Expert Panel

Emerging-markets hard currency bonds have delivered positive returns for USD investors in every quarter of 2025. However, European-based investors faced negative returns in the first half of the year due to a stronger euro.

Artificial intelligence offers meaningful efficiency in withholding tax recovery, but expertise remains critical. Both elements can (and must) work together.

Equity markets in emerging countries extended their strong performance from the first six months of 2025 into the third quarter, led by heavyweight China, as well as Colombia, Egypt, Peru, Thailand, and South Africa.

Exceptional investment strategies are rare, as reflected in Morningstar’s qualitative fund ratings. Fewer than 6 percent of actively managed funds qualitatively assessed by Morningstar analysts in Europe achieve a High score on both the People and Process pillars, placing them in the highest conviction category.

Amundi and BNP Paribas pursue scale and expertise through mergers, but integration challenges create uncertainty over long-term benefits for investors.

The Belgian Constitutional Court has partially annulled the most recent reform of the Cayman tax, also known as the look-through tax. This creates opportunities for Belgian individuals who invest through the Luxembourg structures Sicav-SIF and Soparfi.

European insurers face stricter guidance on AI governance after EIOPA issued its landmark Opinion, with major implications for investment managers’ due diligence and compliance strategies, writes Dorothee Ciolino at Norton Rose Fulbright.

Eurozone corporate bonds delivered a return of 4.2 percent over the past twelve months (as measured by the Morningstar Eurozone Corporate Bond Index), while their US counterpart, the Morningstar US Corporate Bond Index, lost 1.8 percent in euro terms. The currency effect was crucial here.

Pimco and Bluebay take different but equally sophisticated approaches to Euro bond investing, with both managers making active use of derivatives to steer portfolios, manage risk, and seize relative value opportunities. Their strategies highlight how synthetic instruments, often seen as opaque, can serve as powerful tools in fixed income investing.

It has been an eventful year so far for emerging market debt. Investors have enjoyed strong returns in US dollars, with the JPM GBI-EM Global Diversified index gaining 11.4 percent through July. India’s weighting in the benchmark has increased, but not all fund managers are equally enthusiastic about the country’s prospects.