Questions of transparency brought to the fore

While performance fees are a relatively new development in the open-ended world, just under half of AITC member investment trusts utilise such structures

The recent revamping of the F&C Pacific investment trust has brought the opaqueness of many investment trust management structures to the fore, despite the slow spread of performance fees. Under the F&C trust's new arrangement, Witan will deal with much of the trust administration while Aberdeen and Nomura will be responsible for stockpicking, with performance fees making up a substantial element of their remuneration. James Budden, marketing director at Witan, said: "What people want is a bit more in the way of transparency and we have unbundled a lot of the services that were traditiona...