The position of women in the asset management industry has barely improved in the last seven years. Citywire’s Alpha Female Report 2022 shows that a mere 5.5 percent of all actively managed funds - or one out of 18 - are led by women. “Progress towards gender parity in portfolio management looks to have come to a grinding halt.”
In Luxembourg, 13 percent of the managers are now female, up from 12 percent in the 2021 report. Some 5 percent of all funds is still managed by an all-female team. The report said 81 percent of Luxembourg-domiciled funds are managed by all-male teams, down from 83 percent last year.
Out of 17,554 active managers included in the Citywire study, 2108 managers, or 12 percent, are women, the report said. The turnover rate of female fund managers over ten years is 42 percent, compared to 28 percent for men.
The percentage of female fund managers in Citywire’s database has increased by just 0.2 percent over the past 12 months, according to the latest edition of the Alpha Female report. The fund industry-focused platform’s database includes more than 17,500 individual portfolio managers worldwide.
Number of female manages up 1.7% in seven years
During the seven years that Citywire has published its report, the overall number of female managers has increased by just 1.7 percentage points. Citywire said that while the industry is doing its best to recruit more women to investment teams, this ambition has broken down, with men being recruited 90 percent of the time for new, launched funds in the past 12 months.
“Progress towards gender parity in portfolio management looks to have come to a grinding halt,” said Dr Nisha Long, head of ESG and cross-border investment research at Citywire. “You could legitimately question whether there has been any real change given the tiny incremental percentage changes we are now looking at.”
‘Appallingly slow rate of change’
An increase of just 1.7 percentage points over seven years is an “appallingly slow rate of change”, she said in the report. “I cannot understand why of all global fund launches last year, only 10 percent were given to women, either as part of a team or on their own. If there is a pipeline of talent, this cannot be justified,” Long said.
The Netherlands stands out particularly poorly in the survey: only 7 percent of portfolio holders there are women. In Citywire’s global survey, only Germany (6 percent), Brazil (5 percent), India (5 percent) and Malta (4 percent) do worse. Much better do Greece (21 percent), Italy (22 percent) and United Arab Emirates (25 percent).
Out of the 5,016 managers working with Luxembourg funds, Citywire said 13 percent were female, just a touch above the average of 12 percent for the 25 countries in the survey. It noted that a mere 5 percent of Luxembourg-domiciled funds are managed by an all-female team. Some 81 percent of these funds are run by all-male teams, and 13 percent by mixed teams.
The proportion of female managers in Belgium, with a total of 113 managers, was 13 percent.
Dutch push encouraged
In the Netherlands, Investment Officer, as a leading media in the Dutch investment sector, has been pushing hard for more focus on women in the sector over the past two years. It has supported, among others, an initiative by Nicolette Loonen and Sylvia van Waveren, who have a long track record in Dutch finance. They decided to compile an alphabetical list of 50 women in 2021 whom they believe are clearly visible and demonstrably leading in the field of sustainability within the financial sector. The list was presented on International Women’s Day and at the time was one of the most-read articles on InvestmentOfficer.nl.
In a 2021 interview with Jessica Hardman at DWS, she said that “although it was never a conscious decision, the fact that the DWS property fund Europe II is managed by three female fund managers has become ‘a thing’,” Hardman told Investment Officer. “There is still a lot to be done if the real estate and investment sector is to be open to the fact that you can pursue a career path in the industry regardless of your colour, gender or origin.”
In Luxembourg, Julie Becker, CEO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, is is a well-known advocate for women in finance. The Luxembourg Stock Exchange in May stepped up its efforts to advance gender equality in finance by cooperating with UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The cooperation with UN Women was announced in the presence of HRH Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg and Yuriko Backes, Luxembourg’s first-ever female finance minister.
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