UK: Antitrust regulator approves pension fund management standards

Pension funds will be able to compare the performance of fiduciary managers for the first time after the UK’s antitrust regulator signed off new metrics, reported The Financial Times. 

Fiduciary managers, which offer an asset management-type service and oversee the investment of £172 billion (US$229.4 billion) in assets for retirement funds, have been subjected to intense scrutiny for four years, including an investigation by the UK financial regulator and later the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). 

The new Global Investment Performance Standards, which were approved by the CMA this month, come in the wake of the antitrust regulator’s probe. The initiative will mean that fiduciary managers are no longer able to cherry-pick performance data to make it as attractive as possible to potential pension fund clients. 

Iain McAra, director of the Global Investment Performance Standards at CFA Institute, which will oversee the new metrics, said the initiative was good news for pension funds across the UK. 

“It was very, very difficult for prospective clients to compare fiduciary managers. They got a very different set of information from each fiduciary manager,” he said. “Now pension schemes are going to get exactly the same information from each fiduciary manager and therefore can make better decisions.”