Investment Officer France

Last week, the French government survived two motions of no confidence, mainly by promising not to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for the time being. For S&P, however, this was reason enough to downgrade France’s credit rating from AA- to A+. It may seem like a minor detail, but for managers of fixed income funds that require at least AA-rated investments, it created an immediate problem. Did all those French government bonds suddenly need to be dumped?

Disrupted supply chains, volatile market conditions, and lagging investments have made investing in the water theme challenging. In recent years, European investors have withdrawn billions from water funds.

As active ETFs grow beyond niche status, some of the last traditionally active managers, including Columbia Threadneedle and M&G, are entering the European market with strategies that blend research conviction and daily oversight.

Triodos Investment Management is betting that nature-based solutions, still a niche segment, will mature into a full-fledged asset class within the next decade.

Driven by steadily declining yields and increasingly strict capital requirements, Dutch, Belgian, French, and German insurers have in recent years largely divested from government bonds. The freed-up capital has mainly been invested in corporate bonds and private debt.

The word is out! Fed Chair Jay Powell is considering stopping the reduction of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. If you think that balance sheet has slimmed down significantly after three years of quantitative tightening, you’re mistaken. Moreover, Powell is putting himself in an impossible position once again by lowering interest rates at the same time.

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.

The world’s number one US growth manager, according to Citywire’s manager rankings, says fundamentals still rule, even as bubble talk grows louder. He’d rather put his trust in God.

Not only this year are bonds from emerging markets an attractive alternative to the volatile debt of developed economies. European asset managers are seeing a structural shift in the financial policies of these countries. Amundi has even recently merged its emerging markets and developed markets teams.