Asset managers have been warned they must rapidly adapt their business models to claw back investor flows and profits lost as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with businesses advised to ramp up their digital distribution capabilities, accelerate cost saving plans and bolster their range of alternative assets.

According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, asset managers are facing a “new chapter of economic turmoil in 2020 which is likely to prompt a winner-takes-all phenomenon” not seen since the aftermath of the global financial crisis.