The RDR conundrum

The investment trust industry is backing the RDR initiative wholeheartedly. Simon Cordery, head of investment trust investor relations at F&C Investments, explains why.

As implementation of the FSA’s Retail Distribution Review approaches at the end of 2012, investment trust businesses have been among the loudest cheerleaders for an initiative that has at best split opinions across the world of financial services. The theory goes that with IFAs forced to consider the whole investment market, and with upfront commission no longer muddying the waters, the benefits of investment trusts will become so suddenly and blindingly obvious that IFAs will flock to them, at the expense of the open-ended funds that have been most advisers’ stock-in-trade until now. ...