MiFID II Has Caused European Equity Research Business To Tank 20 Percent This Year

With Europe’s Markets in Financial Directives (MiFID II) approaching its one year anniversary this January 3, the concerns that the sweeping regulations designed to increase transparency and diversity are, paradoxically, going to disrupt markets has thus far been proven unfounded. It has added complexity in some regards and attempted to detach investment research cost from investor gains, among other goals. What also has happened, however, is not quite what regulators had anticipated. A new report from Greenwich Associates speaks to a bifurcated market in investment research, with the fates of independent research providers and big banks moving in different directions….