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Decentralising Fund Management: Encouraging Regional Growth

IIMI publishes “Decentralising Fund Management” paper, on the opportunities for decentralising fund management in the UK and encouraging regional growth.

I am pleased to introduce this paper on the opportunities for decentralising fund management in the UK and encouraging regional growth.

Innovation by entrepreneurial UK asset managers in delivering access to investment markets via collective investment schemes has gone hand in hand over the years with the development of ever wider investment expertise. The lawyer Philip Rose founded The Foreign & Colonial General Trust in 1868, and Ian Fairbairn and George Booth launched M&G’s First British Fixed Trust in 1931 to replicate the resilience and popularity of mutual funds in the United States. Adaptation and evolution have continued over the years to allow UK asset and wealth management firms to remain competitive in delivering their investment expertise to different categories of client. Unit Trusts have morphed into OEICs, and front end charges and bid/offer spreads have disappeared.

Both fresh and familiar challenges, from the COVID economic shock to Brexit, are emerging which make the UK ripe for a new generation fund structure which could also be a catalyst for industry and job growth in servicing the assets invested in a new UK domiciled fund structure.

Nick Mottram

Chairman, New City Initiative
Partner & Chairman, Dalton Strategic Partnership LLP