57Influence of the ETF industry on IR work majority states that IR is committed to achieve the fulfillment of those criteria in the company The fact that little working time is currently spent on ETF topics is also due to the fact that the range of passive investment products has become so diverse that it is difficult to maintain an over view of the product Nowadays there are more ETFs than shares available on the capital markets Expert interview 1 2021 see annex 3 To get an overview intensive familiarization and tracking of different product types of passive investment opportunities is necessary This in turn is associ ated with a large amount of work which is cur rently not feasible for IR professionals due to the current low relevance of passive investment topics compared to other IR tasks For this reason the topic of ETFs is not yet important enough for IR departments to deal with it with such an intensity during working hours Despite of losing an overview a certain sentiment of powerlessness with regard to the increasing passive investment industry is noticeable among IR experts The impression occurs that a contact to ETF providers is kind of impossible Therefore it is hard to imagine for many IR professionals which activities will lead to an increase of time spent on passive topics Will the passive investment replace the active investment That the passive investment industry will continue to grow is indisputable Until now the growth of passive investments is unbroken and will fur ther increase Various drivers contribute to this development On the one hand pension money will further increase due to the aging structure of the world population and retirement provision becomes more important On the other hand due to the low interest rate environment investments in shares real assets and stock market products in general will remain a popular investment method However the likelihood that passive investments will completely replace active investments will not happen For this the market is more active than one might think Only 20 of global equities are represented by index funds including ETFs large portions are not held by fund managers but rather by insurance companies and pension funds Stevenson and Tuckwell 2019 p 29 Hence as explained in chapter 2 1 the line between active and passive is very ambiguous making a clear differentiation between active and passive nearly impossible As described in chapter 2 2 3 2 smart beta ETFs are not purely passive Even an investment in a completely passive portfolio is not 100 of a passive nature as the choice of the overall asset allocation and in which market to invest in is still active Another important aspect are the arbitrage opportunities arising from a further increase of the passive market Drobetz 2020 9 34 In a 70 passive market for exam ple there would be companies that are underval ued because 70 of the market would follow an existing market cap This would generate numer ous opportunities for active investors Therefore experts assume a self regulating and self correct ing process For market mechanism of efficient markets to work investors who respond to new information that are influencing the share price and analyze companies in depth to look for new information and insights are needed Stevenson and Tuckwell 2019 pp 29 The role of ETF providers and proxy advisors In view of the fact that the passive industry will continue to grow and there is already a feeling of powerlessness towards ETF providers and the overall passive industry which will most probably further increase there will be a call for regulations from the market In case of a further increase of the power of ETF providers and proxy advisors the market will claim regulations on transparency as proxy advisors are already having an oligopolistic position in the market Expert interview 3 2021 see annex 3 Influence of the growing ETF industry on active investor relations work

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