The FT reported in a couple of articles that the FCA and CMA have decided to investigate the murky world of investment consultants and their relationships with trustees, pension funds, and asset managers.
It seems everyone in the industry has known of the conflicts, need for greater transparency and competition. Asset managers secretly welcome the investigation, but are scared of the risk to loss of business if they speak out, given the power investment consultants wield. At least secretly they say 'investment consultants had for too long escaped proper scrutiny'. Another reason they are pleased is consultant industry's move into asset managers' territory - exposing an obvious conflict of interest. Now regulators have decided to take a long overdue look under the bonnet, and expressed 'serious concerns about this market'. There is no certainty they will do what is right and fair, so what were high hopes of necessary reform will turn out to be a drawn-out waste of time and taxpayers' expense - much to the relief of investment consultants. It is important to realise that this criticism of investment consultants could be used by trustees and pension funds to blame the appalling management of pension funds, on investment consultants. What is likely is the trustees and managers of investors' pensions have been grossly incompetent, nor should their regulators escape censure (recall the Marks and Spencer scandal). If reforms do occur - such as introducing more competition - then it is likely investment consultants will see a fall in revenues and profit margins. Invoice finance finance including single invoice finance from Cash for Invoices Limited, helps fill the cashflow gap. What is single invoice finance? Cash for Invoices Limited offers single invoice finance (sometimes called spot factoring or selective invoice finance) - a type of debt factoring that has key advantages over conventional debt factoring and invoice finance:
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