The negative fund-flows trend in Europe continued in May. As a consequence, May was the thirteenth month in a row long-term mutual funds posted net outflows after 16 consecutive months of net inflows. Taking the current interest rate environment into account, it was surprising that bond funds (+€5.0 bn) were once again the best-selling asset type in the segment of long-term mutual funds, followed by real estate funds (+€1.0 bn) and commodity funds (+€0.3 bn). All other asset types faced outflows: equity funds (-€22.0 bn), alternative UCITS funds (-€5.7 bn), mixed-asset funds (-€5.2 bn), and “other” funds (-€0.4 bn). These

Rumor has it that Deutsche Bank may want to offload its asset management unit DWS in case of a possible takeover of its local rival Commerzbank. The thinking is that Deutsche Bank may need the cash from selling its asset management arm to finance the Commerzbank deal. The rumors have led large European asset managers including Allianz Global Investors, Amundi and UBS to announce their interest in DWS. Since we witnessed a lot activity with regard to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the European asset management industry over the past few years, the interest in DWS may not come as

A topic I hear discussed frequently is securities lending as a modern management technique to increase returns of mutual funds and ETFs. Even though I see some benefits for the markets in general and investors in specific, I think that securities lending is—under the current regulation regime—a management technique that should not be used for funds sold to retail investors. This opinion may lead to some raised eyebrows from industry participants who don’t see a risk for investors coming from securities lending. They would say that lending transactions are normally over-collateralized, and in many cases the possible shortfall risk is