28 Aug 2015
Like many people, I hoped and almost believed that the financial services industry would reform itself after the global disaster for which it was largely responsible. Sadly, there is plenty of evidence that the “leaders” of the financial community are merely waiting to resume their old behaviour. No one appears to be trying very hard to stop them and, if one can stay out jail (and almost everyone does!), taking advantage of stupid but solvent people is very lucrative. As that schoolboy joke goes: “Why does a dog lick its own private parts?” “Because it can”. And so to this week’s story about the giant asset management firm Pimco. A story on Bloomberg states that Pimco’s assets under management peaked at $2.04 trillion in March 2013 but subsequently declined by almost 25 percent. Pimco’s funds have not performed as well in the last two or three years as they did in the past and its two most high profile names, Mohamed El-Erian and Bill Gross, both left in 2014, with rumours that they had fallen out (with each other). Senior staff at Pimco were partly paid (in cashable internal currency known as “M shares”) on the basis of the firm’s profitability which is dependent on fee income which naturally rises and falls with funds under management. According to Bloomberg, Bill Gross “took home” $290 million in 2013 (a real hunter-gatherer of the 21st century). As the funds’ performances have faltered and the funds under management have declined the group’s profitability has fallen and the performance award has turned south. This is how capitalism works you might justifiably say to yourself: and these financial superstars must understand and even appreciate that: this, surely, is the game they have chosen to play. But wait! Not so fast there! According to the impressively well-informed Bloomberg reporter, “clients are very nervous”. Are they nervous because they are paying top performance fees for mediocre performance? No! They are scared that the threat of lower rewards will motivate their money managers to take their talents elsewhere. According to Mary Childs (she’s the journalist in the pink cocktail dress if you watch the video), it is too much to expect that...