Weekly Fund Distribution Notes – 06 May 2025
27th May 2025
Legends, true legends and essential wisdom. This year’s top 100 most influential fund selectors in Europe. More selector takes on the return of active in the current environment. Also, some other selector, tender and mandate news. Last but not least, more thoughts (and links) on expected money in motion this year.
Omaha called again last Saturday and those who made it to this year’s pilgrimage witnessed most likely the most historic annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting ever. Warren Buffett, 94, announced his retirement by the end of the year, finally handing over to Greg Abel. Obviously, the news and respective appreciations are all over the place. There is absolutely nothing that we can add about Buffett and of course Charlie Munger (greatly missed, who died in 2023 aged 99), apart from recommending to our younger readers to start studying the duo’s investment principles and broader wisdom – it goes well beyond investing itself. I would also like to point out the famous Bloomberg chat between Buffett and his friend Bill Gates about time management / controlling your time (vital food for thought in our super busy industry): Link
Although I had the honour of meeting plenty of “star” fund managers and some of the brightest minds in our industry, I never met Buffett or Munger, nor did I ever see them live. Nonetheless, my admiration for Buffett and Munger’s simplicity (remember, simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication), persistence, passion and rigour was always higher than for all the “flashy finance” ones combined.
Anyway, what’s the news on the fund selector and mandate side? Citywire Selector published its 8th annual Top 100 Fund Selector list – the 100 most influential selectors in Europe. Some newcomers, some career progressions and some notable increases in assets under responsibility, but in essence a very familiar read. Nonetheless, a must read or click-through.
Citywire also continued its “Make Active Great Again” fund selector panel series. This time it was from Dublin and featured Giorgio Carline, head of multi-management at Mediolanum, Darragh Granahan, head of fund solutions at Fineco, John Mullane, CIO at Cantor Fitzgerald and Terry Devitt, head of wealth advisory at Unio WM – talking “skin in the game”, the broad range of alpha opportunities in the current environment and selection example (see link below). The publication talked to Guimeldalet Llano-Farias, director of external fund analysis and selection at Ofi Invest AM in France.
The Swedish Fund Selection Agency, FTN, has launched new tenders for actively managed Swedish and European small-cap funds worth a combined EUR 4.2 billion, stating that it will procure 10 Swedish small-cap and 4 European small-cap funds for its premium pension fund platform. Edmond de Rothschild has launched its first ELTIF FoF, albeit investing in in-house PE ELTIFs only. Semi-liquid product launches and respective selector talk about evergreen / secondary funds continue unabated. However, so do the warnings – and they are getting louder.
Ignites Europe headlined last Friday, “Vanguard, BlackRock prosper from US equity bargain hunting” – with both of their core S&P 500 UCITS ETFs garnering sound inflows despite US equity funds overall suffering redemptions, according to preliminary Morningstar data. True, there was a lot of retail buying. There may also have been some larger tactical trades, but from everything we hear and see the capital rotation here in Europe is just at its beginning. In this context, I would like to pick up Katie Martin’s quote in the Financial Times from Friday: “Big institutional investors are not flinty fast-moving hedge funds or retail funds. They are vast supertankers that move slowly, and methodically, but make big waves. Tilting their balance towards Europe and Asia and away from more familiar ground in the US, even just a little, marks a huge re-engineering of global markets. For many, the US has become a riskier bet.”
Last but not least, coming back to living legends, last week I had the chance to meet Dr. Vitali Klitschko. I am normally not eager to meet “celebrities” at all, but expressing my most sincere admiration to him personally was very special for me. A champion. A hero. A giant (also physically). 47 fights, 45 wins, 41 by knock-out. However, what impresses me most about him (and his brother) is that in spite of their wealth, which would enable them to have a splendid time on the sunny side of life, they have chosen to stay in Kiev and stand by their people and their principles.
