Comments made at the LSEG Lipper European Fund Awards 2026, held in the City of London, suggest that there will be continued growth in coming years in the number of awards for active and passive products present in multiple European markets – reflecting developments in the ETF space, where active products are increasing their presence.
This follows the first time that this particular awards provider announced separate categories for Europe Active and Europe Passive – which it said reflected growing diversification in the European funds landscape.
The LSEG Lipper methodology is based on a quantitative assessment of performance over three, five and 10-year periods. Newer products will not have reached these timeline milestones, and therefore are yet to be incorporated. However, commenting on the ETF segment in particular, Detlef Glow, head of Lipper ETF Research, noted that the variations in strategies being offered through this type of wrapper point to an increase in the number of funds that will be eligible for consideration in future – assuming the performance metrics and distribution scope meet the hurdles for this particular methodology.
This year, the awards noted 143 funds won an award for the three-year period ended 31 December, 2025, across both the Active and Passive categories. For the five-year period, it was 138 funds, and for the 10-year it was 99 funds.
According to the new Active category focus, the group winners noted per the methodology were:
- Liechtensteinische Landesbank – best small fund management group
- Rothschild – best large fund management group
- Tikehau Capital- bonds, best small asset manager
- Carmignac – bonds, best large manager
- Alken – equity, best small mangaer
- LGT Group – equity, best large manager
- Swiss Rock – mixed assets, best small manager
- Societe General – mixed assets, best large manager
In the Passive category, the group winners noted were:
- Vanguard – bonds, best large manager
- HANetf – equities, best small manager
- Vanguard – equities, best large manager
Notably, LSEG Lipper stated that for mixed asset funds “the the number of products and assets under management, are not a core category in the European ETF industry and for passive products in general, there were no group award winners in this category.”
Comparing the winners announced at the Awards with the annual Global ETF Industry Review: 2025, authored by Glow and published in early March 2026, suggests there may be pockets of performance where European names can continue to do well in the Europe region.
The Review notes that at the global level “The 10-top promoters accounted for 79.45% of the overall assets under management in the global ETF industry.” However, within this, the top five names are not European and have captured a significant weighting of the share of assets.
Globally, the US remains significantly ahead of Europe by total AUM share, with some $14trn against Europe’s $3trn, according to the Review.
