INRAPAn aerial view of the Gagnerie du Tertre excavation site in Savenay More than a century after Allied forces signed an armistice marking an end to World War I French archaeologists have unearthed an American military hospital from the war the site revealed a host of items left behind by soldiers who stayed there The discovery was announced in a press release from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) These sprawling hospital complexes often functioned as virtual cities was found in the town of Savenay in northwestern France and serves as a testament to the remarkable infrastructure of the American military during the First World War When the United States entered World War I in April 1917 a plan was needed to establish the necessary infrastructure for American troops to land in Europe military deployed the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) the AEF set about building the infrastructure required for American deployment INRAPArchaeologists excavating the Savenay site the AEF wanted to ensure the military would have access to proper medical care to treat wounded soldiers the AEF relied heavily on French hospitals to treat the wounded but they quickly began to develop their own hospitals creating a chain of care from the battlefield directly to military landing zones The AEF constructed several hundred hospital structures across France connected by ambulances and medical trains While some of these were nothing more than simple field hospitals others were vast centers capable of accommodating up to 25,000 patients Given that more than 2 million “sammies” were deployed in France to fight in the war it makes sense that such massive hospital compounds were established Gagnerie du Tertre was one such hospital complex spreading across more than seven acres and divided into two distinct sectors The complex was surrounded by palisades — fencing used to defend the hospital — and also contained more than 20 dump pits dug into the ground INRAPCombs belonging to soldiers who lived at the hospital complex While most of the structures no longer stand excavations revealed that that site contained around 20 barracks comprising housing Researchers said most of the dump pits were filled with construction waste but there were a number of other items found within that paint a picture of daily life at the compound Several objects also pointed to the presence of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war INRAPButtons that belonged to American soldiers’ uniforms While the complexes were primarily used for medical purposes they also served as homes for American troops stationed in France and other tools for surgery found at the site there were also several personal items such as combs To gain a better understanding of what INRAP researchers called “this American time” in French history a group of Saint-François of Assisi high school students worked alongside archaeologists to excavate the site After reading about the discovery of this American military hospital from World War I, learn all about World War I’s trench warfare. Then, read about the Christmas Truce of 1914 that briefly put World War I on hold Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Thomas Klein has over 20 years of experience in the grand duchy’s banking sector has been promoted to CEO of Quintet Luxembourg Michael Savenay will take over the reins of Merck Finck who joined Quintet Private Bank in Luxembourg two years ago and heads its European asset servicing business will take over the management of Merck Finck Savenay previously held the position of head of sales before being appointed CEO of Quintet Luxembourg in March 2021 who has more than 20 years of experience in the grand duchy will also continue to hold the position of group head of asset servicing he leads a team responsible for developing the bank’s portfolio of institutional and private clients--including family offices corporates and private equity firms--requiring custody and execution services Klein studied at the Frankfurt School of Finance and the University of Trier he held the position of head of service delivery and was a member of the executive business committee at UBS Luxembourg he was chief risk officer at UBS Luxembourg with responsibilities spanning all European branches He worked at UBS from 2011 until his departure He started his career as a private banker at Deutsche Bank before moving into compliance at Hauck & Aufhäuser Originally published in French by and translated for Delano Klein, who joined Quintet Private Bank in Luxembourg two years ago and heads its Europe-wide Asset Servicing business, will lead some 300 staff, including 50 client advisors based in the Grand Duchy. Klein succeeds Michael Savenay, who will take over the leadership of Merck Finck, Quintet’s German branch, where he served as Head of Sales, Products & Services prior to being appointed CEO of Quintet Luxembourg in March 2021. People movesClifford Chance appoints nine senior associates in LuxembourgThe global law firm, which has been established in Luxembourg since 2000, now has close to 200 staff in the Grand Duchy People movesSimmons & Simmons appoints new Luxembourg country head Thierry Somma took office on 1 May, succeeding Louis-Maël Cogis People movesFrançoise Schlink named Post Group chairLuxembourg’s cabinet has formally approved Françoise Schlink’s nomination as chair of Post Group People movesLinklaters appoints new partner and associates Range of promotions announced effective 1 May Hëllef um TerrainFormer ombudsman Claudia Monti named chair of Caritas successor HUTOrganisation gets well-known permanent chair after turbulent start People movesOlivier Guillon named CEO of Luxembourg Institute of Science and TechnologyThe professor will take on his role 1 September 2025 People MovesClifford Chance appoints