Houston Chronicle (July 15)
“The $3.5 trillion budget proposed by top Democrats represents the biggest move yet by President Joe Biden to attack climate change, including provisions such as clean energy standards for power grids, fees on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling, and increased incentives for electric cars.” If enacted, the legislation, “would set in motion a historic shift from fossil fuels and deliver a blow to the oil and gas producing regions across Texas, which have powered the nation’s economy for a century.”
Tags: $3.5 trillion, Biden, Clean energy, Climate change, Democrats, Drilling, Emissions, EVs, Fees, Fossil fuels, Gas, Historic, Methane, Oil, Power grids, Shift, Texas
Wall Street Journal (November 5)
“A wave of stock-picking firms are stepping up their fight against cheap exchange-traded and index funds with new offerings that dial back fees if they can’t beat the market.”
Institutional Investor (August 3)
“The major shift to passive fund management has increased the need for M&A” so that asset managers can “gain scale and survive increasing pressure” on client fees. The same shift, however, is also deterring potential buyers. “Mergers and acquisitions in the asset and wealth management industry declined in the second quarter,” with the number of deals falling by nearly a third from the first quarter.
Tags: Asset managers, Buyers, Fees, M&A, Passive fund management, Scale, Shift
Institutional Investor (May 5)
“The adoption of technology, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data, has made it possible for private-equity and hedge-fund managers to reduce their fees, placing competitive pressure on rivals still using a traditional fee model.”
Tags: Adoption, AI, Big Data, Blockchain, Competitive pressure, Fees, Hedge-fund, Private equity, Rivals, Technology
Institutional Investor (March 20)
“For years, asset management firms have benefited as the banking industry was dragged down by quantitative easing and increasing regulation. The one-two punch spurred a more than $100 billion divergence in revenues since 2011, with asset managers up $65 billion and wholesale banks down $45 billion at the end of 2016…. But now, with asset managers facing ‘intense’ pressure on fees and with economic policy shifting in favor of banks,” there are growing predictions for “a ‘reversal of fortunes’ for the two sectors.”
Tags: Asset management, Banking, Economic policy, Fees, QE, Regulation, Revenues, Reversal
Institutional Investor (November 8)
Are we approaching “the end of research as we know it?” The portion of fees that goes to research (equity or bonds) is a mystery, but the veil will soon be lifted. On January 3, 2018, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II will require “that asset managers break out the costs of research from their own management fees and pay for them separately.” The result will probably be “that less research is spewed.” This could bring “potentially wrenching consequences for the research industry and its core users among active asset managers.”
Euromoney (July issue)
“Market share of financial businesses vital to supporting global economic growth is concentrating rapidly into the hands of a small group of the world’s biggest banks.” During the first half of 2013, the top 10 banks commanded 56% of all investment banking fees. This “does not look a particularly welcome development, increasing as it does, the dependence of corporations, governments, large investors and other banks on just a few providers and along with it the exposure of the global financial system to risk of failure at any of these top 10.”
Tags: Banks, Economic growth, Exposure, Fees, Global financial system, Investment banking, Investors, Market share, Risk
