FCI Contributes to Investment in European Defense Roundtable: Shaping Benchmarks for a Strategic Thematic

FCI at Investment in European Defense: Building Benchmarks for a Strategic Sector

Transparency and methodology at the heart of Europe’s defense investment boom

On October 27, 2025, Fair Cost Index (FCI) participated in the Investment in European Defense: Risk & Opportunities for the Asset Management Industry roundtable, co-hosted by CFA Society Luxembourg, ALRiM, and GFR (Global Fund Risk) at Hotel Le Royal (Luxembourg).

The roundtable, moderated by Prash Chandrasekhar (CFA Society Luxembourg) and Luc Neuberg, PhD (GFR/ALRiM) and gathered over 100 financial professionals to dissect the rapid transformation of defense as an investable asset class—amid geopolitical shifts, regulatory evolution, and the crumbling stigma around ESG-aligned defense investments.

📌 As covered by Paperjam:: "$10.1bn inflows: Defense goes core as ESG stigma crumbles"

Defense Indices: A New Frontier for Asset Managers

Jean-Hugues Lasbatre, Director of Operations at FCI, joined a lineup of experts to explore how data transparency and rigorous index construction can support the sector’s growth:

• Julien Malizard (Institut des Hautes Études de Défense Nationale, IHEDN) – Macroeconomic drivers of Europe’s defense financing.
• Benjamin Gauthier, FRM (PwC) – Regulatory frameworks and risk management in defense investments.
• Andrew Ye, CFA (Global X ETFs) – Practical implications for ETFs and passive strategies.

Key themes addressed in FCI’s presentation:

• The urgency of sovereign benchmarks: How European defense indices (e.g., FCI EUROPE TOTALCAP IMPACT DEFENSE 100) can reduce reliance on non-EU providers while aligning with strategic autonomy goals.
• Methodological rigor: Cover the full defense ecosystem, ranking each selected sub-sector by its proxymity to the wider defense thematic.
• Cost efficiency: Challenging the status quo of opaque, high-fee indices with transparent, fair-cost alternatives—critical for institutional adoption.

« At FCI, we don’t claim expertise in defense itself; our strength lies in building transparent, adaptable indices. That’s why collaboration with specialists—like those at this conference—is invaluable: to ensure our benchmarks reflect the industry’s realities.

In the end this isn’t just about finance; it’s about giving Europe the tools to finance its own security—on its own terms» — Jean-Hugues Lasbatre, FCI