Episode summary
Live from London - Clash of the Titans! | Trillions
Trillions
· · Hosts: Eric Balchunas, Joel Weber · Guests: Manuela Sperandeo, Jonathan Cleborne
Summary
BlackRock and Vanguard used a live London taping to frame ETFs as the main battleground in Europe, but both guests argued the bigger prize is not just share gain between two giants. The host set up the rivalry with asset and ETF figures showing BlackRock and Vanguard far ahead of Fidelity and everyone else, then asked how much each firm thinks about the other. The guests agreed that Europe is still early in ETF adoption and that the real opportunity is moving money out of cash and deposits into long-term investing.
The discussion turned to mega-cap IPOs, float adjustment, and whether passive investing can keep up when giant private companies eventually list. One guest said the issue is less about fear of missing out at IPO and more about owning the market over time, while the other argued benchmark rules and index construction will keep adapting as companies stay private longer. They also debated thematic ETFs, with one side treating them as a small satellite allocation and the other emphasizing their growth, especially in Europe.
The episode also covered crypto, active ETFs, and the future of advice and distribution in Europe. One guest described Bitcoin ETFs as a gateway into first-time ETF investing, while both said lower fees, more transparency, and regulatory change are needed to turn savers into investors. On 60/40 and buffers, the message was more conservative: core portfolios still matter, and fixed-income ETFs have become a major technology for liquidity and access rather than just a diversifier.
Key takeaways
- The guests see Europe’s biggest ETF opportunity as converting cash and deposits into long-term market exposure, not just taking share from each other.
- One guest said Bitcoin ETFs have acted as a gateway, with 1 million new investors in the first year and 30% of buyers going on to buy another iShares ETF.
- The host argued mega-cap IPOs will matter more for index funds as float grows, but one guest said the actual initial exposure can still be small relative to market cap.
- Both guests said active ETFs in Europe are still early, with growth depending on distribution, digital adoption, and cheaper product design.
- The guests were skeptical of replacing core portfolios with buffers or other new structures, arguing that fixed-income ETFs and diversified portfolios still do most of the work.
Notable quotes
“the big opportunity in Europe because you just see, you know, Europeans who are incredibly disciplined savers stuffing their money under the mattress”
“you know, when you think about the the SpaceX IPO, I think it's a a good example of um you know, over the long run, you're you're going to want exposure to these these types of firms”
“I think we need to recognize uh I mean investing has changed dramatically over the the last decades. more company stay private for longer”
“It's like a reverse red pill. They go from being like outside of it to like”
“I think the the real challenge for active is it's got to deliver the alpha and then it will whatever wrapper you happen to put it in”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. — Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Trillions Podcast. I'm Joel Weber — And I'm Eric Balchunis — And we're coming to you live from Bloomberg's headquarters, London headquarters at our ETFs in depth conference. Thanks to all of you in the audience, you are now on the episode uh which we are calling the Clash of the Titans for a very obvious reason. Uh today our guests are Manuela Spirendio,
Well done. — Co-head of uh we practiced uh co-head of European eye shares at BlackRock and Jonathan Clebborn, managing director for Vanguard Europe. Eric, we've got a couple giants here. Heavyweights maybe. How did we get them to join us on our humble podcast?
I don't know. It we we sweet talked them. That's that's for sure. — In the history of our podcast, this is these are pretty good gets.
Yeah, we said free drinks afterwards, so that helped. But um these are amazing companies. Uh it is rare to find two companies dominating so much in their respective industries.
So let me give you some numbers just to set this up. Okay, so global assets, this is the whole enchilada. These guys rank one and two in everything.
So, Black Rockck 14 trillion, Vanguard 12 trillion. The third place person Fidelity 6 trillion. So, not even half.
US total assets, Vanguard 11 trillion, Black Rockck 5 trillion. But then international, Black Rockck cleans up. Global ETF assets, Black Rockck 6 trillion, Vanguard 4 trillion.
US ETF assets, we'll call it a tie at 4.5 trillion. Third place is below two trillion. So these guys make up in in the US market 30% each market share at 60% and they take in flows at about that rate.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- etfs in europe
- passive investing
- blackrock vs vanguard
- index and passive market dominance
- asset management competition
Companies and tickers mentioned
- BLK
- BlackRock
- Vanguard
Watch the episode
Watch “Live from London - Clash of the Titans! | Trillions” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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