society

Are you looking for a financial translation into French and many other languages? Contact us!

2022 will bring many changes to our industry and the related fund documentation.

We are always happy to assist you in all challenges ahead. In order to provide the best possible service to you, it would be helpful for us if you could complete our survey:

If you had 3 wishes that would make your life easier when it comes to ESG/SFDR, what would these be? (multiple answers possible)

• Full support to produce your fund documentation
• Automating updates to reduce delivery times
• Automating updates to improve consistency
• Coordination & communication support between different teams

What are your biggest challenges? (multiple answers possible)

• Filing deadlines
• Volume of updates
• Managing multiple updates
• Keeping updates consistent (across various documents)
• Internal communication between teams/ involved parties
• Translation & integration of updated fund documentation
• Layout

For which documents would you need assistance? (multiple answers possible)

• Prospectus
• Annual and semi-annual reports
• UCITS KIIDs
• PRIIP KIDs
• Factsheets
• Website updates
• Regulatory forms
• Shareholder mailings
• Marketing and sales documents (presentations, brochures, etc. …)

Tell us more about your SFDR requirements in the comments. If you would like you can also fill out our survey here; and send it to prisma(at)prisma.lu. We thank you for your time!

Introduction

The EU has introduced the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) in 2019,appliying to financial market participants (FMP), such as asset managers, banks, financial advisors. The first level has come into effect on 10 March 2021 and will continue rolling out deadlines for disclosures that are required by FMPs. This regulation is focused within Europe but is being adopted by other countries around the globe. Its aim is to assist European commitments on climate control and Sustainability objectives,  encouraging investors to chase greener opportunities which  do no harm to the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance).

SFDR Purpose

The purpose of the SFDR is to reorientate FMPs capital towards more sustainable investments. It’s also designed to ensure that all disclosures are transparent, easy to understand and clearly show the sustainability characteristics of their products, by doing this they can also counter greenwashing.

Greenwashing is the process of providing misleading information on how sustainably friendly a company’s products are. Often rebranding or repackaging, saying recycled materials are used, exaggerating this fact when only 5% of their material may be recycled would be some examples of green washing. With the SFDR requiring a paper trail of sources and evidence, they hope to eliminate this misleading information.

SFDR Scope Impacted Funds / Companies

The SFDR applies to FMPs, these are defined as investment firms such as asset managers. The financial products they offer include mutual funds, insurance-based investment products, private pensions among others..

SFDR is applicable to Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), portfolio managed services or Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) funds which are subject to be classified as article 6, 8 or 9 products to clearly show how sustainable a fund is.

• Article 6
  • Covers funds which do not have any sustainable investments and could involve stocks excluded by the ESG.
• Article 8 (Light Green)
  • Covers products that promote ‘E’ or ‘S’ whether or not the investment is made out of ESG components, or the product was not made to have an impact on the environment or society.
• Article 9 (Dark Green)
  • The objective is to specifically impact ‘E’, ‘S’ or ‘G’, and the majority of the components are usually ESG investments.

What do you need to do? Timeline and Documents to be updated

• 10 March 2021
  • (Level 1) SFDR comes into effect, requiring FMPs to disclose SFDR related information at an entity level (i.e, if they comply or explain why they don’t).
• 1 January 2022
  • The first Taxonomy Alignment (Level 1) comes into effect, requiring additional disclosures on climate change. The Taxonomy Alignment is a guiding force to assist SFDR in identifying ‘green’ products.
• 1 January 2023
  • Regulator Technical Standards Final Draft (Level 2) comes into effect. The Regulatory Technical Standard is a guidebook on how to comply with SFDR, defining terms and deadlines for all those it applies to.
  • Second Reference Period (Level 2) – Second Taxonomy Alignment comes into effect, requiring additional disclosures on environmental funds. PAI disclosures at entity level and annual reporting on PAI to begin.
• 30 June 2023
  • Firms that consider PAI must publish annual PAI statements (Level 2) on First Reference Period by 30 June each year on the most recent reference period.

