Salaries in Sovereign Wealth Funds, Who Is Who?

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Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have become one of the most powerful and least visible employers in global finance. These state-owned vehicles collectively manage more than $12 trillion in assets, investing in equities, bonds, infrastructure, real estate, private equity, and private credit across every continent, while offering careers that combine institutional investing with a geopolitical dimension that is hard to find in the private sector.
The guide “Sovereign Wealth Fund Jobs 2026: Roles, Salaries & How to Get Hired” reveals a highly selective labor market where professionals with experience in investment banking, private equity, or institutional management can access compensation packages that reach up to $600,000 per year.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund Club

Sovereign wealth funds operate under low visibility, but that does not mean they lack relevance; quite the contrary. At the top of the sector sits Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world with over $2.1 trillion in assets and equity stakes in more than 9,000 companies across 70 countries. It is followed by giants such as China Investment Corporation, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Kuwait Investment Authority, and Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund.
The ranking also includes major Gulf players like Mubadala Investment Company, ADQ, Investment Corporation of Dubai, and Dubai Investment Fund, as well as Asia-Pacific institutions like Korea Investment Corporation and Australia’s Future Fund.

How Much Does a Sovereign Wealth Fund Pay?

The main difference compared to other institutional investors lies in the combination of competitive salary, stability, and global exposure. According to the guide, investment positions are broken down into three main levels:
  • Analyst / Associate: Annual salary ranging between $120,000 and $250,000.
  • Investment Officer / Portfolio Manager: Annual salary ranging between $200,000 and $600,000.
  • Director / Senior Investment Professional: Annual salary of $500,000 or more.
The $200,000 to $600,000 range for an Investment Officer or Portfolio Manager represents the study’s most significant data point, placing sovereign wealth funds in direct competition for specialized talent against private equity firms and hedge funds.
These compensation packages have consolidated and increased to such an extent that they are now as competitive as those offered by major Wall Street firms—and in many cases superior—without factoring in additional perks provided by these funds, particularly regarding job security.

Who Pays the Most?

Although funds rarely publish full salary structures, the market identifies clear regional differences, summarized below based on key insights from the report:
  • Gulf Funds (ADIA, Mubadala, ADQ, ICD):
    • The most aggressive compensation packages in the market.
    • High salaries, competitive bonuses, and tax advantages in several jurisdictions.
    • A strong focus on direct investments and private markets.
  • Norway (Government Pension Fund Global):
    • Solid compensation, though generally less aggressive than Gulf funds.
    • Institutional prestige and exposure to one of the largest portfolios on the planet.
    • Strong emphasis on governance and long-term management.
  • Singapore (GIC and Temasek, though Temasek operates under a distinct corporate structure):
    • Competitive packages with a strong professional development component.
    • Greater openness to junior profiles compared to other sovereign funds.
    • Focus on training and international rotation.
The guide highlights that Gulf funds have intensified international hiring to reinforce teams in private equity, infrastructure, technology, and private credit, putting upward pressure on compensation.

The New Star Profile: Direct Investment

The traditional portfolio manager role is evolving. Today, sovereign wealth funds seek professionals capable of deal sourcing, leading co-investments, and executing direct investments, particularly in private assets.
Areas in highest demand include private equity, infrastructure, real estate, private credit, technology, artificial intelligence, and energy transition. This shift explains why many funds are recruiting talent directly from Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Brookfield, and other alternative asset managers.
However, unlike major investment banks, most sovereign wealth funds do not engage in mass campus hiring for university graduates. The most common path involves building prior experience in investment banking, private equity, equity research, or asset management before transitioning into the sovereign sector.

Mergers & Inquisitions

The most notable exceptions are select graduate development programs at GIC and Temasek, which maintain training schemes for high-potential junior profiles.
Beyond salary, sovereign funds offer three advantages that are difficult to replicate:
  1. Long-Term Investment Horizon: They are not subject to quarterly public market pressures.
  2. Access to Large-Scale Deals: They participate in major acquisitions, strategic infrastructure, and national-level projects.
  3. Job Stability: State backing reduces the volatility characteristic of other financial segments.

The Key Takeaway for Latin America

For Latin American wealth management, asset management, and investment banking professionals, the message is clear: sovereign wealth funds are establishing themselves as direct competitors for specialized talent. The growth of private markets and the expansion of Gulf investment vehicles are creating opportunities for profiles with experience in deal structuring, sector analysis, and alternative asset management.
At a time when major global asset managers are also reinforcing their distribution and private markets teams, SWFs add an extra dimension: the ability to manage capital at a scale that transcends financial return and directly intersects with state economic strategy.
In other words, the appeal is no longer just how much they pay, but the magnitude of the decisions they enable you to make. In that domain, few employers in the financial world can compete with those who manage the savings of entire nations.

