Asset Managers

With their stable income and preference for defensive stocks, conservative dividend strategies can be seen as an alternative to government bonds at times of stock market uncertainty. Are they really? Yes, says fund manager Thomas Schüssler of the well-known DWS Top Dividende. But it is the equity markets that are currently driving the inflow.

The global ETF industry attracted some 76.4 billion dollars (67.2 billion euro) in net inflows in January, down from 84.38 billion dollars the same month a year earlier, according to ETFGI, a London-based research and consultancy firm.

Assets invested in the global industry for ETFs - Exchange Traded Funds - decreased by 3.9 percent to 9.9 billion dollars, down from a record 10.3 billion in December as a result of declining markets.

Amundi, Europe’s biggest asset manager, on Wednesday said that it has created the Amundi Institute as a new division that will help investors better determine their asset allocation and help them construct their portfolios in an increasingly complex and changing world.

Amundi’s Global Head of Research Monica Defend (pictured) will serve as head of Amundi Institute. Pascal Blanqué has been appointed President of the institute and will oversee the new business line. 

San Lie is to succeed Bas-Jan Blom as Chairman of the Management Board of ASN Impact Investors, the asset management arm of Dutch retail bank ASN. Lie has been head of portfolio management of the asset manager, which has approximately 4.7 billion euro under management, since autumn 2019. “We have formulated ambitious targets for 2030. The central question now is how we are going to get there,” says Lie.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is stepping up its use of artificial intelligence in order to identify companies that provide solutions in the fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity. The US asset manager wants to use AI to find between 50 and 100 companies in which investors can invest through its climate solutions fund.

Record levels of funds invested into private asset strategies has led to the phenomenon of “too much dry powder” in which new investments fuel higher entry valuations for the slower-growing number of underlying investment opportunities. Nils Rode, Schroders Capital’s Chief Investment Officer, explained that avoiding this involves locating successful investments, those that benefit from a “complexity premium”, as private assets move into a new phase.

Queen Máxima of the Netherlands has called on European financial supervisors to review financial services for their health impact and urged the banking, payments and investment industries to do more to make sure that their clients make well-informed decisions.

It is a well-known fact: supertankers do not change their course easily. But once the decision is made on the bridge, the change of course is pushed with significant force and mass. Take BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. It lagged behind in making its policies more sustainable, but now, according to a letter, is offering its clients a veritable ‘one stop shop’.

The NATO-Russia dispute over Ukraine is fought on many boards at once. In addition to the threat of a ground war, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks are deployed. The financial sector is particularly vulnerable. Attacks on financial service providers have increased sharply during the last two years. Asset managers are far more vulnerable than they often realise.

Net sales of investment funds in Europe were at their lowest in November - apart from bonds - as investors worried about the new Covid-19 Omicron variant while awaiting reactions by the world’s central banks to rising inflation, the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) said on Monday.