five counsel in LuxembourgThe appointments span law firm’s global financial markets and investment funds practices in the Grand Duchy People MovesPaul Heuschling named president of Luxembourg’s young scientist foundation Heuschling replaces Carlo Hansen as head of the Fondation Jeunes Scientifiques Luxembourg Advertiser contentTreat yourself to a stress-free holidayDreaming of a worry-free trip What if the secret to a smooth getaway was simply good preparation and the right protection Advertiser contentReal estate: Why should you take advantage of the start of 2025 to begin your real estate project?The main things we remember about the housing sector over the past 12 months are the rise in interest rates and the fall in property prices Advertiser contentProperty: I've decided to invest!The various forms of government support for investment Advertiser contentThe Luxembourg Times BusinessRun is happening again on 18th September!On Thursday 18th September with the starting gun of the 11th Luxembourg Times BusinessRun fired at the Coque at 7 pm Share this with instagramShare this with facebookShare this with linkedinSections Michael Savenay will be in charge of some 300 personnel.Photo: Quintet  The Luxembourg division of private banking group Quintet Private Bank will have a new CEO as of 1 March Michael Savenay first joined the group in Luxembourg in 2014 as the head of strategic and commercial project management After rising to a senior management role in that department Savenay then moved to the German branch of the group where he has been country CEO since December last year who led both the grand duchy branch and the new developments in the Nordic countries has now moved back to Luxembourg as CEO in charge of some 300 personnel He will also join the Quintet Europe management committee which brings together all the group’s subsidiaries in Europe Savenay began his career as a branch manager of Bacob Bank and then joined Belgian group Belfius (when it was still known as Dexia) He has a BA in accounting and a master’s in marketing of financial services When he left the Belgian government-controlled banking group to join Quintet in 2014 he was director of sales and services investment strategy worldSingapore leads Asia in Pisa test while Europe sees 'worrying' decline in gradesSchoolchildren work in a classroom on the first day of the new school year after summer break in Savenay PHOTO: Reuters filePUBLISHED ONDecember 06 2023 1:46 AMPARIS — Teenagers' mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and Covid school closures are only partly to be blamed the OECD said on Tuesday (Dec 5) in its latest survey of global learning standards The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said it had seen some of the steepest drops in performance since 2000 when it began its usually triennial tests of 15-year-olds reading Nearly 700,000 youths took the two-hour test last year in the OECD's 38 mostly developed country members and 44-non members for the latest study closely watched by policymakers as the largest international comparison of education performance Compared to when the tests were last conducted in 2018 reading performance fell by 10 points on average in OECD countries a loss equivalent to three-quarters of a year's worth of learning While more than half of the 81 countries surveyed saw declines Norway and Poland saw particularly sharp drops in mathematics scores one out of four 15-year-olds tested as a low performer in maths which means they could not use basic algorithms or interpret simple texts "Covid probably played some role but I would not overrate it," OECD director of education Andreas Schleicher told a news conference "There are underlying structural factors and they are much more likely to be permanent features of our education systems that policymakers should really take seriously." Countries that provided extra teacher support during Covid school closures scored better and results were generally better in places where easy teacher access for special help was high Poorer results tended to be associated with higher rates of mobile phone use for leisure and where schools reported teacher shortages The OECD said the decline was not inevitable where students scored the highest in maths with results that suggested they were on average three to five years ahead of their OECD peers Japan and South Korea also outperformed in maths and science and was all the more notable in Ireland and Japan because their spending per student was no higher than the OECD average ALSO READ: NUS maintains, NTU rises in latest global university ranking said in an interview that his mission is to ensure the success of the bank’s long-term growth strategy Photographer: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne  Savenay has worked in the banking industry for 27 years sought to combine commercial and managerial functions and I also like taking on more strategic missions such as change management All of those since the first day I started working in a bank I actually started as director of a small Bacob Bank branch in Belgium.” Savenay ended up as a regional director at Bacob Bank then Belfius where he reached the position of director of sales and investment strategy services “It was when I was at Dexia that I started to be interested in the Luxembourg market I had many contacts with the people at [Banque Internationale à Luxembourg] which at that time was also part of the Dexia group It has always been a dream of mine to work in Luxembourg to have an international career.” In 2014 Savenay took the plunge who was vice president and COO of [the private bank KBL] asked me to manage all the commercial projects of the group I arrived as head of strategic and commercial project management with responsibility for transforming the bank’s commercial policy.” In 2017 his