“Decarbonization Is the Greatest Investment Opportunity of Our Generation”

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Photo courtesyThomas Friedberger, Deputy CEO and Co-CIO of Tikehau Capital
“It is time to be patriotic about Europe and defend our economic and social model. You can invest in crypto assets or structured products, but that contributes nothing to the real economy. Financing European companies, injecting them with the capital they need to build resilience and sovereignty, is something European investors should actively embrace.”
These are the words of Thomas Friedberger, Deputy CEO and Co-CIO of Tikehau Capital. During a recent visit to Madrid, Friedberger detailed Tikehau’s commitment to long-term investment themes in European assets across public and private strategies. He outlined a macroeconomic landscape where the primary engines driving growth over recent years are handing over the baton to brand-new dynamics.

In recent times, we have had to live with higher levels of volatility and uncertainty. What is your core macroeconomic scenario?

Our conviction since the end of the COVID crisis is that we are entering a world of lower growth because future growth will be far less optimized. For years, there was tremendous visibility surrounding globalization and the trajectory of interest rates, which allowed companies to optimize numerous operational facets—from capital structures to supply chains. However, that optimization turned into a vulnerability during COVID and subsequent geopolitical tensions.
What the world needs now is to build resilience rather than efficiency, and that comes at a cost. Resilience requires heavy capital expenditures (capex), maintaining larger inventories, operating with higher capital buffers, and purchasing hedges against climate and cyber risks. Consequently, I believe corporate profit margins will face ongoing pressure on both revenue and cost fronts.
Furthermore, this lower growth will be accompanied by higher inflation. Deglobalization is inherently inflationary because those heavy capital investments are partially financed through public debt and massive fiscal expansion. Moreover, while artificial intelligence was expected to exert deflationary pressures, it is currently proving to be inflationary: it is driving up prices for semiconductors and electricity. Shifts in Asian currencies also play a role—for years, weak currencies contained global inflation, but the renminbi’s appreciation could generate renewed inflationary pressure. My point is that it is not just the energy crisis driving inflation. The last time we saw a setup like this was in the 1970s.

How can investors fortify their portfolios to navigate these risks?

In a world where interest rates no longer fulfill their traditional role of shielding investors, risk assets face mounting pressure. It is a very complex environment because investors have virtually nowhere to hide. Historical market leaders argued that the only way to navigate such a scenario was to invest with a sufficient margin of safety to absorb potential hits to operational earnings from lower growth and higher inflation.
Yet, if you look at market behavior today, you see the exact opposite. Capital is flowing into assets at sky-high valuations—not just in AI, but also in fixed income, where credit spreads in certain segments are extremely tight. At Tikehau Capital, we remain committed to maintaining strict discipline and avoiding FOMO, even when challenging. Because we co-invest our own balance sheet capital alongside our shareholders and LPs, we are the first to feel the impact of investment missteps. This is why we are deploying capital with extreme prudence, particularly in private credit.

Are you conscious that your stance sounds extremely contrarian?

Yes, but that does not concern me. If the broader market simply follows the crowd, I am comfortable being a contrarian. We believe growth will persist, but it will be far more concentrated than before. Previously, growth was consumption-driven; moving forward, it will be driven by capital expenditure as the imperative shifts toward building resilience.
When growth relies on consumption, nearly every sector benefits. When it depends on capex, only the specific sectors receiving those capital infusions stand to win. The ultimate winners in this environment are the four ‘Ds’: defense, deglobalization, digitalization, and decarbonization. That is precisely why we concentrate our private equity investments on those sectors and the solution providers enabling them.

What happens then to economies like the United States, where consumption accounts for nearly 70% of GDP?

The United States remains heavily reliant on consumption, driven largely by the wealth effect generated by AI. Currently, consumer spending is no longer backed by wage growth; roughly 1.5% of US GDP is tied directly to AI investments, and another 1.5% stems from the wealth effect of retail investors purchasing shares in Nvidia and similar mega-caps. In short, the economy is deeply dependent on artificial intelligence—if this AI investment cycle pauses, major vulnerabilities will emerge.
Another critical factor: over the past decade, high visibility favored asset-light business models designed to return massive amounts of cash to shareholders. Today, the dynamic has reversed; companies require heavy liquidity to fund capex programs. We have seen Google execute the largest debt offering in its history, and SpaceX prepare a massive bond issuance shortly after its public market moves. Ultimately, this capital investment cycle is being funded by leverage. In fact, hyperscalers are currently among the largest issuers in the Investment Grade bond market.

How are you approaching AI as an investment theme?

We are keenly interested in artificial intelligence, but we approach it through a contrarian lens. We focus on financing data centers and the broader electrification value chain—such as companies improving power grid efficiency and end-user electrification—rather than investing directly in AI pure-plays at demanding valuations.
The niche opportunity we have identified centers on funding the early construction phase of data centers: facilities that have already secured power supply and municipal permits. We take on the construction and commercialization risk to capture double-digit returns. We favor this strategy because once constructed and leased, traditional banks move aggressively to refinance the asset. This shortens the investment duration, yielding equity-like returns far faster than usual.
Conversely, we remain hesitant to maintain long-term equity ownership of data centers, as we believe the market severely underestimates the risk of technological obsolescence.

