Australian financial professionals expect their assets under management to grow by 3.3% in the next year, a greater percentage than their global counterparts who only expect them to grow by 2.5%.
Research by Natixis Investment Managers surveyed 2,700 financial professionals, including 150 in Australia, and found Australians were more optimistic on their future AUM.
Australians expected to see growth in assets under management of 3.3% in the next 12 months and annualised growth of 15.7% over the next three years. Some 80.7% expected this to come from new assets from new clients.
However, they were less optimistic on receiving new assets from current clients with only 34.7% expecting this to be a driver of AUM, compared to 63% of respondents globally. Instead, they saw drivers as being additional fee-based services and better productivity.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, financial professionals still anticipate growth opportunities even if the path to profitable growth isn’t likely to follow the status quo,” said Dave Goodsell, executive director of Natixis’ Center for Investor Insight.
When it came to asset allocation, a far greater percentage of Australian respondents were interested in infrastructure with 62% seeing the benefit of the sector compared to 34% of respondents globally. However, they were less interested in real assets with only 16.7% using them as a way to generate yield compared to 35% globally.
There was also less interest in environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies with just 16% saying their clients were asking for ESG-strategies compared to 29% worldwide.
The survey was part two of an earlier survey which found Australians were pessimistic on stockmarket returns, expecting the ASX 200 to fall 12% in 2020.
