Munich Finance Forum 2025
The 2025 Munich Finance Forum brought together five speakers with very different backgrounds. There was a reinsurance CIO, a military strategist, a macro economist, a China scholar, and a pension fund manager. They disagreed on plenty, but the conference offered a snapshot of what people in European finance were thinking about in 2025.
Here is a summary of each talk.
Dr. Nicholas Gartside “Is This Time Different?”
Gartside is Chief Investment Officer at Munich Re, where he manages about 250 billion euros in insurance assets. He started his career at Mercury Asset Management, then worked at Schroders and J.P. Morgan before joining Munich Re. His academic background is in history and international relations.
His presentation borrowed from Sir John Templeton’s famous warning that “the four most dangerous words in finance are ’this time it’s different.’” Gartside argued that while certain historical patterns repeat, genuine regime changes do happen. He pointed to the Bank of England’s long-term interest rate shift as an example.
On rates, he predicted the low and negative rate environment was behind us. He expects mild stagnation ahead: growth that stays positive but struggles to gain momentum. Inflation, he said, is rising and likely to continue up due to import prices and manufacturing costs.
Short-term markets are driven by fear and greed, he noted, but fundamentals eventually reassert themselves. He cited US tech sector P/E ratios and corporate spreads as evidence that current markets may not be in bubble territory, despite the excitement.
His core investment philosophy centers on matching assets to liabilities. He emphasized diversification as “the best kept secret in finance” and said Munich Re believes in consistent active asset management with a long-term horizon.
On private markets: Munich Re has been investing in them since 1897. Gartside said they can provide a complexity premium if done right.
On ESG: he views it as a regime change with a 10+ year timeframe. Munich Re owns significant forest assets and is committed to portfolio decarbonization, though he questioned the real-world impact when assets are simply sold to someone else.
During Q&A, Gartside was asked about Munich Re’s conservative approach compared to Warren Buffett. He said it comes down to different philosophies: European investors are more cautious. He sees risk coming equally from insurance and asset sides.
He identified potential irrationality in the tech sector, parts of private equity (flipping companies in 5-7 years), and credit markets where spreads look tight. He expects US Treasuries to remain dominant due to a lack of alternatives and is positive on German bonds with the expected 1 trillion euro issuance.
Professor Dr. Klaus Schweinsberg “Post-War, Post-Wall, Post-West”
Schweinsberg is a professor at ESCP Paris and ESMT Berlin, a colonel in the German Armed Forces General Staff (30+ years), and chairman of the Centre for Strategy and Higher Leadership. He also sits on the supervisory board of HSBC Deutschland.
His talk was about security. His thesis: Europe is in a pre-war period. He named Russia, China, and the US as three powers he described as threatening European interests, arguing that France and Germany must form a coalition to respond.
He framed the challenge around what he called the “5 Ms”:
Monetary: Russia has significant purchasing power. China has massive purchasing power with 10% growth. Germany is the only European country making substantial investments in Ukraine support.
Material: Russia produces around 1,500 tanks per year, more than the EU combined. Russia produces 6 times more artillery than the US. Rheinmetall is at maximum output but still produces less artillery per year than Russia does per month. China is expanding its nuclear arsenal and building the world’s largest navy and air force.
Mass Data: Ukraine can process satellite target data within 90 minutes with 20 personnel. NATO needs 600 personnel and 3 days for similar processing. Schweinsberg said Ukraine survived because of its speed of data and compute, and emphasized that Palantir and American systems are significantly faster than their German equivalents.
Menschen (Personnel): Training a normal infantry soldier takes 5-6 years. Germany needs 500,000 soldiers but faces recruitment challenges partly due to data protection laws.
Mindset: He argued the biggest problem is cultural. The current situation is historically normal, and the last 50-60 years were the anomaly. German procurement systems are designed to do nothing, and the culture of perfectionism gets in the way of capability.
On Taiwan: he said China now has the capacity and likely the capability. The most probable scenario is a sea blockade rather than a full invasion. Xi Jinping has indicated he wants action within his lifetime.
His timeline: Putin needs time to restructure the army and is currently occupied with Ukraine. A Baltic threat remains real. Schweinsberg suggested a preparation window of 1-2 years to respond to provocations, with 2029 as a critical benchmark for German military readiness.
Dr. Martin Lück “The New World (Dis)Order”
Lück founded Macro Monkey GmbH in late 2024 after 8 years as Chief Strategist for the DACH region at BlackRock and 8 years as Chief Economist for Germany at UBS. He has over 30 years in financial markets.
