SFR announced yesterday the winners of its 2025 institutional research (found here). 
SFR’s research annually interviews over 100 domestic institutions. Since, according to our calculations, there are fewer than 200 entities classified as institutions in Finland, the research sample is very comprehensive. The research evaluates all relevant domestic asset managers based on nine different quality criteria. The most important categories are large asset managers and challengers. In addition, SFR also gives awards in certain special categories. 
The key measurable aspects of the research are quality and usability. Historically, these categories have had a strong link to each other, and the top-ranked players in quality have later also become the most used players. We note that the differences in the research scoring are often very small, and for example, last year, there was only a 0.15 point difference (on a scale of 1-5) between positions 1 and 7 in quality scores. Overall, we consider SFR’s research to be the best asset management research in Finland, and it provides a good indication of the development of various players. We note that SFR’s research is not public, and I myself have not seen the entire research for this year. Therefore, I will only highlight observations from the companies I follow here. 
Among the companies we follow, Evli performed well again and ranked second in the large companies category. Evli has been among the top ranks of the research for well over a decade. In the challengers’ category, UB improved its ranking by one spot and won the entire category. 
Mandatum, which has made a magnificent rise to the top ranks of the research in recent years, was not among the top three, to our great surprise. For eQ, the result was a clear disappointment for the second year in a row, as it ranked 7th in quality scores. Between 2017-2023, eQ won the quality category every year except one.
Most likely, during the day today, the companies themselves will provide more detailed information about the results and, for example, discuss usability. 