Race for Assets – At the Crossroads – Investor Demand and Fund Manager Realities

Our exclusive survey reveals that investors want greater transparency and lower fees from their alternative investments. How can fund managers deliver while holding down costs?

  • Change in the air: 98% of fund managers believe that investor demands are raising the need for new operational solutions.
  • Cards on the table: 59% of investors feel transparency is highly important when considering an asset manager. 71% of managers say they will offer more transparency in the next 12 months.
  • Money talks: Nearly four-fifths of investors plan to seek out lower fees from fund managers. 68% of fund managers say that they will offer lower management fees.
  • Great expectations: The biggest investors (with AUM of more than US$51bn) are the most demanding. 67% of this group feel transparency is highly important. 74% believe that fee structure is highly important.

As assets under management among alternative managers continue to rise (they reached a record US$7.7 trillion in 2017, according to Preqin1), institutional investors are becoming more confident in their allocations to the various asset classes.

Yet they are also becoming more vocal about what they expect from fund managers, with fees and transparency high on their list of areas for change.

The full article is available here.