What other long-term investment themes are you developing at Tikehau?

Closely tied to artificial intelligence is decarbonization. I firmly believe that decarbonization is the greatest investment opportunity of our generation.
Looking at IPCC data, achieving Paris Agreement goals requires a collective global investment of roughly $6 trillion annually in decarbonization. 80% of that capital must target transforming existing systems—industry, agriculture, buildings, and transportation—while only 20% should go toward speculative early-stage tech venture capital. The core imperative is transforming legacy infrastructure.
Over the last 12 years, we have built deep expertise investing in electrification solution providers. The only way forward is to electrify the end consumer, which is impossible without a dramatically more efficient power grid. These are low-tech-intensity businesses, yet they are highly profitable and scaling rapidly. We currently manage the largest European private equity fund dedicated to electrification.

Why do you view decarbonization as the most attractive long-term investment opportunity?

Prior to recent geopolitical tensions, decarbonization was viewed as desirable, but carried the stigma that extra-financial returns came at the expense of financial performance. Today, that narrative has completely flipped: geopolitical crises have proved that decarbonization is fundamental to strategic sovereignty.
In Europe, this means breaking reliance on foreign fossil fuels. In China, it reduces dependence on the US dollar for crude oil purchases. Furthermore, if the United States wants to preserve its global leadership in artificial intelligence, it must aggressively decarbonize its energy grid, as scaling emission-free power generation is the only way to solve current electricity bottlenecks.

Yet that appears to clash with political messaging in certain regions…

In practice, Texas is already the largest producer of renewable energy in the United States. Between 2024 and 2025, 94% of new utility-scale power capacity installed across the country was renewable energy. The structural momentum is already underway.
The consequence is that Europe finds itself leading a global movement for once, buoyed by stringent regulatory standards. European solution providers in decarbonization—companies specializing in energy efficiency, resilient supply chains, and industrial processes—have matured rapidly. These are the exact companies Tikehau Capital has backed for over a decade, and we are witnessing their rapid international expansion. This reinforces my conviction: decarbonization is the single greatest investment opportunity of our generation.

Liquidity Needs Make Continuation Funds Shine

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In a context where exits from private equity assets continue to show a complex landscape and appetite for the asset class remains bright, it is no surprise that continuation funds are establishing themselves as a popular liquidity solution in the market.
From being a fringe solution a decade ago, these vehicles have become a more everyday proposition, increasingly popular among asset managers and investors alike. And the figures reflect an expanding market.
Data from Preqin show that continuation funds went from 13 vehicles, with $9 billion in assets in 2018, to 123 closed vehicles globally last year, totaling $75 billion.
One of the ingredients behind this growing popularity is related to liquidity dynamics within the private equity market, which continue to evolve. “While exit activity has improved, driven by some large transactions, overall distribution remains below the historical norm and many investors continue to seek new ways to achieve liquidity solutions,” Schroders noted in a recent report.
Looking ahead, expectations are for momentum to continue, considering that this type of fund is becoming increasingly attractive to GPs.

Growing Interest

A survey conducted by Bain & Company earlier this year showed that 27% of the asset managers surveyed had initiated or completed a continuation vehicle transaction in the last 24 months.
Of this total, 22% involved a single-asset deal, 3% involved multi-asset strategies, and the remaining 2% used a mix of single-asset and multi-asset investments.
Projecting into the future, expectations are even more dynamic. Four out of ten GPs expect to explore one of these transactions within the next one to two years. 24% anticipate making single-asset investments, 5% multi-asset investments, and 11% both.
The drive behind this interest, as outlined in the Bain survey, lies in the search for liquidity. When asked about the strategic reasoning behind continuation deals—both executed and projected—53% pointed to providing liquidity for existing LPs.
The other priorities highlighted were acquiring more capital to use in add-on M&A (42% of respondents) and resetting investment horizons for assets that require a longer holding period (33%).
“It is clear that continuation vehicles are becoming an established part of the liquidity toolkit. Beyond delivering capital to LPs, many GPs are using them to refinance assets and fund mergers and acquisitions for ‘buy-and-build’ strategies,” the consulting firm concluded in its report.

The Importance of the Secondary Market

The boom in continuation vehicles has reinforced the importance of secondary markets. According to Schroders, both LP-driven portfolio sales and continuation investments continue to grow, to the point that 2026 is shaping up to be a new record year for capital raising.
“Continuation investments in particular are becoming an increasingly established feature of the private equity ecosystem. While they continue to benefit from cyclical liquidity needs, our analysis shows that their growth is largely structural, reflecting their ability to retain ownership of high-quality assets with greater upside potential while providing optional liquidity to existing investors,” the firm stated in its report.
All in all, this phenomenon has left its mark on the secondary market. Figures from specialized advisory firm Evercore Private Capital Advisory show that transaction volume in the first half of 2026 exceeded $120 billion.
This represents a 20% increase compared to June 2025 and positions it as the strongest first half on record. Furthermore, they emphasized that these data consolidate the strong results of last year, when annual volume grew by 40% to $226 billion.
It is worth noting that, of the total capital accumulated in secondary transactions this year, the largest share comes from GP-led activity, at $65 billion. In contrast, LP-driven transactions totaled $56 billion.
“Single-asset continuation vehicles represented the largest share of GP-driven activity, concentrated in high-quality assets,” Evercore emphasized in its report.

