Funds Congress Highlights

A write up in Bloomberg of the CEO panel at Funds Congress by Leonard Kehnscherper.

Asset management bosses have praised the Labour government’s efforts to boost economic growth and the competitiveness of the UK’s financial center.

The UK has seen “two decades worth of malaise in action,” Matthew Beesley, chief executive officer of Jupiter Fund Management Plc, said at Funds Congress in London this week. “It’s going to be a long journey from here, but we should all be encouraged by the fact we have a government that gets it and is trying to think about ways to really bring some life into UK capital markets.”

Richard Oldfield, chief executive of Schroders Plc, said while the push to boost investment is welcome, it shouldn’t just focus on attracting more foreign money into Britain. “If you speak to investors in the Middle East, for example, they would say, of course we’d like to invest in the United Kingdom, but we want to invest alongside people” in the country, Oldfield said.

With economic growth stagnating, UK leaders have pledged to cut regulatory burdens and do more to support businesses. Several senior watchdogs have been replaced since Labour won power last summer, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has given regulators including the Financial Conduct Authority a mandate to foster growth and competition.

“I think we can all start to feel how the FCA is starting to engage with that new objective,” Chris Cummings, CEO of the Investment Association, said at the annual Funds Congress event, which was organized by Carne Group, Dechert LLP and PwC.

The FCA has signaled its support for the government’s agenda, while warning that regulators cannot carry the can for economic growth or the failures that would come from laxer regulation. Its recent moves include relaxing capital market requirements and stopping short of imposing rules on how bankers use messaging apps — an area where US regulators have cracked down.

The industry has more ideas to make their regulations more accommodating. Cummings said it should be easier to include so-called long-term asset funds in tax-free individual savings accounts. Joanna Munro, CEO of HSBC Asset Management’s alternatives arm, added that it’s also important to open up defined-contribution pension plans to alternative asset classes.