I’ve heard divergent views on the future of firms like ours in the past week or so. One was from a ‘vertically integrated’ fund manager and tech platform with its own saleforce who told us we were a rather sad and dying breed and should sign up with them before it’s too late. The other, the subject of the headline above, still relies on we independents for its business and, perhaps not surprisingly, thinks we may be around for a year or two more. And I, not surprisingly, favour the latter view. Mainly because I really have seen it all before, in various forms but with similar endings. The big boys get bigger, are bought and sold and messed around with by this or that year’s CEO and eventually disappear, more often than not up their own regulatory bottoms. And we keep on swinging and survive. That’s the plan, anyway.
“Advisers fearful of further compliance and regulation”
We know, of course we know, that regulation is, or at least should be a ‘good thing’. If those who need or should seek advice can be confident that they’ll be told the right thing, that someone has looked at those ’too good to be true’ investments before they’re allowed to take your money; or, in the case of a Woodford, while they’re raking it in to make sure it’s going where it’s supposed to.
