Asset managers grapple with implications of cost transparency

Regulatory push for openness heightens concerns about impact on trading

For Chris Sier, professor of practice at Newcastle University Business School, the UK financial regulator’s recent call for clarity in the way asset managers charge and levy costs on their clients is long overdue.

Earlier this decade, Sier used freedom of information requests to try and collect data on the equity trades and commissions incurred in the portfolios of members of the UK’s Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The LGPS is one of the largest defined benefit savings plans in the