BlackRock To Offer Access To Select European UCITS Funds Via Tokenized Shares

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BlackRock has announced the launch of its first tokenized fund access offering in Europe through on-chain share classes for select money market funds within the BlackRock Institutional Cash Series (ICS) range. Through this initiative, the asset manager expands blockchain-based capabilities to Europe’s largest liquidity management platform, with the objective of enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.

To execute this, BlackRock will leverage J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys asset tokenization platform, enabling the new ICS fund share classes to issue digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. According to the manager, this framework will allow eligible investors to access tokenized versions of existing liquidity management strategies while preserving the institutional strength and regulatory oversight inherent to money market funds.

“The new tokenized share classes offer several key features, including access to a yield-generating money market fund backed by broad scale and high liquidity. Additional capabilities include the ability to transfer tokens between investors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, alongside near-real-time visibility and movement of positions on the blockchain. Each token represents an underlying share of an ICS fund, while the official shareholder register will continue to be managed via the fund’s traditional transfer agent infrastructure,” the firm stated.

New Use Cases for Money Market Funds

BlackRock notes that tokenized share classes enable the direct transfer of fund holdings between authorized digital wallets using smart contracts—automated software programs that execute once predefined conditions are met. According to the firm, this technology will unlock new application layers for money market funds, including:

  • Corporate Treasury Optimization: Streamlining liquidity management and capital efficiency.

  • Digital Collateral Management: Facilitating real-time pledge and transfer mechanics.

  • Broadened Distribution Channels: Expanding delivery via banks, wealth management platforms, and digital networks.

  • Financial Ecosystem Integration: Seamlessly embedding liquidity into broader tokenized market structures.

Beccy Milchem, Global Head of Liquidity Distribution and International Cash Management at BlackRock, noted: “This launch represents a major step in the evolution of how investors access and manage their liquidity, while contributing to the modernization of capital markets infrastructure.”

Hannah Winter, Head of Digital Cash at BlackRock, emphasized: “Tokenized money market funds allow high-quality, short-term investments to transition into digital environments while maintaining the exact same standards of capital preservation, liquidity, and risk management.”

Kara Kennedy, Global Head of Market Development at Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, added that “tokenization has moved from concept to execution,” pointing out that tokenizing share classes brings native blockchain functionalities to established institutional products.

Partnership with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan

Kinexys serves as the dedicated blockchain business unit within J.P. Morgan Payments. Its tokenization platform plays a pivotal role in issuing and managing the lifecycle of the tokenized shares, handling critical operations such as token minting and burning.

Furthermore, Kinexys functions as the operational bridge between on-chain activity and the traditional transfer agent infrastructure, ensuring full alignment with existing operational workflows while introducing digital asset functionality.

Japan’s Labyrinth: Higher Inflation, A Weak Yen, And Tighter Monetary Policy

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The market is seeing a reduction in overweight positions in 10-year Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs), reflecting rising domestic inflation, yen weakness, high energy prices, and the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) trajectory of gradual monetary policy tightening.

During the first half of 2026, inflation in Japan has remained at moderate levels compared to previous years, hovering below the official 2% target set by the BoJ. In fact, the monetary institution revised its median core CPI estimate downward to 2.5%, compared to the 2.8% previously estimated. Furthermore, the BoJ projects that core inflation will hover around 2.4% in FY27 and 2.0% in FY28, suggesting a progressive anchoring around the official long-term target.

Inflation Management

According to experts, this downward revision is primarily attributed to the temporary effect of government energy subsidies during the summer months, among other measures. “Japan has announced plans to reduce the consumption tax on food from 8% to 1% starting in April 2027, aiming to address cost-of-living concerns amid low public approval regarding inflation management. Although fiscal risks persist, retail and food and beverage companies are the primary beneficiaries,” notes Louis Chua, Asia Equity Analyst at Julius Baer.

In a press conference held on the afternoon of July 27, 2026, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced that a proposal to reduce the consumption tax will be presented later this week, lowering the tax on food products from 8% to 1%, effective April 2027. To provide context, Chua explains that reducing the food consumption tax is a key campaign promise of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), with the cost of living being one of the top concerns among Japanese citizens.

