Asset managers like to boast of their lovely cushiony profit margins, but their profitability is another matter entirely. According to a survey by SimCorp Strategy Lab, nearly half of investment management businesses are struggling to break even.
They calculate a cost rate by subtracting ebit (earnings before interest and tax) from gross revenue and expressing the result as a percentage of gross revenue. Less than 20 per cent managed to keep that cost rate below 85 per cent, while 41 per cent saw it rise to 99 per cent or above.
FTfm reports the results of the survey but we would like to know what you think. Is asset management industry really this difficult to make a profit in? Is this a reasonable way to think about profitability? And are investment managers really as clueless about cost control as the survey authors think?
