New Product Convergence

Date: December 2009
Author: Richard Phillipson
Price: £5000 to non-members of the Investit Intelligence Member service


Investit Intelligence was asked to research new product development within the context of ‘convergence’. The primary aim of the report is to inform the readers about developments in the market and give them sufficient information to make decisions within the context of their own firm.

There are a number of aspects of the investment management industry that are experiencing convergence as, faced with changing circumstances, firms are looking at ways to adapt to the market. The aspects of the industry that we see converging are:

  • Funds (particularly those that will occur under UCITS IV regulation).
  • Strategies, such as hedge funds and conventional funds.
  • Clients - eg retail clients and institutions.
  • Firms.

In this report we identify a number of themes including:

  • What clients want.
  • Enablers; how investment managers are aiming to meet these needs while also achieving a profit.
    • Investment manager skill
    • UCITS III and IV
    • Liability Driven Investment (LDI) planning and risk mitigation
    • Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
  • Challenges of this converging industry:
    • Commoditisation; a route where few can succeed and innovation only gives a temporary monopoly on pricing power.
    • Firms also need to take a view on in-house diversification; there are equity-based firms now looking around the market for fixed income teams; firms further along this road have been building up their asset allocation capability.

Finally, this report examines the decisions that firms need to make in order to be prepared for the converged world.

Table of contents

Management Summary
1
1 Introduction
3
1.1 Context and Goal
4
1.2 Methodology
6
1.3 Background to the products
7
1.4 Background to the markets
9
1.5 Background to the clients
11
2 What People Want – Contrasting Goals
13
2.1 What do clients want?
14
2.2 What investment management firms want
19
2.3 What distributors sell
22
3 Enablers of Convergence
23
3.1 UCITS III
24
3.2 UCITS IV
26
3.3 Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
28
3.4 Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) Directive
30
3.5 The collapse of the single prime broker model
32
4 Inspiration – The Converging Solutions
33
4.1 The safety solutions
34
4.2 Solutions - New Balanced
36
4.3 Solutions for decumulation stages
39
4.4 New balanced – components
40
4.5 New, new balanced
44
5 Perspiration – The Development Challenge
45
5.1 The marketing decision
46
5.2 Company models
48
5.3 Fund mergers and pooling
54
5.4 Opportunities for outsourcers
57
5.5 Future risks
58
6 Appendices and Index
59

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