There is no wave without wind – reviewing some of the most common Chinese proverbs for the new year always helps put things in perspective, especially with all the noise in the market and our industry these days.

Following some eighty in-depth conference calls with leading distributors in Europe and around the world, today more than ever it is important to look beyond the ‘mot du jour’ and distributors are looking to asset managers to do just that. I will share with you the most common feedback and complaints later this week, but here are the top two:

1. Be a gentleman (woman) – don’t call me all the time, don’t just chase assets and – most importantly – don’t stop calling during a time of crisis.

2. Help us do our job – most companies still make the mistake of just talking about themselves, instead of providing thought leadership.

Thus, yes, it’s nice to start a conversation with “newcits” or “PIIGS” (unlike BRICs not a good accronym, aka Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), but it’s more important to offer thought leadership (and research) around the themes that matter for the next decade.

Here they are, the global metatrends that matter to build your business in the next ten years as the investment management industry goes from $100 trillion to $150 trillion+

• Back to basics: despite the difficult decade, mutual funds overall gathered $7.3 trillion in net flows in the last ten years. Post-subprime and Madoff, we expect the back to basics theme to benefit mutual funds, if positioned correctly in the context of each specific target region and market.

• Global middle class as mutual fund growth driver: An investing middle class is the foundation of success for mutual funds worldwide (along with retirement incentives such as 401k or superannuation, which accelerates growth). The global middle class will grow from 450 million people today to almost 2 billion in the next ten years, overwhelmingly in emerging markets – is your firm culturally ready to cater to them?

• Darwin: Only firms able to adapt to and balance global, regional and local market requirements will be successful. Changing information needs and tailored content delivery and marketing messages in addition to performance leads to accelerating turnover of industry leadership (two thirds of the current top 50 globally will disappear in the next ten years, and vice versa).

• West-to-East (…and East-to-West): The trend from west to east is well documented. But now we also see a growing trend from east to west, as Asian firms are expanding in Europe and the US, especially Chinese firms. Companies able to leverage existing and build new business partnerships can benefit (Eastern SWFs call it a “once in a lifetime opportunity” and are registering offshore vehicles to sell in the West).

• New Normal in Europe: $750 billion came out of long-term funds in Europe from the major distributors in 2008 during the subprime-crisis, half of that from Europe equity, Europe fixed-income and Absolute Return, i.e. the bread and butter of European firms. While some $150 billion came back to those categories last year, the inflows benefit independent fund firms and we expect the same trend to continue in 2010 (who will get to the $14 trillion in cash earning zero across Europe first?).

• Independence, brand and communication: Independent asset managers are attracting larger amounts of inflows as some large institutions have lost the trust of the customer, less so in Asia/China than Europe/US. Beyond best-in-breed processes and performance, perceived brand and pro-active communication with professional fund buyers drives flows (stay tuned for a case study on this).

• Changing investor mindset(s): Retail funds continue to be sold, but selected adviser-led client segments are now sufficiently educated to use funds for their long-term retirement needs. IFA clients during the downturn redeemed less and will start to re-allocate investments towards equities in the second half of 2010. While transparency and safety remain key, education around equities and asset allocation will play a more important role this year.

Happy Chinese New Year (of the Tiger…. might want to rebrand that).