Stamford Associates, a UK investment consultancy, has partnered with a French investment marketing firm to increase its business among European wealth managers.
The agreement with France’s Alfi Partners takes place against the backdrop of greater regulation surrounding financial advice – especially the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II that will potentially ban fund retrocessions in the EU.
The ban on retrocessions potentially harms wealth managers by taking away a revenue that could be used to research a wide range of funds and construct ‘open architecture’ platforms.
Stamford and Alfi will attempt to win outsourcing contracts to build fund ranges, which may reduce wealth manager’s operational costs.
Alfi Partners works with institutions and wealth managers from offices in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Guy Beech, head of business development at Stamford, says: “In order to grow in the new environment we believe wealth managers will need to focus more on creating and offering their own products in order to control the value chain and maximise profitability.”
Eric Bonneville, founding partner of Alfi Partners, says regulation implies a “sharp increase” of the resources necessary for wealth managers to deal with their open architecture models in a cost-cutting environment.
Stamford Associates advises on over £54 billion (€73 billion) in assets and has counted St James’s Place, a wealth manager and member of the FTSE 100, as a client since 1999.
©2015 funds europe
