State Street wants to be ‘Amazon of asset servicing’
Outsourcing middle office activities such as processing transactions made by asset managers’ front offices is the biggest growth market in the asset servicing business, according to State Street’s Dick Taggart. ‘We want to become the Amazon of asset management outsourcing’, he told Investment Officer.
‘Japan value rally is already over’
Optimism about an imminent end to the coronavirus lockdowns and the announcement of substantial financial support packages has boosted value stocks worldwide, and Japan has been no exception. But in the land of the rising sun, the value rally already seems to have run out of steam. Richard Kaye, manager of the Comgest Growth Japan fund, knows why.
‘21% of European open-ended funds promote sustainability'
More than a fifth of European Ucits funds claim to be compatible with Article 8 or 9 of the new European Sustainability Regulation SFDR in their prospectus. ‘Interpretation of the definitions varies greatly, with some managers taking a much looser approach than others,’ notes head of sustainability research at Morningstar Hortense Bioy in conversation with Investment Officer.
‘Biden support package to benefit small caps'
US stocks are historically expensive. But this applies in particular to large caps. Small caps are still cheap, despite a strong price rally in the past six months. ‘On average, the companies in our portfolio trade at around 11 times earnings,’ says Blake Harper, one of the managers of the Orchard US Small Cap Value Fund.
‘Asia: growth shifts from big tech to niche players'
Growth in the Asian stock market no longer comes from big tech companies. The best growth opportunities now lie in young, smaller technology companies and in the rapidly emerging healthcare sector, says Albert Kwok, manager of the PGIM Jennison Emerging Markets Equity Fund.
New Amundi fund targets tomorrow's ESG leaders
The Amundi European Equities ESG Improvers Fund differs from other ESG funds in the sense that it does not necessarily invest in ‘expensive’ ESG leaders. ‘We try to identify the ESG leaders of tomorrow that have only relatively recently started to make progress on ESG’, says lead portfolio manager Suzanne Keane.
Pet fund benefits from ‘intersection of megatrends’
Pets are not just fun to have around, they are also an excellent investment. ‘The pet economy is growing faster than the economy as a whole every year, because it benefits from a number of megatrends that are converging,’ according to Andreas Fruschki, manager of the Allianz Pet and Animal Wellbeing fund.
‘ESG exclusion policy difficult to implement at fund level’
More than a year after NN IP saw half of its emerging market debt (EMD) team leave due to a conflict around the firm’s ESG strategy, the team is back at full strength. ESG integration has been the main priority of NN IP’s new head of EMD Marcin Adamczyk.
‘Post-Brexit M&A could boost UK equities’
The UK equity market has been underperforming ever since the Brexit year of 2016. Now that Brexit is finally behind us, is this the moment for the asset class to shine again?
Alger Small Cap Focus: the secret behind its success
Amy Zhang has been one of America’s best-performing fund managers for quite some years now. What’s the secret behind the success of the manager of the Alger Small Cap Focus Fund? ‘Most of my peers sell too early, which is the biggest single cause of underperformance. We let our winners run as long as we believe there is still a significant and long runway for growth,’ says Zhang.