Why I Hired a Fund Manager
I have been managing money for a few decades so far and I have been actively investing since 2020 and I think it’s finally time I start to make plans to let someone else take over the helm. I do enjoy the time spent on it but I think it’s not sustainable to do it for the long run. As a business, it is profitable. As a job, it is fulfilling. As a hobby, I do wonder if I will find another hobby after a while. Eventually, I would like to enter Full Self-Driving aka autopilot mode, for true passive income. If I were to spend time on it, it would just be another business.
So I began looking around for money managers. These are my criteria:
- Must be recommended by a friend who has financial background
- Around my age or younger
- Must be very, very good with money
Fund Manager #1
I went for the loudest fund manager recommended to me. Loudest as in, every now and then, you will see his socials posting about how much he has made for his clients. I guess when you can make such claims your results should be decent enough. Much more to prove, I guess. So I issued him a challenge to manage some of my funds and see how it goes.
It was June 2020 (yes the year was 2020), I signed the documents to open an investment account. Since then, the account is not opened yet. I do check in on him every few months but he seems pretty slow. Maybe he is too busy making money for his existing clients. Last I checked, he asked me to sign some documents in end August 2021 which I did within a week. Hopefully, something productive comes out of this, after all, investment is meant to be long term.
Fund Manager #2
I went for another fund manager recommended to me, and I think she is well established and should be able to handle risk and volatility. It was May 2021, I signed the documents to open an investment account. She was a bit more active in checking in on me with regards to the investment account which I eventually funded on 8 September 2021. I had to delay funding this investment account for 2 months because of my equity loan which I wrote about here.
As of today, the account is live and active for a few days. I will be publishing results in mid December.
Future management plan
I plan to review this every 3 months so that in the future, I only need to “work” 4 times a year on the investments. I will also increase the amount invested in each money manager based on their performance. I might also find a third manager in the future. Do let me know if you have any to recommend. Feel free to recommend yourself too, if you fit my 3 criteria.
How much does it cost to engage a fund manager?
Generally the fund manager will take a 1% fee, and the individual funds will take a 1.5–1.75% fee. So in total, the total annual fee payable is about 2–3% and is in line with the market practice. I acknowledge this is a lot over time but I would consider it as business cost to be a passive investor.
Is there any conflict of interest?
One of the key concern is whether there is anything preventing the fund manager from performing. Hence, I told the both of them that I do not need this money for the next 30 years. Invest it any way you deem fit. I just want to see results and I will be checking in every 3 months.
Why not go for robo advisors?
My understanding about robo advisors is that if I want to invest in a robo advisor, will be grouped into a particular category and the investment thesis is based on this category. There is no particular flair or “creative streak” involved and it would be like vanilla investing. There is no real feedback or control involved. You put money in, everything else will happen based on the category you are slotted in. The lower fees is tempting but I do wonder if there is opportunity cost involved because it will probably be too “average” for me and I am not looking for “average”.
Concentration risk?
One possible risk of hiring a fund manager is that the performance might be very good or very bad due to varying reasons, which may or may not be related to the financial markets. Personally, I like to diversify so I would consider each fund manager as an individual “source of income”. For example, my two rental properties are also considered individually as a “source of income”. So when the time comes to sell off a property, I would be selling off the weaker property. I did write about the return rate of the two properties in my e-book entitled Singaporean Landlord.
Relevant Links
Singaporean Landlord e-book (details of my property investment journey): https://bit.ly/SGLLbook
A day in my Investment Journey: https://medium.com/@singaporeanlandlord/a-day-in-my-investment-journey-c37012e1c38b
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