Excessive regulation in the EU is handing an unfair advantage to large US firms and is in danger of driving smaller European managers “into a wall”.
This is the view of Hughes Beuzelin, chief executive of French fund manager BDL Capital Management.
Beuzelin was speaking at a press conference in Milan, reported by Reuters.
“We’re completely crazy in Europe,” said Beuzelin. “We need to speak to regulators, their agenda is driving us into a wall.”
BDL Capital, has around $4.2 billion in assets under management and is an active manager focused on public equites.
According to Beuzelin, the excessive bureaucracy of the EU has hindered European markets and indirectly led to the rise of passive investing and index-tracking.
Given the parlous state of European exchanges where delistings have risen and liquidity has reduced, many passive funds are focused on US equities.
This, said Beuzelin, amounted to exporting Europeans’ savings into US companies.
The situation is further exacerbated by the high valuations for European banks and the defence sector.
Beuzelin has called on European regulators to ease the regulatory burden for companies listing in Europe.
For its part, the EU has recognised the danger of seeing savers’ money invested in the US instead of within the EU – something that the Savings and Investments Union, introduced in March 2025, is designed to address.
The French fund manager’s comments come at a time of historically high tension between Europe and the US, politically, financially and even militarily.
