Horlick goes spinning for Soc Gen

Email a Friend

All fields are compulsory

Your name:
Your email:

To include more than one recipient, please separate each email address with a semi-colon ';'

Recipient email(s):

Email yourself a copy?
Comments:

Add Your Comment

All comments are subject to editorial review.
All fields are compulsory

Your name:
Your email:
(will not appear)

You may email your comment to a friend
To include more than one recipient, please separate each email address with a semi-colon ';'

Recipient email(s):

Publish your name?
Receive email notification of new comments posted by other users?
Email yourself a copy?

Comments:

I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions







Nicola Horlick

Fund manager Nicola Horlick proved in her high profile fight with Deutsche Bank that she is adept at employing the media to her advantage. And once journalists have your number in their contacts book they keep ringing back.
Recently BBC radio's Today programme, one of the forums UK politicians most like to be heard on, invited Horlick to give her comments on a Financial Services Authority report that UK mutual fund charges are much higher than US ones. In an era of spin winning out to substance, Horlick presumably reckoned, and probably correctly, that she could get away with arguing that this was because UK funds invest more overseas so adding to research costs.
This claim is hard to take seriously from the manager of SG Asset Management's UK income fund, which has 76% of its portfolio in the FTSE 100 companies, has no overseas holdings, and yet still demands a 5.25% initial charge and a 1.5% annual management fee - high even by UK standards.
Horlick picked out the firm's technology fund as one that needed worldwide research. This has the same initial charge and an even higher annual fee of 1.75%. But two thirds of technology's portfolio is in North America where local funds charge lower fees. Most of the rest of the portfolio is split between Europe (12%) and Japan (13%) where SG has dedicated area funds but clearly doesn't pass on any research costs savings.

Horlick's enduring image, as a woman who has been somehow victimized, will have carried the day among listeners. Her autobiography is called Can you Have it All? Apparently, yes.

Agriculture:

Bank atlas: World's largest banks in 2008

Horlick goes spinning for Soc Gen

Email a Friend

Add Your Comment

Other front end stories

Dubai looking to life after the bubble

Investment banking: How to make money in 2009

Careers in hedge funds: Job market alive and kicking

Nigeria’s banks outpace political change

Why corporate refinancing is next up in the cycle of despair

Pakistan's richest man in his first foreign interview: Mian Mansha, Nishat group

Pension funds: Widening the short-selling blame game

Agriculture: Farmland is the new gold

The treasury market reaches breaking point

Islamic finance debate: Participants

Investment banking: How to make money in 2009

Dubai looking to life after the bubble

Bank atlas: The world's largest banks 2008, with data from Moodys

Foreign exchange debate - Investing in FX: learning history lessons

Careers in hedge funds: Job market alive and kicking

Latest Issue