Asset Managers

European regulator Esma is advocating a revision of research rules, expected to take effect next year. Allowing research and trade execution to be paid for jointly again could create new opportunities for smallcap coverage.

Assets managed through discretionary mandates have expanded more slowly in Europa over the past ten years than assets held in investment funds. That is the conclusion of Efama, the European fund industry association, in its latest sector review.

Many fund houses mark Liberation Day—the day president Trump announced sharply higher US trade tariffs—as the standout moment of 2025, according to the Investment Officer Outlook Survey 2026. But what surprised asset managers even more was how quickly markets carried on in the months that followed, as if nothing had happened.

In 2020, VanEck chose Liechtenstein to lay the foundation for its first crypto investments. Since then, the crypto team has expanded significantly. According to VanEck, this is a preview of what the future of fund management may look like.

Fund house Amundi presented its strategic three-year plan on Tuesday. It includes a new business line focused on active ETFs and white-label ETFs.

Anna Rosenberg of Amundi Investment Institute says the same forces that once drove nuclear and space spending now fuel an expensive, open-ended struggle for technological supremacy.

Germany should move its trillions of euros in savings out of banks and put them to work for its Mittelstand through private markets. That was the message from Philipp Hildebrand, vice chairman of Blackrock’s Global Executive Committee, on Thursday during the presentation of a report on the European private markets sector.

EFAMA’s Tanguy van de Werve says securitisation can help reconnect investors with the real economy, if Brussels can manage to deliver clarity, proportionate rules, and trust.

Two major European cross-border asset management relationships are losing momentum, with Italian financial groups reassessing their reliance on French partners.

Triodos Investment Management is betting that nature-based solutions, still a niche segment, will mature into a full-fledged asset class within the next decade.