His talk focused on stagflation. He sees the US heading toward low growth with rising inflation driven by import prices and manufacturing costs. Uncertainty is very high, leading to reduced investment. Both stocks and fixed income are falling simultaneously, which creates problems for algorithms that weren’t designed for this scenario.
On Germany: the industrial sector is deeply affected by the Russian war and energy crisis. German industry needs large energy inputs and is vulnerable. The China relationship has shifted, as China used to buy German products, now it’s trying to sell to Germany instead. The Ifo business climate index shows hope but little improvement.
His 2026 outlook: a “Strohfeuer” brief intense activity that burns out quickly. He introduced the acronym TACO: “Trump Always Chickens Out,” suggesting trade threats may not fully materialize.
On geopolitics: Lück argued the US relies more on the EU than the EU relies on the US, and the US needs China more than China needs the US. He suggested the US is giving away international power, eroding its soft power. European loss in the current geopolitical realignment is the most significant.
China, he noted, has secured raw material countries in Africa, controls almost the entire African infrastructure, and dominates South America and Australia. Public perception in Germany is more favorable toward China than the US.
On markets: fixed income is back with yields over 4%. Emerging markets have long-term growth potential but are on a downward curve. A deglobalization phase is underway. He predicted Trump’s biggest impact in 2025 would be damaging the US dollar.
Professor Dr. Sebastian Heilmann “China: Geopolitics, Technology, and Capital Markets”
Heilmann is a professor for the politics and economy of China at the University of Trier and the founding director of MERICS (Mercator Institute for China Studies). He is internationally recognized as one of the most cited China scholars in Europe.
His thesis: we are in the middle of a hegemonic transition from the US to China, and it is “very likely” this will happen by the end of this decade. China has been preparing for this shift for 8 years and excels at asymmetric pressure.
On trade: China is the world’s largest trading partner. 50% of Chinese exports are critical to US industry. Asian and Indian industrial supply chains depend on China. The “Made in China 2025” strategy targets world leadership in multiple sectors.
On technology: Heilmann used Huawei as a case study. He described how the company developed new chips and an operating system through 24/7 effort over 4 years. He called this “military mobilization”, not just inspiration but transpiration. China is world leader in green technology. AI will be a focus of the next 5-year plan, though Xi Jinping is cautious about AI because of its potential to destabilize Party control.
He introduced the concept of “technospheres splitting apart”, the global technology ecosystem dividing into separate US and Chinese spheres. Tech decoupling is creating separate technological universes.
On capital markets: capital flows will exceed goods and services trade in 2025, with huge upward potential. Heilmann suggested it is “very probable that the US alliance will drop and China will win,” meaning the Chinese will have the biggest platform in financial markets.
On Germany: the automotive industry and its supply chain will decline. E-cars “will not work for Germany.” China has already passed Germany in electric vehicles. EU protectionism may help but lacks a clear plan. He noted that “economy is from power now”, economic strength derives from political power.
During Q&A, he mentioned that German niche industries under China’s radar still produce some of the best products China cannot make. German auto companies can still research and test extensively in China. But the Chinese strategy is to conquer global infrastructure first, then control the devices and cars.
Dr. Wolfram Gerdes “Long-term Investors Can Withstand More Volatility”
Gerdes is a board member at KZVK/VKPB, church pension funds managing about 18 billion euros. He has over 30 years in asset management, a PhD in Mathematics from MIT, and was a professor at Brandeis University before moving to industry.
His talk questioned how Germans approach risk. His central argument: risk is not volatility. He defined risk as “the danger that the desired and possible will not be achieved”; a fundamentally different framing from standard deviation.
Gerdes referenced Warren Buffett’s “buy low sell high” principle and argued that long-term investment horizons reduce risk. He pointed out that short-term volatility is a constant feature of markets, that nobody knows what will happen in the next few weeks, and that waiting for the perfect moment means it will never come.
His advice for portfolio construction: a diverse mix of private equity and real estate held over 10+ years. The risk goes down with time.
On active management: he believes fees should always be negotiable with good managers. Strong active managers have clear convictions and staff continuity. Good active management doesn’t require small asset bases.
On currency: he cautioned that international stocks are less attractive than they appear. Currency risk needs careful hedging.
He closed by normalizing the perpetual crisis environment: “We will always find the next crisis.” The question is whether your portfolio and mindset are built to handle it.
Closing thoughts
The five speakers covered a lot of ground. Interest rates, European defense, stagflation, Chinese hegemony, and the nature of risk itself. They didn’t agree on everything, as Gartside was relatively measured on markets, while Heilmann warned of a complete shift in global power. But that disagreement might have been the point. In Autumn 2025, nobody is pretending the path ahead was clear.