The Fund Selection Blog

Back from Monaco

I am back in the office after a week in Monaco and after a week of interesting debates, presentations and not least of meetings and valuable new contacts. This was my fourth FundForum as founding partner of Tell Media Group and even if the financial crisis of course meant fewer participants, less exhibitors and less fancy give-aways, this is still a great place to pick up on industry trends and meet senior people in the European and global asset management industry. The topics discussed and the issues people agree on is pointing in the right direction. If the industry is able to walk the walk as well as talk the talk I am certain we have a lot to look forward to.  

On a more personal note I'm am very happy to see that this blog is highlighted at the conference website;

   

FundForum Observations

My take: Monday

I was only able to join the Monday sessions towards the end of the day so my take from Monday is the Mark Tennant Summary where he said; First, if banks and advisors are now the agent of the client – who is our distributor? Second, if you see long term equity performance around 6 percent (2 % GDP growth, 2 % inflation, 2 % risk premium) can really charge a 2 percent fee? Third, how do we talk about risk in a way that clients understand?

 

 

My take: Tuesday

I cannot think about or talk about the Tuesday sessions without mentioning Marvin Zonis, Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his talk on Wicked Problems (i.e. problems which are difficult or impossible to solve and when trying to solve them you create new wicked problems) – an inspiring start of the day!

 

 

In the following session we heard from Daniel Enskat, managing director at Strategic Insight, talk about how some forward thinking asset managers use new routes to gain access to and drive new assets to their funds. One example is Bill Gross who you can follow at Twitter or at Youtube – is this asset management 2.0?

 

I would also highlight the afternoon session in Stream A where we could listen to Steve Wiltshire (SW1 Consulting) talk about The Seven Deadly Sins of Fund Selection – certainly a clever way to present a number of challenges for the fund selection market.

 

My take: Wednesday

I guess that Sass, the bar opposite the Grimaldi Forum, had a profitable night on Tuesday as the audience was a bit smaller on Wednesday morning – but those of us who woke up in time had the benefit of listening to Professor Norbert Walter, Chief Economist at Deutsche Bank Group and also listen to the insights from Anatole Kaletsky, Editor-at-Large at The Times of London and Don Phillips, President Fund Research at Morningstar and also an old colleague of me when I was the European Director of Fund Research at Morningstar in early 2000. In a discussion on regulation Don concluded; “There are a lot of investor advocates out there, such as media, advisors and academia and any regulation not recognising that is bad”.

 

Industry must focus on distribution

In his introductory speech at FundForum International in Monaco on Wednesday Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, the CEO for Invesco Europe and recently appointed President of EFAMA, said that the two most important issues for the European fund industry going forward is distribution and pensions. On distribution he concluded that there are major problems which need to be solved as this is where product meets client. He also said that pensions are a major issue in Europe and the solution should be UCIT.

Selection or Allocation?

The FundForum International in Monaco kicked off yesterday with a day focused on distribution. I joined participants in the afternoon to chair a session labeled “Avoiding The Noise: Assessing The Key Criteria For Manager Selection & Sub-Advisory Mandates In The Post-Credit Crunch World” and as I have written before we had a great line-up of people participating. Luca De Biasi, Head of PB Mandates & Multi-Management at BSI was first out with an introductory presentation where he stressed the importance of being more unorthodox in the risk management parameters to be used. The markets are not normally distributed so you should not use metrics based on a normally distributed reality.

 

On the panel we had Adam Niewinski (CEO at Xelion Financial Advisers in Poland), Vincent Regan (Global Head, Mutual Fund Research at Deutsche Bank), Andreas Willius (Director, Retail Sales at Deutsche Borse) and Luca De Biasi from BSI. Several topics where raised and discussed, but one that got most attention was the discussion of fund selection vs. asset allocation. The panel was divided on whether you can have one without the other. Any thoughts among our readers?

A failed industry?

Is fund selection a sign of a failed fund industry? Wasn't funds originally created to be the solution for investors who did not want to or did not have the knowledge to select individual stocks/securities. Have funds become too many, too complicated or too specialized for regular investors? If so, is that a good or bad thing?

This is one of the questions that will be raised at the round table I am moderating at the FundForum International in Monaco on June 22. Do you have other questions, topics or trends related to fund selection that you think we should discuss? Use the comment feature below and share your thoughts.  

Moderating Fund Selector ThinkTank

I have just learned that I will be the moderator for a fund selection session at the Distribution Summit, the pre conference day focused on Fund Distribution, Fund Selection & Advice at the FundForum International in Monaco. The panel session is labelled “Avoiding The Noise: Assessing The Key Criteria For Manager Selection & Sub-Advisory Mandates In The Post-Credit Crunch World” and there is a great line-up of people participating;

Luca De Biasi

Head Of PB Mandates & Multi-Management

BSI

 

Adam Niewinski

CEO

XELION FINANCIAL ADVISERS POLAND

 

Vincent Regan

Global Head, Mutual Fund Research

DEUTSCHE BANK

 

Andreas Willius

Director, Retail Sales

DEUTSCHE BORSE

Blogging from Monaco in June

As a regular visitor to the FundForum International I'm happy that we are back in Monaco this year. I am also happy that we again feature as an official media partner at the event. Because, as the organisers highlight; 

"With more than 1300 attendees & 200 speakers in 2008, FundForum is your one chance to network with the global asset manager brain-trust".

This blog will help you stay on top on what happens at the Grimaldi Forum at the end of June. Our coverage starts today. We will post updates leading up to the event and will of course publish continously as soon as Tom Brown from KPMG delivers his opening address on June 23.