Asset Managers

In the United Kingdom, the National Employment Savings Trust, known as Nest, is the country’s leading  defined contribution workplace pension scheme. It was set up to facilitate automatic enrolment as part of the government’s workplace pension reforms under the Pensions Act 2008. It has 11 million members with 24 billion pounds in assets under management.

“We are really strong advocates of stewardship,” said Nest CEO Helen Dean (pictured), speaking at a recent World Pensions Council conference in Paris.

When it comes to ESG, those who confine themselves to the paper reality may believe that asset managers are becoming increasingly similar. Those who look deeper however see a different picture: European asset managers not only remain in the lead, but are also converting their paper promises into actual ESG integration. 

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which officially took ownership of NN Investment Partners at the beginning of this year, on Wednesday announced a number of changes at the top of the Dutch-based asset manager. Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijzen, NN IP’s current chief investment officer, has been appointed global head of sustainability for public investing.

Germany and France are Oddo BHF Asset Management’s core markets, but the asset manager now wants to expand further into Belgium and Luxembourg. In Belgium, this is done mainly through wholesale and through contacts with brokers. And private equity is democratising.

Semiconductors everywhere you look, the end of cash, the development of digital entertainment utilities and technology-driven warp speed healthcare innovation will be some of the trends, already visible today, that will define our lives in 2030, according to a long-term lookahead presentation by Capital Group. The overall message in was that yes, the world has changed, but there will still be plenty of opportunity, much of it related to technological development.

Nearly two-thirds of investors in Europe are concerned about greenwashing, even though EU regulation has been in place for more than a year, a new survey released on Thursday showed. More than half of all European investors remain very concerned about the lack of transparency and reported data.

The increasingly stringent EU regime for green finance was discussed in Paris on Wednesday at the World Pensions Council conference. Pension fund APG believes that the EU approach has introduced “commercial incentives to go dark green”, exposing the industry to greenwashing. “I am not convinced that all the rules and regulations get the industry to do the right thing,” said Gert Dijkstra, senior managing director at APG.

US asset manager Columbia Threadneedle on Monday said it has completed the rebranding of the European activities of BMO Global Asset Management, bringing its products and savings plans together under a single brand.

Although its overall market share contracted slightly, Luxembourg last year held on to its number one spot among Europe’s top 10 investment hubs for both Ucits and Alternative Investment Funds, with a market share of 26.8 percent, compared to 27 percent that was reported for the previous year, according to the latest annual reported released by the Association for the Luxembourg Fund Industry, or Alfi. Ireland’s share of the pie increased to 18.6 percent last year from 18 percent reported for 2020. 

Pascal Blanqué, Chairman of the Amundi Institute and former Chief Investment Officer at Amundi, on Thursday said he believes that market thinking behind widening spreads among eurozone government bond yields poses a risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.