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For external asset managers (EAMs), succession planning is a strategic priority. Demographic changes, rising client expectations, increasing regulatory complexity, and the need to attract younger talent are all reshaping the sector. In this piece, Union Bancaire Privée’s (UBP) Nadège Lesueur-Pène, Head of Wealth Management Developing Markets & Europe, and Anja Karcher, Head of EAMs Basel, provide some guidance on how to achieve a smooth handover.

Major central banks mostly held their interest rates steady last week, with the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) preferring to wait and see what happens. Global equities edged lower as the technology sell-off extended into a third week, with investors focussing on the gap between artificial intelligence (AI) spending and free cash flow. Bonds gained on lower yields, while gold traded lower on modest positioning adjustments and its sensitivity to equity markets.

Chancellor John Healey promised us a boring budget. On that, he delivered, with markets seemingly stable in the aftermath. However, it was a more nuanced and complex picture beneath the surface.

When traditional assets increasingly share the same global drivers, diversification may depend on finding genuinely different sources of return.

As a Bank with medical research among its philanthropy priorities, UBP placed health at the heart of its collective priorities this October and brought colleagues together across the Group to raise funds for the fight against breast cancer.

Global equities slipped for a second week as investors questioned whether debt-funded artificial intelligence (AI) spending can earn adequate returns. US Treasury yields fell back below 5%, while French government bond spreads reached their widest levels since the eurozone crisis. Hyperscaler earnings and a string of major policy meetings make this a decisive week, though most central banks are expected to leave their interest rates unchanged.

Oil prices are usually quoted as the future price of crude oil, with Brent and WTI being the main benchmarks. However, the economy relies on refined products such as diesel, petrol and jet fuel rather than on crude oil itself, and the cost of turning the one into the other is the refining margin, or ‘crack spread’. Adding this spread to Brent gives a proxy for what the end consumer actually pays, and on that basis the average price is currently around USD 140–180 per barrel.