Partnership With Great-West LifeCo Seems To Be Better Part of the Acquisition of Putnam Investments

We've been big proponents of consolidation among the U.S.-based asset managers, expecting firms to pursue scale within existing product sets, as well as pursue nonaffected investment products like alternative assets, as a means of offsetting the impact of fee and margin compression being driven by the growth of low-cost passive products. Following its purchase of Legg Mason in February 2020, Franklin Resources has been focused more exclusively on alternative asset managers when acquiring businesses, so we were surprised to see the firm move more recently for Putnam, a traditional asset manager that was far from a prized asset.