MSCI chief: world of passive investing won't last forever

Singapore

PASSIVE investing has taken the world by storm, and MSCI stands at the heart of it.

But Henry Fernandez, MSCI's chairman and chief executive officer since 1998, has a surprisingly centrist view on whether the world will be dominated by exchange-traded funds (ETFs) passively tracking benchmarks that index providers like MSCI created.

"You have to step back and look at fundamentals. Passive management generally works best in a bull market. And we've had a bull market since 2009," he tells The Business Times.

Passive investing trumps activ…