Improving Equity and Credit Markets Have Lifted AMG's Managed Assets, but Headwinds to Flows Persist
A confluence of several issues—poor relative active investment performance, the growth of low-cost index-based products, and the expanding power of the retail-advised channel—has made it increasingly difficult for asset managers running predominantly active portfolios to generate organic growth, leaving them more dependent on market gains to drive managed asset levels higher. While we continue to believe there will be room for active management, which is hard to do in an environment where an overwhelming majority of the flows are going into index funds and exchange-traded funds, we believe the advantage (when it comes to getting placement on platforms) will go to asset managers with greater scale, established brands, solid long-term performance, and reasonable fees.