News Brief: Columbia Threadneedle review - DWS snubs scale - Goldman Sachs pivot
Welcome back to the?News Brief, a weekly summary of some of the most important stories on?Ignites Europe.
DWS does not regard increasing its size "as a target", according to chief financial officer Markus Kobler.
The comment comes as a number of European asset managers look to build scale in response to fee pressure amid the rise of low-cost passive investing.
However, Kobler and DWS chief executive officer Stefan Hoops?told analysts?last week that the German asset manager was not focused on acquiring companies, reports Amie Keeley.
"We prefer to grow organically," said Kobler.
Hoops added that he did not "think [scale] is well understood or well talked about".
"If scale was all that mattered, there would be a closer correlation between size and cost-income ratio, which simply isn't the case," he said.
Columbia Threadneedle Investments CEO Ted Truscott has been carrying out a strategic review of the business, Baptiste Aboulian writes.
The?review, which was launched around 18 months ago, initially focused on the European division but later expanded to the whole asset management business.
People were let go in 2024 as a result, according to a person familiar with the process.
Ameriprise, Columbia Threadneedle's owner, confirmed last week that it was "transforming" the asset manager and taking out "a lot of cost".
Goldman Sachs has entered the active exchange traded fund market in Europe.
The US firm has listed an active investment grade corporate bond ETF and is set to launch a high yield strategy as it looks to reignite its ETF business across the continent, reports Theo Andrew.
Analysts said Goldman Sachs'?move into active ETFs?made "perfect sense".
"It's extremely difficult to compete on passive ETFs. By comparison, the barriers to entry on active ETFs are somewhat lower," said Mara Dobrescu, fixed income manager at Morningstar.
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