Fundsters get the nod and the cash prize to go with it
The campaign is designed to promote working holidays in Australia and has drawn a heady 600,000 applications from almost 200 countries. It has come down to 18 finalists vying for six jobs that include Taste Master, Lifestyle Photographer and Chief Funster.
The responsibilities of the Chief Funster are to attend parties and tweet about it. Tourism Australia is offering a $100k salary for the successful applicant. No doubt this is an alluring brief for the Gen Y demographic, but we can think of a far cushier post, one every bit as carefree, yet far more lavishly remunerated. In case you have not guessed it by now, the best job in the world, without peer, is the job of Australian fund manager.
The Fundster, you could say, makes the Funster look like a tough grind. When you sit on a big bag of other people's money, as the Fundster does, you do not require a personality like a Funster. Stockbrokers will still fawn about, competing for the privilege of affixing the olive to the toothpick in your martini. You will soon grow weary of the city's finest nosheries.
And, however hopeless is your fund's performance, you will still be paid the same, which is too much, millions in some cases, even while fund returns fall. You only have to beat the benchmark - rank one place better than the middle of the pack - and you get your performance commissions.
And all the while, the government-mandated wads of cash keep spilling into your coffers from the salaries and wages of working women and men.
Most Fundsters, it should be said, are decent people who take their job seriously. The point is, they don't have to. Their incentive is to shelter in the pack, hugging that three-month performance benchmark, riding that gravy train.
Against the daily onslaught of glossy marketing and glittering TV ads, there is the odd reminder of reality. Make that a twin reality: one, that fund returns barely match the performance of bank deposits over the long term, and two, actively managed funds do no better than passively managed.
There were two reminders in recent days. The first is a piece in the Harvard Business Review titled, "Just how useless is the asset management industry?"
"After costs, actively managed mutual funds trail the market (since the 1960s) ... Yet while passively managed, much-lower-cost index funds have been available since 1976 ... most investors still put most of their money in the hands of active managers."
It is the same deal here. Fees have fallen, though they remain way out of kilter with where they should be (given economies of scale in a trillion-dollar super market).
The Harvard authors found the "major inefficiency in financial markets today involves the market for investment advice and poses the question of why investors continue to pay fees for asset management services that are so high. It is hard to think of any other service that is priced at such a high proportion of value."
Things are worse here. The mandatory super regime distorts competition in performance and management fees even further. It sharpens the bias towards active managers. The irony of the slower economy is that things should get better. In good times, people ignore fees and commissions. In bad times, they come into focus. In what are likely to be years of lower average returns, the market will be reticent to cough up excessive fees simply to see the benchmark replicated.
The second reminder of excess and underperformance came the other day with the biannual Morningstar "Global Fund Investor Experience Report" which awarded Australia a C+ behind the likes of Thailand, Spain, China and India.
"Australia has major problems with disclosure," says the report, which notes high tax as the other problem issue.
In other words, we stump up all these fees and they don't even tell us what the blazes they are spending our money on - let alone provide adequate disclosure about the teeming middlemen, the celebrity salaries and the hidden costs.
If fund holdings of ASX companies were not hiding so often behind nominees, it would be a useful exercise to evaluate the concentration in the system.
As the big banks control the bulk of Australia's super, it is this same handful of players, paradoxically underpinned by the taxpayer, which also controls the share registers of the ASX top 200 companies - including each other. Small world.
Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
The article uses tongue-in-cheek language to note that fund managers often sit on large pools of other people’s money, earn high pay (sometimes millions) even when fund returns fall, and can collect performance commissions by narrowly beating a benchmark. The point is that their incentives and the structure of the industry can reward modest outperformance rather than consistently strong returns.
According to the article and a cited Harvard Business Review piece, after costs actively managed mutual funds have trailed the market since the 1960s, while much lower-cost index funds have been available since 1976. The article states that actively managed funds generally do no better than passively managed funds once fees are taken into account.
The article highlights that fees, even though reduced in recent years, remain high relative to the value delivered. High fees eat into long-term returns, and because many active managers trail passive benchmarks after costs, those fees can significantly reduce the growth of your investment over time.
The article reports that the biannual Morningstar Global Fund Investor Experience Report awarded Australia a C+. Morningstar flagged major problems with disclosure in the Australian funds industry and also noted high tax as a concern.
The article argues the mandatory super regime distorts competition and sharpens the bias toward active managers. It suggests this structure encourages investors to keep money in active funds, even though active management often doesn’t deliver better net returns.
The article says Australia has problems with disclosure: investors may not get clear information on what fees cover, how much is spent on middlemen or high-profile salaries, or full fund holdings. It also notes that many fund holdings hide behind nominees, making it hard to evaluate concentration and actual ownership.
Yes. The article notes that the big banks control a large share of Australia’s superannuation assets, and those same players—backed in part by taxpayers—also exert influence over the share registers of ASX top 200 companies, creating a concentrated system of control.
The article’s coverage of the Harvard Business Review and Morningstar findings implies that low-cost index (passive) funds are often a better choice for many investors because they typically deliver market returns at much lower cost than many active funds, which frequently trail the market after fees. The piece encourages scrutiny of fees, disclosure and the real value you receive for what you pay.
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