Weekly Fund Distribution Notes – 30 September 2025
16th October 2025
A number of pieces of interesting mandate news. What does it take to win a private markets partnership with Deutsche Bank? Boom or bust? AM industry forecasts keep fascinating us. Last but not least, is the golden age of marketing about to begin? Yes, if only …
Let’s kick off with the buy-side again. The world’s largest SWF, Norway’s EUR 1.7 trillion Government Pension Fund Global managed by Norges Bank IM, announced it was to commit EUR 1.3 billion to Brookfield Asset Management’s Global Transition Fund II (BGTF II). Also up in Scandinavia, the Swedish Fund Selection Agency, FTN, has announced new procurements for US equity and US equity index funds in the first quarter of 2026 worth EUR 3.7 billion. Before the US fund procurements, FTN will open tendering for actively managed global technology funds in October 2025. Following Carlyle’s announcement last month, Clearstream has now added private markets funds from BlackRock to its platform too, enabling BlackRock to leverage Clearstream’s distribution infrastructure to process funds at scale.
Last week, we reported that Deutsche Bank and DWS have chosen Partners Group for a new evergreen fund, which will be exclusively accessible to the banks’ qualified private banking clients in Europe. Yesterday, Citywire Selector featured a story on how to win a private markets partnership with Deutsche Bank based on an interview with Marco Zamberletti, who heads the bank’s global advisory solution unit. Apart from Partners Group, the bank also signed partnerships with Coller Capital, Blackstone and Apollo over the last 12 months.
So, what does it take? What is Zamberletti looking for? Whilst “definitely looking for new partnerships”, which have to be for the long term, “the bank is certainly not rushing into new relationships.” Zamberletti emphasises that new partners have to have expertise in a specific area. However, he also stresses that “fresh partnership deals may not necessarily be with new firms, and could materialise as extensions of current relationships. From the client perspective, they tend to like continuity and there’s an element of brand recognition here. The clients need to develop trust in this market.”
He also highlighted that many GPs have a very US-centric approach that can dissuade European investors. “We want to engage with GPs that appreciate and understand Europe. They need to have a proper presence in Europe, that means having staff that speak the languages of the appropriate jurisdiction, and have specific legal teams and operations. Private markets have specific structuring challenges, we have to make sure GPs have the operations to deal with a bank like us, and one that can properly acknowledge European frameworks.” Check out the full story (see link section below).
What else? In the joint blue paper “Thinning the Herd: The Race for Relevance Fueling M&A”, Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley highlight the expectation for a new area of consolidation, suggesting 20% fewer players in the market in 2029. There are some interesting and thought-provoking points in the report. However, what caught our attention was the forecast of a rise of more than 44% in asset management revenues in the space of five years, from EUR 395 billion in 2024 up to EUR 570 billion in 2029.
The main argument: “Although fee compression persists, it is offset by the shift toward higher-margin private markets and retail growth.” The report also highlights a number of constraints like “30% to 40% fewer asset managers on client rosters by 2029” or “the pressure to demonstrate value for money”. Nonetheless, the revenue forecast sounds overly optimistic to us, mainly as the report leaves out the potentially biggest threat – markets on steroids (both public and private).
Last but not least, Citywire Selector’s editor Will Robins published a comment announcing the golden age of marketing. Well, we have heard this before, but with the increasing reutilisation, Robins touches on an important point – this is a different game – and correctly refers to a rather low peer bar when it comes to marketing and brand. However, the problems (and the solution) are not necessarily embedded in marketing departments, but in the C-Suite. Unless marketing is equipped with the same eye-level seniority and say like sales and product, real change is unlikely. We have seen some great marketing hires in asset management (all coming from different industries), but most left rather disillusioned. As said, the bar is astonishingly low. The opportunity for the bold and focused ones is massive.
