Johan Cras, managing director of Dutch asset management firm, Kempen Capital Management, has called for a British taskforce into cost transparency and said its should be led by asset owners.
Speaking in London today he said: “Asset owners must be the driving force. They must own cost transparency.”
Cras said he was hesitant for leadership over cost transparency to come from either The Investment Association (IA) trade body or the Financial Conduct Authority.
“The IA is like the butcher who says he has five star meat in his shop,” Cras said.
“Can it be the regulator? It could be but this is an industry, which is so much built on trust. It’s like being struck by a whip if the regulator leads.”
Cras said that, in his view, cost transparency had not yet happened in the funds industry because it would not bring only good news out, but “the good, the bad, and the ugly”.
“Transparency is not for free, it imposes obligations,” Cras said, adding that transparency had implications for a firm’s decision-making processes and even public relations.
Cras said one way to evolve the cost transparency issue would be for pension schemes to have at least one person specialising in the issue.
Saying “insights start where interest starts”, he added: “Why not have one person on your board or investment committee who becomes the specialist in cost transparency?
“The amount of information on the internet is phenomenal. Lots of work has been done in the US, Canada, the Netherlands. The UK does not start from zero.”
Cras was speaking to journalists at an event this morning.
Kempen Capital Management had €46.9 billion of assets under management at the end of December 2016.
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