The UK’s wealth and risk – mapped
Having just finished the first of a series of reports we have created on the UK’s wealth and attitude to risk, it caused me to reflect on how far the investment industry has moved in the last 25 years.
When I was part of a team which launched AEtna Life in the UK, we were the first to launch risk based managed funds. Then we had an era of advisers running their own broker fund. We’ve had years of advisers creating their own asset allocation models, picking ‘the best funds’ for clients – aren’t we clever! and now its going full circle back to outsourcing asset allocation models and fund selection to the managers of multi-asset funds, which might be risk profiled or risk targeted. These seem to be what the FCA favours for most advisers to use.
So I was thinking its only taken 25 years for the regulators [in their many guises] to realise that what advisers do best is advise and fund managers do best is fund manage. I am going to come back with some more thoughts about where we’ll be in the next 25 years…watch this space!