career took a detour across the Moselle Responsible for strategic and commercial transformation in Germany from January 2017 he took over as head of Merck Finck Privatbankiers the date of his appointment as head of Quintet Luxembourg His mission in this role is to ensure that the long-term growth strategy launched in 2019 runs smoothly It is a strategy which combines growth in the different markets where the bank is present--that is to say in addition to the grand duchy Switzerland and Nordic countries--and Luxembourg’s central role as a common platform from which various services are delivered in both wealth management and asset services It’s up to me to ensure that Luxembourg is up to the task of delivering these services.” Growth is also now sought by the Quintet group in the Nordic countries a region that many now consider to be a new El Dorado “This is a huge field of opportunity for us There are a lot of entrepreneurs and capital out there who are very interested in using the skills found in Luxembourg.” To capitalise on this rising tide Quintet opened a branch in Copenhagen last October “This is a really important market for us that we intend to invest a lot in Which does not mean that we are going to neglect the other markets They are all important to us and we will continue to invest in them in the same way.” Savenay says the network is the strength of the group “the differentiating element in the face of competition” whether it comes from players in private banking or other sectors currently undergoing strong development such as multi-family offices or private equity firms “We are a network bank with cross-border skills and local contacts We have real expertise in our local markets that we can put to the service of our customers The covid crisis has complicated daily tasks at the bank But that didn’t stop them from moving forward We recruited 12 new sales representatives in Luxembourg who were able to attract 600 new customers in one year “We went through the crisis like all the other banks but we were able to deal with it in a very effective way We have always put the health and wellbeing of our employees and customers at the top of our priorities work from home and continue to serve our clients and meet their expectations The volume and intensity of the contacts were higher than before Taking the time to listen to them and reassure them is the role of the private banker Savenay thinks that “we are now entering a new phase: we have to start preparing for a return to normal People are tired of not having physical contact of being at home and of seeing work and private life merging into one.” Preparing for the shift requires “taking into account the health and wellbeing of our customers and our employees” as well as new investments in digitalisation those who insisted on having only physical contact”--learned to use digital tools to maintain contact “Clients who visited us several times a year will now want to limit these trips This is a positive development to be credited to covid.” But this will create an unexpected challenge for private bankers: that of preserving the personal links which are essential to forge bonds of trust between the client and the banker The profession of private banker is not a profession that can be fully digitised.” Finding the right balance between digital and physical will be a real challenge for the months and years to come Michael Savenay was named CEO of Quintet Luxembourg in February 2021 What does the future hold for the grand duchy’s private banking sector who’s been with Luxembourg-headquartered Quintet since 2014 says technology will play an ever larger role Aaron Grunwald: Where do you see Luxembourg’s private banking sector three to five years from now Michael Savenay: I think there’s a bright future for private banking is a USP [unique selling point] in the market the fact that you’re a banker from Luxembourg already is a door opener trust is one of the most important elements you need contact and you need human contact we see a shift in clients from broader affluent servicing to the focus in the next five years being more ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth Because the cost to serve an affluent model is becoming too high for the bank So you really have to focus your competences your specialists towards the ultra-high segment.. that doesn’t mean that affluent clients are not welcome anymore at private banks but I think they will be served in another way That doesn’t mean that they will have less good servicing or performance but they won’t necessarily get the same kind of human touch do you think the same number of people will be working in the Luxem­bourg private banking sector in a few years I think robotisation has an impact on back-office staffing but I can’t give you any insights from my perspective [if that’s] a 20% cut with the pressure on margins in the last five years the investments they have to do for regulations and for digitalisation I think that each bank went through a transformation over the last years So I don’t think there’s fat on the bone there I think everybody is already staffed in a very efficient way They’re more price sensitive than they used to be I don’t think there will be a margin uplift in the coming years And you think the sector here in Luxembourg is prepared for that we just have to deliver the right service for the right price I think that’s the main challenge for the future where you also can differentiate yourself from competitors doing something 10 basis points cheaper than another bank is not an advantage it’s not a criterion for wealthy people to change bank It’s more like the kind of service you provide for the price you charge them That’s where the commercial fighting takes place Be among the first to read interviews and features in the magazine by today.