Finance in asset management
the economics of asset management: fee structures and margins, fee compression, operating leverage on AUM, and how flows drive the business.
This Finance block applies core financial discipline to Asset & Wealth Management, where revenue is driven by fee margins on assets under management rather than balance-sheet lending. You will learn how AWM firms make money, how fund economics and client portfolios are structured, and how to read the financial statements of asset managers and wealth platforms. The block covers the calculations, benchmarks and ratios that define profitability and scale in this sector across the US and Europe. It closes with the regulatory regimes, financial risks and due-diligence checks specific to managing other people's money, including fee transparency, liquidity, and fiduciary obligations.
What you'll master
- Read an asset manager's P&L and isolate management fee, performance fee and net flow drivers
- Calculate AUM-based revenue, fee margin in basis points, and operating margin with worked examples
- Benchmark cost-to-income, net new money and expense ratios against US and European peers
- Run financial due-diligence checks on fund liquidity, fee structures and regulatory capital
Key terms
Modules
Covers the core economics of asset management: how basis points, operating leverage, fee compression and flows drive the business.
Teaches the key metrics, return math and benchmarks used to evaluate funds and size the market.
Explains the regulatory frameworks, risk categories and control checks that govern funds and managers.
Latest articles
Recent articles from the blog that apply to Asset & Wealth Management.
- KKR flags AI concentration risk: what the credit binge means for bank NPL ratios nowKKR's warning about overexposure to AI-related borrowing is not just a private credit concern. For bank CFOs managing credit portfolios, it reopens a familiar and uncomfortable set of questions about NPL ratios, coverage adequacy, and whether today's cost of risk accurately prices tomorrow's defaults.
- Fee compression and the flight to passive: why the death of active management is overstatedNet flows into passive vehicles have dominated industry headlines for a decade, and the consensus now reads active management as a structurally declining business. The reality is more complicated, and the CFOs who misread it will make poor capital allocation decisions at exactly the wrong moment.