active management

As the shift towards passive investing continues to reshape the asset management industry, active managers are exploring new strategies and product formats to maintain their edge. In an interview, Joseph Pinto, CEO of M&G Investments, outlined how the UK-based firm is adapting to the changing landscape.

Investors seeking to achieve real change through their impact investment will find that the passive approach isn’t as effective as an active one, explained John William Olsen (photo), fund manager of the M&G (Lux) Positive Impact fund and the Global Sustain Paris Aligned Fund.

Fund managers are beefing up their exchange-traded fund (ETF) ranges, to judge from a recent flurry of product launches. Luxembourg’s fund industry faces a dual threat: these ETFs launched in Ireland and are taking market share from traditional Ucits mutual funds, its core product.

Both Paris-based AXA Investment Management and Boston-based Fidelity Investments have recently launched products offering active management and research at a lower cost.

One of my first lessons in finance was that you cannot consistently outperform the market. When it does occur, it is the result of luck rather than skill. You are better off investing in passively managed funds than those actively run by gurus and clairvoyants.

“Active management is a sham — no wonder my returns are suspect,” writes Stuart Kirk, FT columnist and former portfolio manager, in his latest attack on active management. However, he conveniently overlooks one important detail.

JPMorgan Asset Management plans to convert a number of active mutual funds in the US to passive ETFs next year. The asset manager is not alone. Globally, passive is starting to catch up with active.

The fact that most active investors do not succeed in beating the market does not mean that the market cannot be beaten. “It is not that complicated at all,” said alpha investor Jens Peers, CEO and CIO at Mirova Asset Management, part of the Natixis group. 

Of all actively managed investment funds, some 85%, after expenses, perform worse than the market. It’s a statistic that fuels the eternal debate between active and passive investors.

Active management of investment funds is no guarantee for outperformance during volatile times in financial markets, according to a new study presented on Monday by Europe’s top financial markets authority. “There is low ability to generate sustained positive alpha, especially for larger funds,” it said.

For two decades in a row money has money has flowed out of active funds. Last year, 100 billion euro suddenly flowed into active funds. It was the best year since 2000. 

Active managers naturally tend to emphasise value and size factors. As a group, they prefer relatively small companies that are cheap. The problem for these active managers, however, has been that the past decade has actually been exceptionally good for the larger and more expensive companies in the index.