Taxonomy Regulation

The Taxonomy Regulation is a helping force assisting the SFDR in identifying ‘green’ products. It requires additional information on the objectives set out in the SFDR. The first two objectives lie under the climate category, climate change mitigation and climate change adaption. These are considered our first Taxonomy Alignment which is due the 1 of January 2022. We also have the following four objectives:

• the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources;

• the transition to a circular economy;

• pollution prevention and control;

• the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

These are considered our Second Taxonomy alignment which is due 1 January 2023. During the Taxonomy Alignments, all taxonomy related disclosures will need to be updated with this additional information.

ESG and Sustainable Finance; and the role of Europe

Europe has a large role to play here, becoming the world leader in sustainable investments and working toward a greener more sustainable future. We can already see other countries adopting the European SFDR into their strategies or using the EU SFDR as basis for their national legal frameworks such as the UK.

Non-EU investment firms are also in scope of SFDR if they have any products that are marketed in the EU, meaning non-EU firms will be required to make disclosures at the same level.

Pitfalls, things to look out for

SFDR has several pitfalls though, which we should all look out for, given that it’s still in the very early days of development and adoption. Without an industry standard of rating/scoring, inconsistency is a common issue throughout FMPs. A company can have two entirely different ESG ratings from two data providers, as currently this is down to the ESG focus of the one rating.

Data gathering is another issue, putting aside the large quantities and inconsistent data, some investee companies are not yet required to disclose certain ESG related data until later dates, although others are required to release disclosures on this data very soon which leaves a data gap.

As SFDR is still a very early life stage, one can expect through experience and learning, once a higher level of maturity has been reached, that these pitfalls will become non-issues within the next few years.

What can Prisma do

At Prisma, we can help produce and update your documentation in a professional typeset layout, as well as translating these documents into all Western, European and Asian languages.

Worried about distribution of this information across the many platforms? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered there, too. We offer physical and digital mailing distribution and can also create websites to display your disclosures. Find out how we can help today at https://www.prisma.lu/our-services/ or contact us at https://www.prisma.lu/contact/.

Celebrate 15 years of Prisma Luxembourg S.A and get to know more about Prisma with part 2 of our 15 facts series.

Fact #8

If we would visit each client around the globe it would take us 36,956.57 km to do so. Our furthest client away is in Singapore (10,000km).

Fact #9!

Starting in 2006 with our very first prospectus production, we have now produced more than 2,340 for many different clients. Our aim is to always deliver a top-quality service in a reasonable time.

Fact#10

Giving is not just about making a donation, but rather about making a difference. We’ve donated over 22,500 EUR and have worked closely with 17 different charities over the years. We support great causes and give back where and when we can.

Fact #11!

From all walks of life, from all the languages we speak, sometimes it’s hard to communicate. Prisma has translated over 7,800 documents to help you communicate better. Find out more today at www.prisma.lu or simply call us and talk to us about your needs.

Fact #12!

Our biggest report has over 1,000 pages (1,200 in the meantime…).

The Prisma project managers guide you through the projects, coordinate any required translations, keep track of deadlines and keep you updated at all times.

Do you have a large document that we could you help you with? Check out www.prisma.lu/our-services to see our full service overview.

Fact#13

In our office we speak on average an amazing 4.3 languages per person. How many languages do you speak?

Parla inglese? Oder deutsch? Lëtzebuergesch? Ou peut-être français? Nederlands? We’d love hearing from you.

Fact #14

For 7 years, we are labelled a SuperDrecksKëscht. At Prisma, we want to do our part in preserving the environment. We recycle, use fair trade products and green energy in the office. We reduce our waste to a minimum and only print on paper when it’s really needed. Every little step helps.

Are you still looking for a partner to implement new ESG and SFDR updates? Our team is only an email away.

Fact #15!

To end our 15 Facts about Prisma, we’ve decided on something that is important to us: our relationship with our clients.

Our very first client, over 15 years, is still our client today.

We are grateful for each one of our clients, who we all have a healthy business relationship, as well as a friendship with.

What a ride it has been! We are ready for the next 15 years with you. Thank you for your trust in us.

Find fact 1 to 7 in part 1!