“According to the latest Yomiuri poll, only 21% of respondents approve of the government’s response to high inflation, while 71% disapprove, which may have contributed to the recent downward trend in the government’s approval ratings. A bill to approve the tax cuts will be submitted to the Diet of Japan following the conclusion of bipartisan debates, despite the opposition having previously opposed these cuts,” the Julius Baer expert points out.

Monetary Policy

This concern over the standard of living in Japan leads directly to analyzing the BoJ’s recent moves. Although it kept its policy rate unchanged at its July 30–31 monetary policy meeting, the Outlook Report contained several hawkish elements, such as upward revisions to its real GDP growth forecasts for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. However, Japanese sovereign bond futures experienced a mild bounce following the release of the statement and report. “Overall, markets did not seem convinced that the report provided sufficient justification to price in additional rate hikes,” BofA analysts note.

Nevertheless, they believe that whether markets assign a higher probability to a September rate hike will largely depend on the extent to which the Takaichi administration shows support for further increases. In this regard, the next key catalyst will be the Summary of Opinions, scheduled for publication on August 10, specifically the comments from the Cabinet Office representative attending the meeting.

“Governor Ueda’s statements during the press conference carried a somewhat hawkish tone. His comments, noting that the risk of Japan returning to deflation has diminished and that clear signs of a significant rise in inflation expectations have recently emerged, suggested the possibility of a faster pace of rate hikes. As a result, the market-implied probability of a hike at the September meeting has increased,” stated Tomonobu Yamashita, Interest Rate Strategist at BofA.

Intervention to Curb Yen Weakness

For BofA experts, a key takeaway from this BoJ meeting was that while hawkish elements were present, they were not sufficient to exert renewed downward pressure on USD/JPY after the pair had already been pulled lower by suspected foreign exchange market interventions.

In the view of Shusuke Yamada, FX and Rates Strategist at BofA, the risk of further yen depreciation persists if left unchecked. “If authorities allow USD/JPY to rebound upward, their credibility could be eroded, raising the cost of future interventions down the road. In our view, this is precisely the moment when authorities should firmly push USD/JPY lower and prevent a rapid return to the yen weakness trend. We continue to believe that a consolidated break below ¥155 could alter market dynamics in USD/JPY. Such a move could trigger a broader shift in positioning and flow patterns that have long favored yen weakness. As we see it, authorities should now demonstrate clear resolve to defend the currency,” Yamada argues.

In fact, authorities have already taken action. As explained by Sree Kochugovindan, Senior Economist at Aberdeen Investments, coordinated foreign exchange market interventions were conducted by Japan and the United States to help stem yen weakness. This marks the first coordinated intervention since 2011, which was aimed at curbing yen appreciation following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

“On July 30, at a strategically chosen moment—after the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting and prior to the BoJ’s—Japan’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) carried out an estimated unilateral intervention of between 8.5 and 10 trillion yen, while the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conducted rate checks. This helped spur a sharp, albeit only partially sustained, rally in the yen from multi-decade lows,” she explains. Subsequently, on July 31, Japan sold USD/JPY again, while the New York Fed sold EUR/JPY on behalf of the US Treasury via two US dealers.

In her view, over the short term, the combination of intervention risk, US backing, and a more hawkish BoJ stance increases the likelihood of further short-covering trades in USD/JPY, especially given the high level of speculative short positions on the yen.

“Further appreciation could also ripple across other markets as carry trades are unwound. This was previously observed in the summer of 2024, when a surprise announcement from the BoJ triggered a sharp rise in the yen. For Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs), growing concerns over yen-driven inflation and rising expectations of further BoJ tightening measures should maintain upward pressure on yields, particularly if exchange rate weakness resumes and strengthens the case for an earlier rate hike. However, over the long term, intervention alone is unlikely to reverse the trend without further normalization by the BoJ and narrower rate differentials,” the Aberdeen Investments expert concludes.

M&G Names John Bruen As Head Of Infracapital

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Photo courtesyJohn Bruen, Infracapital

Infracapital, M&G’s infrastructure equity investment platform—integrated within its Private Markets division with £81 billion in assets under management—has appointed John Bruen as the firm’s new head. He will join on September 1 and report to Emmanuel Deblanc, Chief Investment Officer of Private Markets at M&G Investments.

According to the company, John brings over 25 years of international infrastructure investment experience. He joins from H.I.G. Capital where, as Managing Director and partner, he helped establish the firm’s infrastructure platform and raise its first value-add infrastructure fund, which reached $1.3 billion. He also possesses extensive experience investing in and managing portfolio companies across the infrastructure sector, having previously worked at Macquarie Asset Management and Ferrovial Airports.

He will succeed Martin Lennon, who is retiring after a career of more than 36 years in the industry. Since co-founding Infracapital in 2001, he led its growth into one of Europe’s leading middle-market infrastructure investors. Under his leadership, Infracapital raised over £9 billion across a series of dedicated funds investing in essential infrastructure across Europe, through public-private partnerships, brownfield infrastructure assets, and greenfield projects spanning energy, digital infrastructure, transport, and utilities.

