Vantage Point: Investing for Alpha  

Advisers unconcerned by fund manager retirements

Advisers unconcerned by fund manager retirements
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The retirement of a fund manager would not prompt the vast majority of advisers to sell the fund the retiring person ran, according to the latest FTAdviser Vantage Point poll.

The poll, sponsored by Vanguard and conducted online, asked if the exit of a manager would prompt a fund to be sold.

Just 8 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposition, with the vast majority saying they would not necessarily sell the fund on the retirement of the lead fund manager.

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This may be an indication that the era of the so-called 'star' fund manager has passed, perhaps the fall from grace of Neil Woodford being the moment where that change happened. 

Nowadays the bigger fund establishments tend to pitch their funds around teams of managers and product specialists, who tend to sit between the portfolio managers and the sales teams. 

Nowadays it tends to be only boutique firms created by and around an individual manager that give preeminence to the manager in their communications with the market. 

david.thorpe@ft.com