Against a background of expected consolidations, French providers are continuing to innovate within their product ranges, particularly through multi-manager funds which have provided a back door into open-architecture. Yuri Bender reports

Despite being generally ignored throughout the 1990s – as equities and bonds performed in line with investors expectations – the death of active asset allocation has been greatly exaggerated, say Natexis Asset Management’s Roland Lescure and Christophe Morel

With the current low interest-rate environment and with equities performance making investors rather cautious the absolute returns style is proving its worth as fund inflows are booming

Nicolas Boitout, fund manager-currency specialist at Crédit Agricole Asset Management in London, speaks about predicting exchange rate fluctuations, building a diversified portfolio and current market conditions

Emmanuel Bourdeix, head of convertible bonds and derivatives at Crédit Agricole Asset Management in Paris, speaks about the effect of volatility on equity markets and how to seize opportunities for investors

Simon Hildrey assesses industry opinion on whether emerging markets are likely to maintain their strong peformance of the last three years