Key findings:
European institutional investors consider an asset manager's reputation to be a more important selection factor when discarding unsuitable managers than when picking the winner from the short list, research by Fundamental Media has found. Organisations with a smaller AUM are also more inclined to put a higher value on a company's reputation during the manager selection process.
The reputation of the asset management firm is also slightly more important to financial institutions and consultants in the first stage of manager selection (discarding unsuitable managers), while in the stage 2 (picking the winning manager) pension funds and non-profit organisations find this factor more important than financial institutions and consultants.
A manager's ESG approach is a key differentiating factor in both stages, especially for Dutch respondents in stage 2 and for financial institutions and consultants. The size of the company is an important selection factor in stage 1 for French and Swiss institutional investors.
Performance/track record, strategy/investment process, investment team and fees are always the top selection criteria in both stages, regardless of the market or the segment analysed.
Between September 2019 and March 2020, Fundamental Research surveyed institutional investors in the Netherlands, the UK, Switzerland, the US, Germany and France about their views on global trends, asset manager communication, manager selection, their media consumption habits, and their top asset manager brands.
LinkedIn is by far the social media platform that is most widely used across all markets and all segments. In Germany, local-language professional media site Xing is also used regularly for professional purposes.
Overall, financial institutions and consultants as well as respondents managing a large AUM (over £/€ 10 billion) are more present on social media than pensions and non-profit organisations and respondents managing a small or medium AUM (up to £/€10 billion).
European institutional investors use social media primarily as an information and networking tool. Almost half of French, German and Dutch respondents use social media to read content from asset managers.
Other findings from the European Institutional Investor Research include:
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