(Finance) – “This is a downturn for the sectorbetween the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen it. If we recall years like 2008 and up to 2011, there were other moments of reflection on asset management, which were those moments in which we then built this industry, in which the great international asset managers arrived in Italy, in which we have built asset management companies and banks have been dedicated to asset management”. He told Finance Alessandro Marchesin, managing director of Sella SGRon the occasion of the thirteenth edition of the Salone del Risparmio, the reference event in the asset management sector, organized by Assogestioni.
“It is a moment in which you create, a moment of reorganization and for example in that case – from 2012 to 2021 – there was the great race of managed savings, so there are moments in which he refuses to carefully analyze the challenges that we have before us,” he added.
According to Marchesin, “there are several challenges: there is the price theme of asset management products (the value for money), there is the issue of digitization of managed savings and there is also the theme of the eternal struggle between active savings management and passive savings management”.
“The important issue is that in the coming years we will have the need more and more to choose in our productsespecially on the equity side, those companies that are also connected in some way for reasons of innovation, for reasons of their contribution to the ESG world, even to rather distant areas, and we have seen that at the moment, for example, there is a restart of the China after a particularly prolonged stop,” he continued.
According to the number one of Sella SGR, “those who will be able for production reasons or for turnover reasons to be close to these areas – especially on innovation and ESG issues – will have greater possibilities and I believe that active management is just this: go look for these companies, why not all companies in a certain sector will give the same results. Hence the theme of active savings management, so there will be big trends, but within these trends, sectors to choose and companies to choose from”.
“This – he continued – is the reason why the customer can and must still take managed savings into consideration and obviously the issue is a price balance, between what we will deliver and what the customer will pay. This is a strategic and key element in the SGR’s strategy: the cost-benefit trade-off“.
“At this stage, in such a complex moment, it is legitimate that the customer can have a defensive approach and mood – affirmed Marchesin – In fact, at this moment the customer will look for somehow guaranteed maturities and rates, which can allow him to pass this moment and therefore look for the 2-3 points of fixed rate, which however in such a long time horizon – even in a context like the one we are seeing with rates that are reaching the level a little bit – it could be limiting, it could take away some opportunities”.
“We believe it’s also time to look at these products with obviously part of your savings, but it is also the time to create and implement portfolios with the aim of creating long-term value. And here then the theme of active management, the theme of equity. We are not positive, but we are cautious in equity in the short term due to the volatility that can be seen, but as usual the PAC, the step-in, entering a stock market progressively, entering contrarians and therefore taking home a value looking to contain the risk as much as possible is the recipe that always works”.