Romig made his remarks participating in a debate on the future of multi-asset funds at Expert Investor Europe latest fund selector conference in Frankfurt last week.
In the first quarter of this year, multi-asset funds took in more than €53bn in net new money, as much as the total net inflows into all other asset classes combined. Just ten years ago Thomas Romig, who was then running a multi-asset product for Union Investment, could only dream of such a luxury. “At that time we were not able to get any significant volume into this product, although we had a superb performance,” he says.
But the fortunes of multi-asset funds have turned. In Spain and Italy, the asset class has only recently become a hit, but in Germany it has thrived for a sustained period already. “One of the reasons for this is a regulation in Germany, which says that most bank consultants are not allowed to sell equity products to customers,” Romig explains. “So as a consequence banks have traditionally been focusing on fixed income products.
