River and Mercantile latest to absorb research costs post-MiFID II

Groups firming up plans

River and Mercantile is the latest fund group to confirm it will absorb the cost of external research when MiFID II comes into force in the coming weeks.

The Europe-wide regulations require research costs to be unbundled from trading costs and clearly identifiable when charged to a client, and is effective 3 January 2018. However, the majority of asset managers have so far said they will bypass client charges entirely, choosing to pay for external research out of their own P&L and/or making further use of in-house capabilities. Head of asset management at River and Mercantile Group James Barham said the decision was in line with the firm's philosophy of "Potential Valuation and Timing" (PVT), whereby it leverages "external sourced researc...