The crisis has not spared the individuals

For Massimo Tosato, if the crisis is hard, it offered no less opportunities, both for Schroders, which he is the Vice-President, to modify the behavior of individual investors. For him, it is time to launch a fiscally advantageous products over the long term in Europe. Schroders, one of the main management companies in the world, with assets estimated at 115 billion pounds ($173 billion), has a treasure of $ 1.5 billion war to seize market opportunities.

What are the effects of the crisis on your business

The crisis is hard for everyone and our profits have declined. We have already said that this would continue in the fourth quarter, and for 2009, we have very conservative forecasts. As such, Schroders has a real card to play. We have two sources of income, the main comes from the current activity, the second of the placement of our liquidity. The latter suffered earlier this year, but the first on the other hand rose August over the same period of last year, which allowed us to increase on a slippery year quarterly results. Clearly, the fall of markets and the redemptions of September and October have weighed on the assets under management, but it should be noted that subscription flow remained positive in Britain, the United States and Asia until September. And activity for individuals has been a significant impact, as related to institutional investors remained stable, because this customer has a genuine long term strategy.

What are your priorities

We will continue to increase our penetration in the institutional clients and mutual funds in the United States, as a specialized player. Geographically, 70 of our revenues already come from the international and the bulk of our reorganization is completed, with 35 offices covering over 40 countries. We will continue to expand our commercial presence in the Middle East and India to institutional clients, knowing that we already have a management company and a team of distribution in Dubai. In terms of products, we have been very disappointed by the results of the management of type "absolute return", although, to date, no one was really able to offer products to take advantage of all market environments. We are working to make them technically more robust, because we feel that the request of investors is still relevant. In addition, we have no debt, but our balance sheet shows a cash of $ 1.5 billion. Few companies in our sector are entered in this crisis with such munitions. We are today in a very good position to use the cash to develop our turnover, either by the acquisition of competitors in difficulty, the development of our know-how by recruiting teams outside.

Your activity of "hedge funds" has accused the coup. Are you separate you

It is not question. Our "hedge funds" Fund activity, even better, NewFinance Capital, held the shock that the bulk of our customers in this segment is institutional. It is clear that the period is not easy. To prevent massive withdrawals, some managers have phased redemptions by the establishment of "gates" (1). "Hedge funds" industry should see its stock fall 2,000 to 1,200 billion, returning to the levels of the beginning of 2005. But let us not forget that at the time, was deemed this segment growing and, even today, it represents a significant business. Of course, on the 10,000 funds, only about 6,000 should survive. But the survivors will be larger and activity will become institutionalized. There are already more transparency, more ethical and control risk. These are key elements that institutional investors now look as a priority, before even the performance. NewFinance Capital has these requirements and adds effort to optimize its costs, which reassures our customers. Next year, it will have less than active, earn less money, but supported by a strong group, it will be part of the winners when the market return. I do not believe in the death of the industry of "hedge funds", it is a mutation.

The crisis has not spared the individuals. How reconciliation with markets

One of the biggest problems of the management of assets in Europe lies in the incestuous relationship between banking and its distribution business it controls. Today, banks tend to manage the assets held by their clients in investment funds to accounts in the term paid to restore the balance of their balance sheets. On the other hand, Europeans depend on for the bulk of their retirement, for which their is paid by the State that even if the benefits, for demographic reasons, to reduce. This historic situation, European investors have not a horizon place lies in the long term and are very volatile. In the end, it has, on the one hand, the banks that control the distribution and, on the other, investors reason in the short term. Finally, this situation is also detrimental to investors for managers and professionals, who now seek out. I participate in working groups exploring ways to overcome the constraints of the distribution of funds in Europe. It seems to me that out of this impasse, to a multi-product approach that covers the life cycle of a citizen and who benefits from a tax advantage: this involves the transformation of a part of the assets of customers to the banks in long-term investments in plans that can be used, for example, a monthly pension for twenty or thirty years. Naturally, this would require that the tax benefits are modular with the length of detention. This is the only way to change the behaviour of savers in Europe and thus support the creation of our own capital. The challenge is also to ensure a good level of remuneration of the capital.