Weekly Fund Distribution Notes – 04 February 2025
19th February 2025
The first 100 days of the year – aka January – have already passed by at an incredible pace. Blackstone continues to enter distribution partnerships across Europe and its private wealth assets have reached remarkable levels. Also, some fund selector news, some key 2024 flow numbers and AC/DC returning to Europe.
Let’s kick off with some fund selector news. In Geneva, Didier Chan-Voc-Chun has been promoted to head of multi-management and fund solutions at Union Bancaire Privée. Chan-Voc-Chun joined UBP in 2011 as head of multi-management and fund research, already heading the selection of external fund managers as well as managing funds of funds. Now he will also oversee fund advisory activities. Also at UBP, Bertrand Binggeli has been promoted to global head of wealth estate planning and family wealth solutions, replacing Nicolas von Wartburg and François Miec.
In terms of distribution partnerships, Blackstone has entered another major bank partnership, this time with Deutsche Bank to distribute its evergreen private equity fund. The distribution partnership will be global but excludes the bank’s home market, Germany. Citywire Selector quoted Blackstone Private Equity (BXPE) CEO Viral Patel as saying that “the group has partnerships with pretty much all of the major players in the market and continues to add distributors.” In this context, it should be mentioned that BXPE, launched only in January 2024, now has around EUR 8.2 billion. Blackstone also launched a European version of the fund registered in Luxembourg. All in all, Blackstone’s private wealth business now manages around EUR 242 billion. Well, that’s a serious number.
Talking alts for private investors, Morningstar’s principal Kenneth Lamont casted some doubts on semi-liquid solutions benefiting retail investors in a Citywire Selector video interview: “I would argue it’s a mirage. By the time it gets to you as a retail investor a lot of the benefits of private markets investment will have evaporated.” Well, you know our views.
Meanwhile, talk about asset managers expanding into active ETFs accelerates. See link section below. However, it won’t be a free lunch for most. We also address this in our 2024 / 2025 European Fund Distribution Landscape Report to be released tomorrow.
Despite plenty of not exactly cheerful state of the asset management industry reports, 2024 wasn’t a bad year. The European fund industry experienced net inflows worth EUR 448 billion, well ahead of 2023 numbers. Active strategies experienced overall net sales of EUR 144 billion and EUR 305 billion went to passive funds.
All in all, 95 managers had net inflows larger than EUR 1 billion (versus 60 in 2023) and 163 fund groups saw net sales larger than EUR 500 million (versus 97 in 2023). Also, 260 funds saw net inflows of more than EUR 1 billion (versus 146 in 2023).
Last but not least, the first 100 days of the year – aka January – have already passed by. The year has kicked off at an incredible pace. Looking at a busy agenda ahead yesterday morning, after an intensive weekend of work, that “Happy Monday” email came in: AC/DC will return to Europe this summer.
