Global Asset Management and the COVID-19 Crisis

The global pandemic brought life-changing effects to many aspects of our lives. Financial services providers were not immune to COVID-19. This report tells the story of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the asset management business and the virus spread across the world.

The pandemic hit each region and country around the world at different times, and this is reflected in the pattern of global fund flows and investment performance. Investor reactions across regions showed both similarities and. Two themes did persist across all regions, however: a flight to safety in the form of cash holdings, and, that outflows were short and sharp, with the fund industry in all regions returning to positive monthly sales by the end of June.

In this report we also observe how investor trends that were briefly de-railed by the pandemic soon returned to normal. In the U.S., investors allocated heavily to passive funds, European investors continued to buy active bond funds and Chinese investors returned to their preferred mixed asset funds.