The question of value in asset management has never been so pertinent as it is today.
The performance of actively managed funds has been lacklustre at best, and investors are beginning to scrutinise the level of fees they are paying for benchmark returns. With ETFs eating away at market share, turbulent emerging market conditions & stagnant growth in developed markets, asset managers need to think long and hard about where their returns are coming from to justify the fees they wish to command. With investors holding all the negotiating cards, and increasingly onerous regulatory compliance soaking up time and resource, asset management firms are seeing their margins squeezed from all sides. How to build and maintain a future-proofed, sustainable business is very much at the forefront of the industry’s collective mind and here at FundForum Asia, we wish to tap into this brain power and actively address some of the key issues head on.
With a brand new streamlined agenda, we will be focusing on key areas systematically and comprehensively with the region’s leading experts.
Fund Distribution
Fund Distribution is undergoing a transformation. Fee pressures, increased scrutiny from regulators, the influence of digital platforms is forcing key stakeholders to re-evaluate their business model and ensure it is suitably future-proofed, and most importantly, client-centric. At FundForum Asia Next Generation Distribution, we want to get under the lid of these changes with practical perspectives from leading distributors and retail asset managers and debate what all this means in an Asian context.
China
Identifying a mainland China strategy is a necessity for all businesses operating in Asia. With a plethora of different approaches available to the International Asset Manager, ever-changing messages coming from the regulator and the extremely daunting challenge of competing with the domestic giants, committing to China is not an easy prospect (not to mention an expensive one). FundForum China will bring you key mainland expert perspectives from domestic and international businesses carving out their piece of the Chinese pie.
Active Management
There is a crisis in active asset management. Demonstrating the value of active management when performance has been poor and fees high has never been more critical. The passive threat is real and eating market share away from active managers and introducing a price war in which there will only be one loser unless the industry addresses the core issues. Here, at the Investment Strategy Forum, we will be putting managers through their paces and debating these issues with some of the region’s leading investment experts.
Integrating Asia into your global strategy
For a Global Business, Asia is a key component of the overall strategy. But there is no denying that for many businesses, Asia has not delivered on the promise. Concurrently domestic Asian Fund Management Groups are ambitious. Leaders in their own domestic markets, the next frontier is regional and international success. At the Leaders’ Business Forum, we want to take a top down approach to these issues and debate the why’s and how’s with CEOs from the industry’s leading international and regional businesses.
Digital Disruption
The future is digital and the industry has to wake up to the fact. Whilst implementation is perhaps slow, the value of digital and technological solutions to some of the industry’s core challenges cannot be denied. We will be discussing what the future will look like for Asian Investment & Wealth Management with the businesses at the forefront of change at the brand new Future Finance Forum.
This is our most ambitious agenda yet, placing FundForum Asia at the forefront on industry change; join us from 24 -26 April in Hong Kong and help shape the future for Asset and Wealth Management in Asia.
Register for FundForum Asia 2017 before 13 January to save up to £400. Join in the conversation on social media via #FFAsia.