Weekly Fund Distribution Notes – 16 September 2025
16th October 2025
Rumble in the mandate jungle. ESG is back in town (and never really left). AI, a potentially brilliant facilitator, but a long way from taking over asset management. Also, the war for (non-AI) talent and the importance of understanding the data behind data.
We covered a good amount of major, big number mandate news in the last two editions of this newsletter and we continue to do so this week. Goldman Sachs AM has won some EUR 38 billion in pension mandates from Shell. Also in the Netherlands, Aberdeen, M&G, PGIM and Robeco have been selected to manage mandates worth more than EUR 23 billion for the country’s second largest pension fund, PFZW – just over a week after it emerged that the restructuring of PFZW’s EUR 50 billion equity portfolio had seen mandates pulled from BlackRock and LGIM.
Ignites Europe quoted Carola van Lamoen, head of sustainable investing at Robeco, as saying that the mandates awarded reflected the asset manager’s shared belief with PGGM and PFZW in the importance of balancing risk, return and sustainability. M&G added that “the mandate marks the growing momentum and commitment from European asset owners towards sustainable investment solutions.”
Citywire Selector also picked up the recent series of mandate news with an article entitled “It’s all about the mandates, baby!” – highlighting the importance of ESG for most of the very large European institutional asset pools. But how about the wholesale side? Undeniably, talk has become quieter, but that does not mean ESG factors are off the table. ESG frameworks, definitions and labelling are simply in motion and recalibrating, and for most large fund buying accounts in Europe, ESG assessments still form a fundamental part of any fund due diligence. See also our chart of the week in this context below.
Change of scene. Hardly a week or a day goes by without an AI related asset manager statement or respective white papers landing on our desks. In the usual descriptive style, FT Alphaville picked up on Bernstein Société Générale testing if AI can produce good analyst research, headlining “AI can’t write good analyst research yet, says analyst”. A worthwhile read indeed, also parts of the reader comments. In a nutshell, Bernstein found that AI makes too many mistakes, lacks sufficient depth and predictive power and tends to miss the big picture. Another worthwhile Financial Times read provided insights into AI’s efficiencies and limitations based on the findings from Goldman Sachs. “The AI tool might help deliver a foundation, but then I need to overlay the unique things that are happening in any given situation.”
Anyway, AI and automation are certainly making big inroads into all of our jobs – and it will replace some jobs. However – while AI masterminds can expect CEO-like paycheques – the war for (non-AI) talent in asset management and distribution (and on the buy-side) is also intensifying – moving the truly gifted and passionate ones into pretty comfortable negotiating positions.
Kids are back in school and even the most loving parents heave a sigh of relief. At the same time, news about asset managers ordering staff back to the office is mounting. Whilst motives may be worth discussing, we have a fully agnostic view on it. It depends. If ok for all or most, it is ok. Nothing wrong with it. However, flexible arrangements still rank highly for most employees in the sector. A survey from Ignites Europe from last week is just one example, having asked “Would you move to a firm with more attractive flexible working arrangements?” Well, 70% of the respondents said yes. 26% considered their company’s flexible working policy as competitive, while 4% stated that their company has a strict office policy and they are ok with that.
What else? We’ve said it about 500k times. Never take headline data at face value. It is of fundamental importance to look at the data behind the data to understand the drivers, outliers and hence the overall picture. The same applies to the increasing number of social media posts and AI at play. We stumbled across a good example this weekend: Link. It has nothing to do with the brain or biases, as many comments suggest. It is just a visual technique well established in modern arts.
