Ex-Fidelity International's Leigh Himsworth: How the push for scale is causing issues for asset and wealth managers

'Industry pressure'

Given that there have been, and continue to be, significant pressures on asset and wealth managers it is often stated that the only answer is to go for scale.

For me, such an answer is one born from using a spreadsheet to seek answers for a company as opposed to truly attempting to see why such forces are pressing the industry and indeed what underlying investors may desire. This push for scale is causing some massive issues in the industry. The size of the likes of BlackRock and some ETFs means that they can offer many of the mainstream investment options at rock-bottom prices, often in the realms of 9 basis points, needing vast sums to make this viable.  The Big Interview: RBC BlueBay CEO on consolidation and asset managers' need for s...