Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to member services. Megafunds might be able to mass customise, but when you’ve got two million members it’s tough to bring the personal touch.
The famous and closely watched US endowment model took a hit in FY23, with smaller, equity-heavy investors taking the lead. But the longer-term superiority of a chunkier exposure to alternatives remains unchallenged.
China in transition presents new opportunities for investors: Franklin Templeton
For most of the past 40 years, investors, policymakers and interested observers have become used to the idea of China as a fast-growing, emergent economy, well on its way to achieving middle-income status, with every hope of continuing along a path of resounding economic success. Recently, however, a different story has surfaced. This one portrays China as stumbling badly, weighed down by long-term challenges related to excess debt and investment, an aging population, the end of globalisation, and the adoption of policies inside and outside China that may frighten off investment and consumption.
In a new paper uncovering China, Christy Tan, Investment Strategist at the Franklin Templeton Institute says “In our view, the truth about China is neither as optimistic as some had earlier believed, nor as pessimistic as is currently fashionable. Rather, the central narrative is one of China in transition. China is shifting from an economy underpinned by extraordinarily high and probably unsustainable rates of savings, investment and debt accumulation to something else.”
