Funds would  co-operate with each other on  investments, rather than compete,  and would have large in-house  teams running as well as overseeing  the money.  Trafford-Walker thinks that,  in an ideal world, funds would not  have to worry about what their  peers were doing with investments.  “They need to be accountable  but not every three or six months.  We need to do a better job as an  industry to protect the members’  interests,” she says.  “My personal view is that I’d  rather invest in real assets that do  things, as long as they make money.  I’d much rather make money from  real assets that grow, but you have  to be open to all opportunities.”  From the point of view of asset  consultants, with fewer, but larger,  funds with big in-house investment  teams, the role of traditional asset  consultants will need to change too.  “You have to evolve or die,”  Trafford-walker says. “This is a very  Darwinian industry.”  With larger, more sophisticated  clients, asset consultants will also  need more senior people to work  with them. Frontier, for instance,  used to operate on a staffing ratio  of two analysts for every consultant.  Now the ratio is reversed. Of the  30 investment professionals at  the firm, 20 are consultants, 10 of  whom each has more than 10 years  experience.

“The cookie-cutter model of advice is fine  for smaller funds,” Trafford-Walker says. “But it’s  not good enough for big funds.”  Asset consultants, perhaps everyone involved  in super in the future, will have to offer value  for money and prove their value-add to clients/  employers/members.  From the funds managers’ perspective, the  next 20 years may well lead to as much change  as the past 20. Those involved in the business  of offering specialist services, such as fostering  boutiques, certainly don’t foresee a declining  demand.  Multi-affiliate managers, such as Grant  Samuel Funds Management, believe that funds  management involves a philosophy which is  aligned with that of boutique, staff-controlled  firms.

Andrew McKinnon, the chief executive of  Grant Samuel FM, says that asset allocation is  still the toughest investment decision for funds  and there will probably be a higher weighting to  debt assets going forward.  “But maybe people didn’t learn enough from  the crashes of the past, such as the property  market crash of the early 1990s when investors  couldn’t get out,” he says. “One of the key  messages from the GFC is liquidity. Getting the  balance between liquid and long-term assets will  be important. I think we will have to mark-tomarket  more illiquid investments.”