FT

Why Institutions Cannot Control Pay

An interesting recent article in the Financial Times FTfm supplement helped to explain why pay is so out of control in public companies. In an interview with Rakhi Kumar of State Street Global Advisors, she made it plain what the problem is. State Street may not be a household name in the UK, but they are one of the world’s largest fund managers. Fourth in size behind only Blackrock, Vanguard and UBS according to Wikipedia. Last year State Street had more than ...
10th August 2017 Read more

Interesting FT Articles on Fund Performance , Nick Train and Executive Pay

There have been some very interesting articles in the FT in the last few days. On the 25th February John Authers discussed market timing and passive versus active management. He quoted consumer research group Dalbar who have compared active and passive funds. Although passive funds have beaten active funds in the long term, because of their lower costs, investors in active funds have received higher returns in the last 15 years. How can that be? It's because to quote: "Holders of ...
28th February 2017 Read more

Do Active Funds Underperform? But Costs are the Real Problem

On the 24 October the Financial Times FTfm supplement led with a front page article that was headlined "99% of Active US equity funds underperform". It also had a sub heading of "Almost all UK, global and EM funds have failed to outperform since 2006". So I sent a letter to the Editor which said the following, much of which they have published today (31/10/2016) plus letters from other writers making the same point. This is what my letter said: "Your headline in ...
31st October 2016 Read more

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...
30th August 2016 Read more

The Financial Times, religion and Brexit

Has the FT developed an interest in religious affairs? On Friday (11/3/2016), they reported on two matters. First was the revelation that to become a saint, you need strong financial backing. Apparently the Pope is cracking down on financial abuses in the sainthood business. It can cost as much as £750,000 to get a person promoted to sainthood and paying more speeds up the process. Second was their reporting of Archbishop Justin Welby's views on Brexit as published in the parliamentary magazine ...
13th March 2016 Read more