Edward Bonham Carter was happy to share his wasabi peanuts
It is Fund Forum week in Monaco and I have arrived on a wet Monday evening curious to test the atmosphere, having not attended for a couple of years.
There were plenty of conference goers on my easyJet flight over, including Edward Bonham Carter, chief executive of Jupiter Asset Management. He was happy to share his wasabi peanuts on the flight over, and offered to share a cab from the airport too. Sadly, I had a bag to wait for so had to decline.
We had arrived too late to take advantage of the free coaches the conference organisers are laying on this year for cost-consicous fund managers. Taxi fares are a steep E90 from Nice to Monaco. But the conference moved back here from a trial change of scene to Barcelona last year in response to negative feedback.
With FTfm reporting this week on a barrage of reports about the (relatively) parlous state of the fund management industry and the possibility that revenues will not recover to 2007 levels for five years, I am looking forward to networking with a chastened set of managers prepared to contemplate major change to their business models.
Perhaps, though, they are the ones who are not coming to Fund Forum this year.
