Despite the market turbulence caused by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus and the following COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdowns of economies around the globe, the year 2020 seems to be a successful year for the European fund industry. Even as the final numbers are not accounted yet, it looks like 2020 will be the year with the second highest overall inflows into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Europe (€449.69 bn as of November 30, 2020). That said, not all fund promoters in Europe might agree with this view, as the year showed strong fund flow trends which didn’t

Engagement is seen as one of the keys for successfully implementing and executing an ESG strategy within a portfolio. This is because engagement enables the portfolio manager to get in contact with the senior management of a company and to give them and their investors a voice via voting at shareholder meetings. With regard to this, ETFs are often criticised as failing at these important tasks since they are passive instruments which follow an index and allocate their capital among all constituents of a benchmark index, regardless of their ESG profiles. All the while, they can’t divest from a company

Larry Fink is opening a new front in the passive investment war on fund management. His firm, BlackRock, will sell exchange-traded funds using its own customized fixed-income indexes – and slash fees. It’s a formula the money manager with $5.4 trillion of assets has used in equities to eat stock pickers’ lunch. For an industry with little growth, the casualties of this latest assault may be widespread. Low cost and ample liquidity have made ETFs wildly popular for everyone from retail investors to hedge funds. Most of the action has been in equities, though. They represent nearly 80 percent of

In early June 2017, Lipper’s Jake Moeller considered idea generation in the current low yield environment with a panel of Kames Capital’s investment managers. The panel included: Stephen Jones, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed equity, Multi-Asset and Property Philip Haworth, Deputy Head of Equities, Phil Milburn, Head of Investment strategy, Fixed Income David Wise, Property Investment Director Jake and the panel discussed: Challenges in the current macro environment and how geopolitical events are effecting investments Where value can be found in equities and what investors should avoid The outlook for UK commercial property post Brexit How Fixed Income investing has developed