Albourne Takes Aim at Hedge Fund Fees as ‘Elephant in the Room’

The Head of B2Y – Fee & Liquidity, Nicolas Stylianou, alongside Fee & Liquidity Analysts Andria Mosfili and Charis Koumenidou, launched the FeeController, a new dedicated portal for clients. Albourne’s Fee Controller is a web-based tool powered by Albourne’s FeeMometerTM, a portal for users of the FeeConciliation service. It utilizes Albourne’s proprietary technology to offer real time access to analytics and tools which are subject to Albourne’s verifications and controls. The portal focuses on fee consolidation, aggregation, validation, benchmarking and reporting, both at the fund level and portfolio level. Albourne has been in the fee world from 2009 and has had a dedicated fee team since 2014. Throughout these years we have been very active in the industry introducing various concepts, tools and services. For example, during 2014 we launched the FeeMometerTM, a tool that allows clients to study the effect of different fee structures and different return environments. We have also helped introduce various concepts from the Shape of Fees in 2013 to the 1-or-30 structure in 2017. We believe that Albourne’s FeeController enables: Robust Data: There are internal controls for processing and recording the data. The team reviews and cross checks on whether the data make sense in relation to the overall fund performance. A Holistic View: The metrics and charts help simplify complex themes around fees. Resources can be utilized to present the true impact of fees against portfolio performance (e.g., in board meetings and trainings). Real Time Reporting: The fee dashboard gives relevant data points and flexibility in fee reporting. Clients have the option to create customized real time reporting across their portfolios. Fee Controller is available to clients who are signed up to Albourne’s FeeConciliation services. Albourne’s FeeConciliation service can help validate client fees and provide custom reporting at the client, sub-portfolio and individual fund level. For any questions, please email: contactus@albourne.com. Albourne offers Fee Aggregation and Fee Reconciliation services for both Hedge Funds and Private Markets.

Albourne Partners has been an advocate for fee innovation in the investment industry, focusing on the shape of fees, and fee discovery and transparency. A recent review by the firm showed that managers are being rewarded for fee innovation. John Claisse, the firm’s chief executive said there was also a relationship between manager performance and willingness to be flexible on fees. “We looked at managers that had a collective 189 different fee changes made over the last two years, and our research showed that, from the point where those changes were made, 70% had a positive trailing three-year return, so it was not necessarily managers that were already underperforming,” he said in a Fiduciary Investors Series podcast. Albourne has been looking at the shape of fees since 2012 for its clients, and implemented a 1-or-30 approach to alternative manager fees. The consultant also launched Into the Matrix initiative in 2016, gathering data from 750 funds with over $600 billion in assets, who are answering surveys about what types of fee structures they’d be willing to look at and be flexible with. Most recently, Albourne, in conjunction with AIMA, launched a due diligence questionnaire that focuses on diversity and inclusion. “We’ve had phenomenal feedback about the questionnaire and already more than 400 funds that have submitted the questionnaire. The feedback from investors is they have been struggling on how to gather the data, so having a standardised template for them is helpful. On the manager side our preliminary feedback has been positive, it is helpful in triggering their own work internally and new policies in response to thinking through the questions and enhance their own D&I.” For the full article, click here.