Why Do Investors Favor Active Management … To the Extent They Do?

October 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Why Do Investors Favor Active Management … To the Extent They Do?

Ron Bird  University of Technology, Sydney

Jack Gray University of Technology Sydney

Massimo Scotti University of Technology Sydney

September 24, 2013
Rotman International Journal of Pension Management, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2013

Abstract: 
Half a century of analysis has yet to fully answer why investors place such a large proportion of their funds with active equity managers, given the discouraging evidence on the latter’s ability to add net value. From the voluminous literature on manager performance we conclude that there is some, but limited, evidence that can rationally justify hiring active managers. The weakness of the evidence leads us to ask, Why do investors favor active equity management to the extent they do? To help answer this question, we conducted two online surveys, one of Chief Investment Officers of predominantly large Australian superannuation (i.e., pension) funds and another of asset consultants. The results confirmed that the industry is captive to a pervasive prior towards active management. The prior is reinforced by a competitive environment and supported by a complex mix of behavioral, agency, organizational, and cultural factors.

Filed under Research

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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