bfinance

Institutional investors have gotten more sophisticated, and so have the asset consultants they look to for advice. But as those consultants push deeper into the lucrative wealth and family office segments, can they keep product conflicts from getting in the way?

Big super’s in-sourcing of investment management means contending with new and hidden costs,
but funds are also fretting the unintended consequences of a laser focus on fees.

The asset class is top of the private market pops as institutional investors fret valuations and liquidity in private equity and watch the ongoing commercial property dislocation with growing concern.

Super funds and other institutional investors are deeply unsatisfied with the nature of private markets fees, but cost-additive pressures are emerging across all asset classes when fees should be falling.

Institutional investors have come crawling back to equities, according to bfinance, while high growth managers have led the rebound in an “abrupt style reversal”. But hopes for a meaningful market rebound could be misplaced.

While diversifying strategies commanded the field through 2022, investors feel they’ve missed the boat on the returns to be had. Instead, they’re window shopping for more private equity.

Private markets are still en vogue amongst institutional investors, even as recent market movements throw portfolios out of whack, according to the findings of bfinance’s biennial global asset owner survey.

A “dramatic and sobering” first quarter has seen institutions re-think everything from ESG to hedge funds as the job of investing becomes harder in a more dangerous world. Recent surveys of global institutions have unearthed an increasingly gloomy outlook from our biggest investors as they scrutinise the new inflation paradigm and a more multi-polar geopolitical…

Even the strong trend towards ESG investing, overlaid with heightened interest in climate-related strategies, has failed to halt the decline in funds management fees. The latest biennial study by global mandate search and research consultancy bfinance shows that fee compression has caught up with global ESG equities over the past five years, the average mandate…

Climate risk has “never been higher on investors’ agendas” – but the strategies they use to combat itoften have conflicting features. Lack of data only compounds the problem. Martha Brindle, director of equities in bfinance’s public markets team and Sarita Gosrani, director of ESG and responsible investment (both based in London) note that there are…