T. Rowe Price Group Inc. is reeling from a $127 billion exodus over just two years. At Franklin Resources Inc., the latest member of a billionaire family to run the firm is trying to reverse a nearly uninterrupted 20-quarter losing streak. Across the Atlantic, the chief of Abrdn Plc has reached a blunt conclusion: merely managing mutual funds isn’t enough of a business any more.
Across the $100 trillion asset-management industry, money managers have confronted a tectonic shift in investor appetite for cheaper, passive strategies over the past decade. Now they’re facing something even more dire: The unprecedented run of bull markets that buoyed their investments and masked life-threatening vulnerabilities may be a thing of the past.