Infracapital notes that at a time when Europe seeks to strengthen its energy security, accelerate decarbonization, drive digitalization, and foster economic growth, the company plays a prominent role in financing and developing the essential infrastructure on which communities and businesses rely.

Key Reactions

“John is a highly respected leader in the infrastructure sector, with an outstanding track record in investing and building businesses. His combination of investment expertise and leadership capabilities, alongside his strong industry relationships, position him exceptionally well to lead Infracapital into its next phase of growth at a time when demand for investment in essential infrastructure continues to rise across Europe. I would like to thank Martin for his extraordinary contribution to the business over the past 28 years. Under his leadership, Infracapital has established itself as a trusted partner for both investors and portfolio companies, while playing a pivotal role in developing the infrastructure investment sector in Europe. Martin will remain actively involved during the leadership transition process, working closely with the team to ensure a smooth handover and continuity for clients and stakeholders,” highlighted Emmanuel Deblanc, CIO of Private Markets at M&G Investments.

For his part, John Bruen stated: “As demand for infrastructure continues to grow, driven by the energy transition, digitalization, and the need to modernize critical assets, the market presents significant long-term investment opportunities. Infracapital’s investment approach, deep sector expertise, and strong track record place it in a privileged position to capitalize on these structural trends. I am excited to work alongside the team to build on these strong foundations and continue generating value for our investors and stakeholders.”

“I am proud of what we have built at Infracapital over the past 25 years. Our success has been made possible thanks to the contributions of numerous highly talented professionals, both past and present, and the trust our clients have placed in us. Together, we have helped transform infrastructure investing from a niche strategy into an established asset class for institutional investors, and it has been a privilege to experience that evolution firsthand. I retire with peace of mind knowing that the firm is in an exceptionally strong position for the future,” added Martin Lennon regarding his departure from the firm.

My Stock Has Become A Meme: Who Is Really Moving The Stock Markets?

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The US stock market broke all its trading records on October 8, 2025: according to SEC data, volume reached 6.26 million orders in that single session, making it the highest-volume trading day in history since data collection began in January 2012. In 2026, we could be on track to break that record (the US regulator only provides data through December 31, 2025), driven by the sharp spike in volatility brought about by the war between Iran and the United States, which has triggered severe periodic corrections. However, who is actually moving the equity markets? Have stock market dynamics changed? And, most importantly, how are active management firms adapting to this new reality?

“Twenty years ago, it was big asset managers who could engage in price discovery; they were the ones moving the market. But the market has changed a lot, and now it is retail investors and hedge funds setting the rules of the game, and we should admit it,” reflects Huseyin Turan, portfolio manager of the J Safra Sarasin Tech Disruptors fund at J. Safra Sarasin Sustainable Asset Management (JSS SAM). Various data sources confirm this manager’s impression.

According to Reuters data, retail investor flows into US equities reached record levels in 2025, topping $308 billion. This represents a 14% increase over the “meme stock” craze seen in 2021, when flows of $270 billion were recorded.

Citadel confirms the continuation of this trend in its first-half 2026 report on market structure and flows, noting that during May and June it recorded an average daily cash equity trading volume 65% higher than in 2025, and more than double the 2024 average: “Nine of the ten highest-activity trading days ever recorded on our platform took place in the last two months, including seven in the month of June alone.” In fact, they point out that June 12 registered the largest single-day net volume of retail investor purchases ever observed on the platform, exceeding the previous record by 50%. It is worth noting that Citadel is the number one market maker for retail investors in the US, executing approximately 35% of all retail orders.

One of the keys to this spectacular increase in trading relates to expanded access for retail investors who did not previously invest in the market; according to Citadel, 50% of lower-income US households—traditionally the least active investing segment—today hold more than $615 billion in stocks and mutual funds, an all-time high. Since 2010, participation in stocks and mutual funds among the bottom 50% of US households by purchasing power has grown by more than 570%, outstripping any other income group.

“Buy the Dip,” “Meme Stocks,” and “Dumb Money”

In late 2020, video game retailer GameStop was one of the most heavily shorted stocks on the US market. Everything changed following a post on a Reddit forum by a user arguing that the company was undervalued. Soon, other forum users began investing in GameStop, driven partly by this user’s thesis—US investor Keith Gill, known on the forum as @RoaringKitty or @DeepFuckingValue—but also guided by a mix of emotions, ranging from nostalgia for bygone days to defying Wall Street elites.

GameStop became the first documented meme stock in history: users began buying shares en masse, eventually triggering a short squeeze (hedge funds that had taken short positions were forced to unwind them and buy back shares to cover losses, driving the stock price up and triggering further short covers). As a result, the stock rose from trading at $1.50 per share to hitting highs of $81.25 in a matter of weeks.

Five years later, the company continues to trade at nearly 15 times above its lows and recently submitted a takeover bid for eBay that was rejected by the company. According to SEC filings, GameStop holds a 10% stake in eBay, suggesting this chapter is not yet closed.

