European Asset Management Consolidation ‘Yet to Hit’

A French business school, the Edhec Group, has presented the first edition of its survey on the practices of European asset management firms, ‘The Edhec European Asset Management Practices Survey’. The survey aims to assess the application of the latest academic and professional research results within the European asset management industry. The Edhec Asset Management Practices Survey compared the responses of more than 60 investment company managers with the results from academic and professional research. Edhec questioned European managers on three major strategic themes: management offerings and processes, risk management and technological choices. The principal findings of the survey pointed to the fact that in spite of the economic difficulties and strategic thinking on critical size, the consolidation/specialisation drive has yet to take place. Furthermore, passive management offerings, especially ETFs, have made a spectacular breakthrough and now represent 23 per cent of the equity management offerings.