MutualFundWire.com: Marty Flanagan Still Sees a Post-Crisis World
MutualFundWire.com
   The insiders' edge for 40 Act industry executives!
an InvestmentWires' Publication
Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Marty Flanagan Still Sees a Post-Crisis World


It's been eight years since Lehman Brothers collapsed, but we're still investing in the shadow of the financial crisis. So argues Marty Flanagan, CEO of Invesco [profile], at an event this afternoon in New York City.

Martin Flanagan
Invesco
President, Chief Executive Officer
"We're living in a post-crisis environment," Flanagan tells financial advisors and home-office executives attending the Invesco Investment Symposium at the Waldorf Astoria in midtown Manhattan. He adds that this is "probably one of the most challenging times" ever in the career of folks in the asset management and wealth management industries.

Flanagan makes his remarks on the symposium's opening panel alongside two of his top executives: Phil Taylor, senior managing director and head of the Americas; and Colin Meadows, senior managing director and chief administrative officer. Peter Gallagher, head of U.S. retail, welcomed FAs to the summit and introduced the panel.

In describing the post-crisis investing world, Flanagan points to investors' "search for yield everywhere around the world" and the "growth of passive investing." And he highlights Invesco's two big investing themes of the day, "high-conviction investing and factor-based investing", i.e. focused active management and smart beta.

"For the end investor, it's much more complicated," Flanagan says, calling for "more coordination" between asset managers and their wealth management industry allies. "The advice component has gotten much more advanced."

Specifically, Flanagan expressed concerns about asset managers and wealth managers struggling to independently adapt to the DoL's controversial fiduciary regulation, which starts taking effect in April 2017.

"The fiduciary rule is ultimately good for investors if it gives them more confidence in the unbiased nature of the advice they're getting," Meadows says.

"The headline is a good headline," Flanagan agrees. "The implementation quite frankly is overwhelming for all of us ... Antitrust rules put all of us in a position where we can't talk to each other about it."

As FAs, and their B-Ds and RIAs, try to adapt to the reg, Meadows says, Invesco "can be helpful in that conversation." He points in particular to Jemstep, the advisor-friendly roboadvisor that Invesco bought earlier this year, as something that "allows advisors to serve even lower balance accounts than they have historically."

"We bought the technology but it's to serve financial advisors, only financial advisors. It does not go direct," Flanagan says. "We want to ensure that we can make financial advisors more efficient."

Flanagan closes the panel with a call for feedback from FAs.

"We do listen and we will respond," Flanagan says.


Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=54889

Copyright 2016, InvestmentWires, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Back to Top