GameStop is not the only example, though it remains the most iconic instance of these sharp speculative movements centered on individual stocks that suddenly capture all the headlines for a brief period. This behavior has also been labeled “dumb money” by various media outlets. Another high-profile case, which resulted in a regulatory probe, involved Elon Musk’s tweets recommending investments in the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

For Hartwig Kos, Head of Multi Asset Allocation at Allianz Global Investors, the recent IPO of SpaceX was the latest major meme. In an interview with Funds Society, Kos explained that his team has started working on identifying “meme themes”: “You position yourself from a fundamental standpoint, but you must also keep in mind what the trending topics are in the market, because the weight of the retail investor is very significant today. Currently, it is a market largely dominated by ‘animal spirits,'” he detailed.

Kos and his team also track whether retail investors buy during steep downturns, a behavior termed “buy the dip.” Citadel’s report confirms that retail investors purchased nearly 3.5 times the average daily volume on days when the S&P 500 closed lower during the first half of 2026.

For Fabiana Fedeli, CIO of Equities, Multi-Asset, and Sustainability at M&G Investments, one of the major shifts in equities since COVID has been the rise in dispersion across stocks, sectors, and countries. She cited as an example that in 2025, the materials sector “was fantastic in Asian emerging markets and very mediocre across the rest of the world.”

During a media presentation at the firm’s London office, Fedeli stated: “Investors are becoming increasingly specific and idiosyncratic,” while noting that retail investor participation in markets has virtually doubled since 2019 and that today’s retail investors are far better informed than in the past thanks to broader access to diverse information sources, including social media.

The expert defended M&G’s active management approach based on fundamental analysis, though without ignoring these trends: thus, if one of the stocks they hold or have on their radar becomes a meme stock, the protocol is to review the fundamental thesis: “If we believe it is truly worth buying, we wait for that ‘meme’ trend to cause its price to plunge, and then we enter; or, if we hold that stock and the ‘meme’ trend is pushing it to levels we believe completely overvalue future earnings, then we sell it.” Fedeli emphasized that the firm does not seek to actively participate, because “narratives change too quickly.”

At JSS SAM, manager Huseyin Turan notes that, in the case of mega-cap stocks, retail investor speculation “is not going to move share prices all that much.” Turan, who identifies as an X user (formerly Twitter) and a reader of several blogs, explains regarding comments from such accounts: “We have learned many good things from some Substack bloggers, but we are very selective. I don’t believe they have the capacity to move share prices, but they can move the narrative or the debate surrounding a stock.”

The Role of Passive Management

However, attributing stock market dynamics simply to the more or less irrational behavior of retail investors means taking the part for the whole. Citadel’s own report speaks of 2026 as witnessing “the structural transformation of equity markets” and draws conclusions regarding the primary forces currently moving markets: “Concentration, passive investing, retail investor participation, leverage, and volatility are no longer independent trends. Together, they increasingly determine how capital flows, how prices are set, and how risk is transferred.”

Among this set of interconnected trends, the growing role of passive management is worth highlighting. According to ETFGI data compiled in its Global ETFs Industry Landscape Insights report, the global ETF sector reached a record $23.09 trillion in the first half of the year, with net inflows hitting an all-time high of $1.33 trillion.

From M&G, Fabiana Fedeli warns that this changing dynamic is in turn altering how institutional investors allocate capital: “We have a number of clients who have asked us to start moving some money from passive to active management in areas where we believe we can generate greater returns actively.” The expert offered the example that year to date, returns for the Magnificent Seven have ranged between 6% and 7%, whereas investing in the 300 largest constituents of the S&P 500 “would have yielded more than double.” “Forget index investing. Real alpha can be achieved through stock picking,” she asserted flatly.

Fedeli added that more sophisticated asset owners are also shifting their asset allocation, moving from a strategic asset allocation to what she described as a “total portfolio allocation”: while a traditional strategic allocation involves a series of asset blocks assigned different static weights, allocations in this new model are far more dynamic and unanchored from indexes, instead establishing absolute return targets tailored to investor needs. “It is a harder way to invest, but many of us are adapting gradually. Today’s reality is that we have moved away from passive investing and there is greater capacity to be more granular,” she concluded.

The Weight of the Momentum Factor

“We are in a momentum market: the more something rises, the more it tends to rise afterward. These markets are very lucrative because they capture major long-term trends, especially when leverage is involved… and we are currently at peak leverage levels,” says Víctor de la Morena, CIO of Amundi Iberia, clarifying that he was referring primarily to institutional money.

During an outlook presentation for the second half of the year in Madrid, De la Morena explained that this combination of momentum and leverage is helping investors multiply their gains during uptrends, “but it generates tremendous volatility, because when those trends break, the pullbacks are brutal.”

De la Morena warns that investors seem already “accustomed to this type of market” where large swings can occur—in fact, unprecedented levels of volatility are being recorded in the Nasdaq—yet this combination of momentum and leverage is creating “a great deal of distortion.”

