Contrarian: A swansong for asset managers?

CONTRARIAN INVESTOR

Predictions of doom for the active fund management industry have not come to pass just yet, but David Stevenson says the challenges of the future will prove even tougher to overcome.

The world of conventional asset management has had a decent year or so. The predictions of doom usually peddled by supporters of ETFs have not really come to pass and I would suggest RDR has, if anything, actually given the sector a real boost. Clean pricing on big platforms has begun to have an effect. Investors are waking up to the fact that you can, in fact, invest in a well-respected active fund manager for a good deal less than 100 basis points. Total cost of ownership may in fact be hideously higher, but my suspicion is that most investors do not really look much beyond the AMC/tot...