【经济学人】资产管理行业丨2017.05.11丨总第907期

MAKING money yourself from investing other people’s has been a good business for over a century. Asset managers established a key principle early on: they could charge an ad valorem fee on the amount they oversee. So when markets go up, their fees go up.

投资别人的钱以赚取高额利润已成为近一个世纪以来的热门商业渠道。资产经理在早期便确定了行业的核心原则，即经理人可以依据他们所监督的广告计税费用来定价。如此一来，当市场经济上升时，他们的费用也会随之提升。

• Valorem 按照价格计税

But as the title of a recent London Business School conference indicated, investment management is “an industry in disruption”. Abhijit Rawal of PwC, a consultancy, described the sector’s problems as the “four Rs”: returns are low; revenues are being squeezed; regulations are being tightened; and the robots are coming to take away business.

但是作为行业的领军者，伦敦商业学院近期的一次会议指出，投资管理业已经是一个夕阳产业了。一家咨询公司Abhijit Rawa of PwC将这一行业所存在的问题概括为了“4R现状”，分别是收入下滑，产值紧缩，规章死板以及机器人即将主宰商业。

Plenty of potential for growth remains, as workers save for retirement. But the industry faces the same sort of cut-throat competition that technology has caused elsewhere. The oldest challenge comes from index trackers, funds that try simply to match the performance of a benchmark like the S&P 500. It took many decades for such “passive” funds to become widely accepted, but they are rapidly gaining market share. Vanguard, a big passive manager, received more than half of all global fund inflows last year.

由于工人为退休储蓄，所以极大的增长潜力仍然存在。但该行业面临着该种技术在其他地方造成的同样的竞争。最古老的挑战来自如S&P500只是试图匹配性能的基准的指数跟踪，基金。这种“被动型”基金花了几十年才被广泛接受，但他们正在迅速获得市场份额。先锋，一个被动型基金的管理机构，去年获得全球基金流入的一半以上。

Big tracker funds can drive down fees through economies of scale. The expense ratio for Vanguard’s S&P tracker is just 0.04% of its assets. The average active American equity fund, which tries to beat the index, charges 0.8%. Such fund managers may claim they can outperform the market but in practice few do so consistently. Over the 15 years to the end of December 2016, less than 8% of American equity funds managed that feat. As an old quip has it, “you make your money working in active management but invest the proceeds passively.”

大的追踪基金可以通过规模经济驱动收费。先锋S&P跟踪器的费用比率仅占其资产的0.04%。美国股票基金平均指数为0.8%，它试图超过该指数。基金经理可能会声称他们可以跑赢大盘，但实际上很少有人这么做。2015年到2016年12月底,只有不到8%的美国股票基金管理做到这一点。正如一句讽刺格言,“你让你的钱在主动管理工作，但投资收益却不乐观。”

Some managers think they can beat the market by backing certain types of company: those that look cheap on valuation measures such as asset value or dividend yield, say. But even here technology is eroding the case for active management. Computer programs can select stocks on the basis of such criteria at low cost. These “smart beta” funds are gaining ground. The result is that average fees are being dragged down across the industry. According to the Investment Company Institute, a group that represents fund managers, the average expense ratio of American equity mutual funds, weighted by assets, fell from 0.99% in 2000 to 0.68% in 2015.

一些管理者认为，他们可以通过支持某些特定类型的公司来战胜市场：比如那些看起来合适的估值方法如资产价值或股息率等估值措施。但即使这样，技术正在侵蚀积极管理的案例。利用计算机程序可以低花费选择股票。这些“智能贝塔”基金正在上涨。其结果是使整个行业的平均费用下降。（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）

• mutual fund 单位信托投资公司

One reason why high-cost funds have survived for so long is the way that savings products are sold. Many retail investors rely on brokers to advise them; these brokers are often paid commissions or fees by fund managers. These are then passed on to clients in the form of higher management fees. Passive funds do not offer such inducements, so they used not to get recommended. But regulators have been cracking down on such arrangements: Britain stopped these payments in 2013. Trackers have made strong gains since then.

为什么高成本基金存活这么久？一个原因是储蓄产品的销售方式。许多散户投资者依赖经纪人提供建议，这些经纪人通常是由基金经理支付佣金或费用。然后他们是以较高的管理费用传递给客户。被动型基金不提供这样的费用，所以这些基金不被推荐。但监管机构一直在打击这样的现象：英国已经在2013停止了这样的付费约定。跟踪自那时以来取得了很高的收益。

A new disruptive element is the arrival of “robo-advisers”, which offer investors low-cost, diversified portfolios based on their aims and risk profiles. These are popular with younger investors, who are used to buying products online.

“机器人顾问”的到来是一个新的颠覆性元素，这使投资者可以根据自己的目标和风险概况选择低成本、多元化的投资组合。这些都受年轻投资者的欢迎，因为他们习惯于在线购买产品。

Another challenge for fund managers is a change in the corporate-pensions market. Fewer companies are offering defined-benefit (DB) pensions, which are linked to a worker’s salary; new employees now have a defined-contribution (DC) pension, the benefits of which are not guaranteed. Employers offering DB pensions need to generate a high return to keep contributions down, so many tend to use specialised “boutique” managers. But DC plans often offer a default fund, chosen by most employees; these usually employ a more limited range of fund managers. The market tends to be concentrated in the hands of big fund-management groups and insurance companies, which can handle the administration of the scheme as well as the investing.

基金经理面临的另一个挑战是企业年金市场的变化。很少有公司提供与工人的工资相挂钩的固定收益（DB）的养老金，新员工现在有一个固定缴费（DC）养老金，其中的收益是不能保证的。雇主提供DB退休金需要产生高回报，以减少缴费，所以许多人倾向于使用专门的“精品”经理。但DC计划通常提供一个由大多数员工选择的默认基金，这些通常雇佣有限的范围内的基金经理。市场往往集中在能够处理该计划的实行以及投资的大型基金管理集团和保险公司手中。

• corporate-pensions 企业年金

The result is that the industry seems bound to consolidate. A spate of recent mergers of big fund managers has included one between Henderson, an Anglo-Australian firm, and Janus, an American one. There is plenty of scope for the sector to thrive, if it adapts. It seems likely that retiring baby-boomers will rely more on their own resources, and less on the state, and those assets will need managing. Many investors will opt for multi-asset funds, which own equities and bonds; these are less vulnerable to index-tracking because there is no obvious benchmark. And plenty of people will want the reassurance of speaking to a human being, rather than rely on robo-advice. The challenge for fund managers will be to provide it all at a reasonable cost.

结果是该行业似乎必将加强。最近一系列大型基金管理者的合并，包括一家英澳公司Henderson和美国一家公司Janus的合并。如果适应的话，这个行业会有足够大的发展空间。似乎退休的婴儿潮一代将更多地依靠自己的资源，很少依赖国家，且这些资产需要管理。许多投资者会选择拥有股票和债券等多重资产组合的基金，因为它们没有明显的衡量基准，所以不容易受到跟踪指数的影响。而且很多人希望是对人说的保证，而不是依赖于机器的建议。基金经理面临的挑战将是以一个合理的成本提供它。

• Thrive 兴旺发达；繁荣；蓬勃发展；旺盛；茁壮成长

翻译 ▍E-J-2

审核 ▍向北

背景 ▍eve

图文编辑 ▍璃儿

责任编辑 ▍毛毛