paying for research information

Who pays for the investment research that professionals use in managing our money?

We do, of course.

But this happens in two ways, one of them not transparent at all.

management fees

–We pay management fees, out of which the management company pays for its portfolio managers and securities analysts.  That’s straightforward enough.

research commissions aka soft dollars

–We also permit, whether we know it or not, our managers to pay higher commissions, or to allow higher bid-asked spreads, on trades they do with our money.  They are so-called “research commissions” or “soft dollars.”  These are not so transparent.  It’s our money, and it does to pay for  the manager’s newspaper subscriptions, Bloomberg machines, brokerage research reports…

In 2007, there was a movement afoot in the US, spearheaded by Fidelity, to eliminate soft dollars and have management companies pay for all its research out of the management fee income paid by customers.  This effort fell victim to the recession.

EU financial authorities have now revived the idea.  They’re proposing to ban research commissions completely–that is, they will demand that investment managers obtain the lowest price and best execution on all trades–that is, they won’t permit a certain portion to be paid for at, say, double the going rate in return for access to the work of the brokerage house security analysts.

consequences

According to the Financial Times, smaller investment management firms could have their operating income cut in half if they had to pay for all the research they get out of their own pockets.

But that won’t happen.  Every investment manager, big or small, will go over the list of research providers with a fine tooth comb and eliminate sources whose value is unclear but who are being paid anyway because it’s “just” a soft dollar payment.

I think there will be three main consequences of European action:

1.  Pressure for the US to follow suit will be enormous.  Balking by US managers will open the door for UK-based specialists on the US market to gain business from domestic managers.

2.  Analysts who produce original research will be much more highly prized;  those who do more prosaic “maintenance” research will be replaced by robots (not a joke, more a question of how quickly).

3.  The overall size of sell-side research will continue to shrink, not just boutique firms but at the big brokers as well.