On February 21, 2018, following a market investigation reference from the FCA in September 2017, the Competition and Markets Authority published a progress report on the Investment Consultants Market Investigation that it is carrying out into the supply of investment consultancy services and fiduciary management services to, or the acquisition of such services by, institutional investors and employers. The institutional investors who use investment consultancy services are mainly pension schemes but also include charities, insurance companies and endowment funds.
The progress report sets out the steps that the CMA has taken to date, such as the publication of the Issues Statement in October 2017, the hearings it has held and the visits it has made to the three largest investment consultants. The report also provides a list of working papers that the CMA intends to publish in the next few months, which will provide the CMA's emerging thinking on specific areas of the Investigation, such as information on fees and quality of service that investment consultants and fiduciary managers provide to current and prospective clients, the performance of investment consultants' recommended asset managers, conflicts of interest and market concentration. The CMA also confirms, as proposed in the Issues Statement, that the Investigation will focus on pension schemes as clients of investment consultants and fiduciary managers. The CMA will publish a Provisional Decision report in July 2018, to which interested stakeholders can provide feedback in advance of the publication of the final report in March 2019.
The progress report is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8d44a540f0b641bc1835ef/investment-consultants-market-investigation.pdf and the Issues Statement is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/59c376f7ed915d408c10d131/investment-consultancy-market-investigation-issues-statement.pdf.
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