Kriti Gupta, Global Investment Strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Banking, and Nick Roberts, portfolio manager, point out the obvious: today it is AI capturing all the momentum. “Investors are not only buying shares in companies adopting this technology, but are also capitalizing on scarcities related to its development. This includes GPUs, memory, networking equipment, power generation, grid infrastructure, cooling, transformers, copper, gas turbines, and data center capacity. This trend has come at the expense of enterprise software and commercial services.”

Both experts note that the outperformance of this winning group has been historic so far this year, pointing out that internal dispersion within the momentum factor is at its highest level since 1990: “While a basket of large-cap US non-AI stocks is up 3.5% this year, a basket tied to AI data centers has generated a 47% return. The benchmark MSCI USA Momentum Index has risen 43% since the S&P 500’s trough on March 30, representing a rally more than double that of the broader index,” they note.

The latest test for this dynamic lies in the IPOs announced for this year. SpaceX’s successful debut has already brought an extra influx of demand, although De la Morena points out that “since the year 2000, no entity had demanded so much money from the market.” The expert stressed the need to monitor these “market tests” very closely to determine “to what extent that appetite reflects tangible investment rather than speculation.”

Regarding the IPOs announced for after the summer—Anthropic and OpenAI—De la Morena concludes with this warning: “What lies ahead could be an avalanche of capital, and that money has to come from somewhere: either it exits other assets, or it comes from liquidity and savings… or credit is extended to fund it.”

UBS Delivers Another Record Quarter Driven by Wealth Management Business

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The largest banking integration carried out since the 2008 financial crisis is entering its final stretch. However, beyond the operational success of the Credit Suisse absorption, UBS’s second-quarter results conveyed another, far-reaching message for the global financial industry: the wealth management business continues to consolidate its position as the single most critical source of growth for major international banks.

According to its financial report, during the second quarter of 2026, UBS reported net profit of $2.8 billion and pre-tax profit of $3.6 billion, while underlying profit rose to $3.9 billion—a 45% increase compared to the prior-year period. Revenues grew by 13%, driven by solid performance across virtually all divisions.

Nevertheless, the metric observed most closely by the wealth management industry was altogether different. The Global Wealth Management division successfully attracted $36 billion in net new assets during the quarter, bringing the total to $73 billion for the first half of the year—a clear signal that the firm continues to capture wealth from high-net-worth clients even after integrating the vast majority of Credit Suisse’s legacy business.

As a result, total invested assets managed across the entire group reached a record high of $7.3 trillion, a figure that cements UBS’s position among the largest wealth managers globally.

The New Wealth Landscape

During the earnings call, executive management highlighted that growth was particularly robust in the Americas and Asia—regions where the high-net-worth population continues to expand and where demand for specialized financial advice maintains a structural upward trajectory.

In this context, client transaction revenues within the wealth management unit grew 23% year-over-year, reflecting heightened investment activity propelled by more dynamic financial markets and a renewed risk appetite throughout much of the quarter.

The combination of new inflows, higher advisory fees, and a favorable investment environment reinforces a trend recently mirrored by other financial titans such as BlackRock, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan: competition no longer centers merely on selling financial products, but on managing long-term relationships with increasingly wealthy and sophisticated clients.

Credit Suisse Fades from the Headlines

Just three years ago, UBS faced the formidable challenge of absorbing Credit Suisse following the latter’s collapse. Today, that process is virtually ceasing to be a source of uncertainty. The institution reported that over 90% of legacy technology applications have been decommissioned and nearly 70% completely decommissioned, while cumulative synergies have reached $12 billion in gross cost savings—nearing the target of $13.5 billion slated for year-end.

For investors, this signals that the bank can once again pivot toward growth rather than integration. The results also underscore how the business model of major international banks has evolved. While traditional lending activities face compressed margins and heightened regulatory burdens, wealth management offers recurring revenues, lower capital requirements, and client relationships that frequently span decades.

In UBS’s case, Global Wealth Management generated revenues of $7.1 billion—approximately half of the group’s total top-line revenue—consolidating its role as the bank’s primary growth engine.

Capital Return and Regulatory Outlook

Furthermore, this financial strength enabled UBS to announce a new $3 billion share buyback program, of which at least $1 billion is slated for execution over the coming months—though the pace of execution will also depend on forthcoming capital rules being discussed by Swiss regulators in the wake of Credit Suisse’s collapse.

For the global wealth management industry, UBS’s results yield an important conclusion. The Credit Suisse integration is fading as the central talking point. In its place emerges a structural reality: wealth creation continues to expand, high-net-worth individuals remain in pursuit of specialized advice, and institutions with global scale are the primary beneficiaries of this shift.

If a decade ago the race was to become the largest bank, today the competition appears concentrated on managing the largest possible pool of private wealth. And, for now, UBS is demonstrating that this strategy continues to pay off.