How to ruin an independent financial adviser’s plans for a holiday home in Marbella/new Jaguar XK/ambitious kitchen extension:
- Allow the only ’star’ fund manager that anyone has ever heard of to come out of retirement
- Announce that he is to launch a new fund investing in the most over-hyped market in the world
- Let him tell the media that “the opportunity is simply too great to pass up”
- Say that you are aiming to attract £630m initially
- Then launch the fund as a London-listed investment company, which doesn’t pay commission to advisers on large lump-sum investments (only on Isas or monthly savings).
You’ve got to hand it to Anthony Bolton… for not handing over chunks of cash to intermediaries . He doesn’t need to. Just his reputation and the over-excitement over Chinese equities will be enough to raise £630m in days. Investors can apply for shares directly from February 26 until March 26 (or April 5 for online Isa applications). But if you’ve already decided you want to take a risk on China, I wouldn’t wait it until February 27 if I were you.
This is all rather clever. Not only does it save Fidelity millions in commission, it makes the fund’s outperformance a self-fulfilling prophesy.

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