Regulation
Public process
The EU Commission has announced a public consultation on the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). Interested parties can attend a digital consultation event on 10 October in advance of the consultation close on 15 December 2023.
Value chain variation
As consumer duty continues to come into its own, this Investment Week article looks at the impacts across the value chain.
In advance of an FBC Digital Meeting Consumer Duty: Fund Governance and the Role of the CD Champion, taking place on 21 September, FBC senior adviser Simon Hynes sat down with Columbia Threadneedle Investments’ EMEA product head, and FBC corporate member, Richard Vincent to discuss their consumer duty implementation, from project plan to BAU. The 15-minute discussion is now available on-demand in the member portal.
AoV export?
The UK’s Investment Association has urged the EU to rethink its plans to introduce value for money benchmarks for funds, suggesting an assessment of value approach instead, Ignites Europe reports.
Opposing outlooks
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) regulatory agenda is facing stiff industry opposition, on areas such as stock buyback disclosures, new rules for private fund managers and its crypto industry crackdown – to name a few. The Financial Times (FT) has the details.
AI in scope
And in the rapidly developing area of Artificial Intelligence (AI), take a look at the FT’s round up of where industry and policymakers are on AI regulation.
FBC hosted its first AI focused event earlier this month, ‘Harnessing AI to enhance fund board effectiveness’. FBC MD Catherine Battershill, was joined by M&G Business Manager for Europe, Tarne Bevan, and Board Secretary at Capital Group, Birgit Moeltner, along with expert in the field Michael Kollo of Evolved Reasoning to provide the workshop focused particularly on AI in the context of its application in the fund board minutes process and the creation of board minutes. Look out for the recording for FBC members and session attendees available on-demand soon.
Sustainable Investment / ESG
Recommended reporting
The Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), led by 40 taskforce members from financial institutions, corporations and market service providers, launched its final recommendations aimed at supporting annual reporting by corporations and financial institutions. These are structured around a set of strategic disclosures on governance; strategy; risk and impact management; as well as targets and metrics. Read the details in the press release.
Board Matters
Keeping Control
A new paper from the Institute of Directors (IoD) looks at the challenges boards face and the question of control.
Progress panel
In a special roundtable to discuss Citywire‘s latest Alpha Female Report an expert panel examines why more women are not progressing to fund management roles, and what can be done about it.
Market News
ACD Consolidation
Castlefield Partners has sold Conbrio, the ACD arm of its business, to Thesis Unit Trust Management (Tutman), so it can “focus on a single core business, consisting of its discretionary investment management and advisory businesses”. Subject to shareholder approval, more details are in Portfolio Adviser.
Trying tiering
BlackRock’s introduction of tiered pricing for 41 of its UK retail funds has been met with mixed reactions from analysts due, to its complicated structure, according to Investment Week.
Performance puzzle
The FT delves into the popularity (or lack thereof) of performance fees with mutual fund investors.
Several of the news outlet cited in this blog require registration or subscription. Also, FBC takes no responsibility for the accuracy or quality of the news in the links provided above, and nor are the views and comments representative of FBC or its members, unless expressly stated. Content stored on the FBC portal is freely accessible for FBC members.
