The Broadridge Financial Solutions’ 2026 Global Demand Model (GDM) Trends Report – Strategic Growth in a Volatile Era: Reassessing Asset Management Strategy in a Volatile and Risk-Aware Market – highlights diverging growth patterns between regions among the factors set to trim the pace of overall asset growth going forward.
The report notes that while ‘professionally managed assets’ will grow from $127trn in 2025 to $164trn by 2028, the growth will be far stronger in the APAC region versus the Americas and EMEA,
Between managers, performance may become less of a growth differentiator when stacked against distribution capabilities, product innovation and access to new investor segments.
Key trends noted include:
- APAC remains the industry’s growth engine: APAC is projected to deliver approximately 5% annual organic growth, fuelled by an expanding middle class and pension reforms, while North America remains the largest asset pool.
- Distribution becomes the new competitive edge: In an increasingly crowded marketplace, “distribution alpha” is emerging as a critical success factor, with firms evolving from investment-led organisations to distribution-led organisations in pursuit of growth.
- Active ETFs go global: Active ETFs continue to gain traction well beyond North America, with rapid expansion in Europe and APAC as managers launch new products and compete for investor flows.
- Private markets move into the mainstream: Asset managers are increasingly targeting retail and defined contribution investors as private markets democratisation creates a significant new growth opportunity beyond traditional institutional channels.
- Active fixed income remains well positioned: Investors continue to favour active fixed income strategies as they seek income generation and downside protection in a more volatile market environment.
- Individual investors to shape asset manager outcomes: The retail and defined contribution channels will have a heavy influence on flows and revenue generation for asset managers with DC channels expected to achieve an organic growth of 3.4%
Report author Nabeel Ansari, senior director, Global Growth Solutions at Broadridge commented further on the regional growth differences and the implications for Europe: “We’ve found it prudent to take caution when factoring in the impact of product development/regulation on the future of asset management.”
“Take for example the ELTIF. When the ELTIF 2.0 was launched, there were exaggerated expectations on how this would drive private markets growth within retail and pensions. However, the reality has been more muted than these aspirations. The SIU (Savings and Investments Union) and RIS (Retail Investment Strategy) are certainly factored into our projections, however this will take time, and there are shorter term challenges for the individual in Europe which would work as a headwind to capital market participation such as an elevated cost of living or persistent inflation.”
“It is also important to recognise the structural factors shaping regional revenue pools. The US generates significant asset management revenues, supported by the sector’s deep penetration of the wealth market and by a greater reliance on private savings to fund healthcare, higher education and other major life events. This has had a long-term influence on household saving and investment behaviour. In Europe, and particularly in the UK, individuals have historically faced less need to self-fund these costs to the same extent. However, policy efforts to increase retail investment participation across Europe could make the region an important source of growth as macroeconomic conditions improve.”
“When looking at the weighted average fee in Europe, it’s the continued movement to passive strategies and inducement away from higher revenue generating active – even with the proliferation of active ETFs in the region, we’re finding that they are only slightly above passive fees, with the launches geared more toward those ‘Enhanced’ strategies.”
The report has identified ETFs overall as a key ongoing driver of industry growth, as well as topping individual product expectations. However, these too are subject to developments such as tokenisation.
“We don’t expect a drastic re-order of the top 25, Ansari said.
“The drivers of the top 25 have been more market factors than dictated by vehicle – think demand for EM equities, or global agg. However, vehicle developments will open access to a host of strategies to investors, examples being private markets to retail/wealth investors which means they may climb up the ranking, or ‘enhanced’ equity strategies being launched within the ETF wrapper that seem to be a fan favourite.”
“Within Europe we’ve been seeing active strategies bleeding, and so the mutual fund flows have been suffering. If we were to use the US as a proxy, we can see stronger flows into ETFs and SMAs, so product development has contributed to the death of the mutual fund in that market. We can assume as ETFs take hold here – passive and active – and the need for customised solutions become more mainstream – SMAs for retail investors. This will naturally cause trouble for the mutual funds.”
The report also points out factors other than performance, which it states act as ‘soft power’ in boosting fundraising by managers. The four factors defined in the report include: key distribution relationships, product lineup, brand and presence in structural distribution.
“Distribution relationships will be very important,” Ansari notes.
“In Europe, there is a challenge managers have in understanding who the actual end owners of their products are – a known challenge for ETFs – but also challenges around recording their sales through booking centres vs where the actual end investor is.”
“Understanding their end investors has clear implications on their marketing strategy, and how they become true partners to distributors by supporting them with things like collateral to be able to educate their end investors on their products, but also provide more holistic portfolio construction advice and plug more of their strategies in their portfolios. This is a challenge Broadridge have started supporting their clients on solving through effective distribution data management.”
