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Substantive Research Reveals Increase in Investment Research Spending

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Substantive Research, the research and data spend analytics provider, has released findings from its latest survey on investment research pricing, budgeting, and consumption for the first half of 2024. The survey assesses the impact of the FCA’s April 2024 Consultation Paper on “Payment Optionality for Investment Research,” which has sparked debate over whether European asset managers should revert research costs back to end investors after six years of absorbing these expenses due to MiFID II.

Key findings indicate an overall 2.2% increase in research budgets globally, with US budgets rising 15% as a proportion of assets under management (AUM) and European budgets increasing by 4%. Brokers continue to dominate, capturing 85% of the annual spend, albeit with a slight decrease, while spending on analytics and research tooling grows. The top 10 brokers maintain a significant share, slightly rising to 54.9%. This evolving landscape suggests a shift towards greater consumption and varied pricing strategies within the research market, with potential competitive impacts from the FCA’s proposed reforms.

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