WHITEPAPER

February 17, 2021

The Role of the Investment Management Industry and a Prescription for the Future

By Chris Ailman, Jaap van Dam, Stefan Dunatov, Daniel Godfrey, Saker Nusseibeh

During this crisis, we have all been made acutely aware of the fact that companies should not just be primarily profit generating machines but purposeful providers of solutions to the needs and wants of real people. The consequence of fulfilling those purposes are long term sustainable returns to investors.

We created ourselves in the aftermath of the GFC because of deep concerns about the fact that the investment management industry does not serve its clients and society well and should be improved in order to be fit for purpose going forward. We see encouraging signs. The conversation about investing is changing in the direction of long-term value creation.

Nonetheless, a lot has still to be done by all participants in the investment chain in order to get there. In this paper, we clarify the direction of travel for the industry going forward. We think this change is necessary in order to fulfil our true purpose and to maintain our license to operate sustainably as an industry.

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