Ouch! FCA: Financial Conduct Authority delivers another blow to Authorised Fund Managers with Assessment of Value review Last week the FCA published the results of their review on ‘host’ Authorised Fund Management firms’ which concluded with the FCA wanting to see “significant improvements” with many currently failing to meet the FCA standards. This week, the…
It’s been almost a year since the FCA Assessment of Value rules came into force, and many firms would say that due to the FCA’s limited guidance thus far, they are still no clearer as to what a good value statement look like. Well, those firms are now in luck, and may be finding out…
ESMA recently published a supervisory briefing on the supervision by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) of costs applicable to Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). The briefing was response to the need to improve convergence across NCAs in the approach to undue costs.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a supervisory briefing on the supervision by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) of costs applicable to Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
Under the FCA’s Asset Management Market Study, the final report of which was published in June 2017, the City watchdog determined that price competition is weak in a number of areas of the industry.
A number of key regulators including ESMA, the CBI and the FCA have reviewed the market for potential hidden “closet tracker” funds and published their findings, with a number of funds providing inaccurate information in their investor disclosure documents as regards investment strategy.
While the FCA’s Assessment of Value (AoV) process is a new development in the UK market, a similar requirement on mutual funds has been in place in the United States for considerable time. The approach in the United States provides some useful comparisons to the new UK regime. The US fund governance model requires under Section 15c of the US Investment Companies Act 1940 for US fund boards to conduct an assessment on the fund managers using a number of factors commonly known as the Gartenberg Principles.
Whilst UK AFMs are currently busily engaged in the FCA Assessment of Value process of preparing their first reports, in this blog we give some thought as to where the FCA Assessment of Value requirements are likely to take us over the next few years.
The FCA’s terminology is FCA Assessment of Value, a shift from the earlier terminology of “Value for Money” which the FCA felt focused too much on the AFMs costs. Therefore, the focus from fund managers needs to be on the full value proposition for investors rather than focusing only on fund charges. Good value does not necessarily mean low cost!