I recently had the privilege of attending the Dimensional Advanced Conference in Texas.

As any adviser who works with Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) will tell you, this is one very impressive company. Its commitment to the fiduciary principle and its steadfast dedication to empirical evidence set it apart from virtually every other asset manager in the world.

“It’s just a shame,” a fellow attendee remarked as we said our goodbyes at the end of the conference, “that it’s only rich people who actually benefit.”

Cutting regulatory costs and red tape will help small firms reach more people

He was right, of course.

Although DFA has started offering exchange-traded funds independently of advisers in Australia and the US, most people with money invested in DFA funds are paying for ongoing advice.

To afford that luxury, you generally need investable assets of at least £400,000. The average DFA investor has a far larger portfolio than that.

DFA would no doubt love to see its expertise benefit more people. I’m equally sure most advisers using DFA funds would also like to help those of us who don’t have a multimillion-pound portfolio.

But we live in the real world. Advice firms are businesses, not charities; for most, serving a wider market is not commercially viable.

Consumer Duty

The Financial Conduct Authority, too, is keen to make advice more affordable to those with a smaller portfolio. Yet the Consumer Duty, alas, has made it harder for firms to work with these investors.

Financial regulation needs to be simplified, but any reduction in regulation must be carefully targeted at areas such as the advice gap

At a recent Seccl event, the head of Vanguard’s UK client group, Doug Abbott, argued that the Consumer Duty was unintentionally forcing advisers to focus on serving wealthier clients.

“Advisers are pushing away clients who have £200,000 in investable assets,” he said. “The regulation makes it too difficult to serve this client base.

“In turn, this is contributing to a gap in advice and support available to the mass affluent.”

Abbott is by no means a lone voice. Dynamic Planner chief executive Ben Goss has warned that, although the duty has “the potential to drive significant client value”, the reality of implementation has “proved more challenging” than expected.

The Financial Conduct Authority, too, is keen to make advice more affordable to those with a smaller portfolio

A report by The Lang Cat found that 55% of advisers had stopped serving at least some of their clients as a result of the Consumer Duty. Research by Boring Money backs this up, finding that more people have fallen into the advice gap over the past year.

There are no easy answers but one of them must be artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to AI, jobs that used to take hours can be completed in minutes.

Similarly, the rapid development of secure, app-based planning is making client communication much more efficient. And the increased use of young apprentices, particularly in triaging new clients, is helping firms serve more people, more quickly and easily.

Undoubtedly, though, closing the advice gap must entail a degree of regulatory reform. The regulatory burden on advice firms is simply too great and it disproportionately affects the smallest businesses.

Advisers are pushing away clients who have £200,000 in investable assets

Another report by The Lang Cat found that fear of more compliance and regulation had become the top concern for almost a third of advice firms.

Fine line to tread

At the same time, I worry about noises emanating from the FCA about its direction of travel.

The previous government gave the regulator what it called a secondary international competitiveness and growth objective, which came into force in August 2023. In other words, as well as protecting consumers, the FCA has another duty now: to promote the UK’s financial sector and wider economy.

Clearly, this new dual role creates a conflict of interest. After all, what’s good for the financial industry is often bad for financial consumers, and vice versa.

Advice firms are businesses, not charities; for most, serving a wider market is not commercially viable

The regulator, then, has a fine line to tread. Financial regulation needs to be simplified, but any reduction in regulation must be carefully targeted at areas such as the advice gap.

Cutting regulatory costs and red tape for small firms will help them offer world-class investment solutions from the likes of DFA — as well as ongoing planning — to a much broader range of people.

But the need to protect consumers from much larger, vertically integrated businesses is as great as it’s ever been.

Robin Powell is a freelance journalist and editor of The Evidence-Based Investor

This article featured in the November 2024 edition of Money Marketing. 

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Thames Water has received approval from more than three-quarters of its top-ranking lenders to take out a new emergency loan of up to £3bn and make other adjustments to its debt that will avert a cash crunch shortly after Christmas.

The utility, which serves 16mn customers in London and surrounding areas, has been struggling with £19bn of debt and is trying to avoid being renationalised under the government’s special administration scheme.

While the loan still needs to be approved at a High Court hearing next month, the results of the vote mean the plan has passed a key legal threshold showing that Thames has support from a majority of its largest class of bondholders.

The loan is aimed at averting what could be one of the largest corporate collapses in recent history but will saddle the group with expensive debt.

Other water companies including Southern Water are also being forced to raise debt at high rates, raising concerns over the financial stability of the water monopolies, which are under pressure over sewage outflows and other failings 34 years after they were privatised.

The loan proposal has come from holders of Thames Water’s top-ranking class A bonds, which account for the bulk of its debt. A smaller group of class B bondholders have in recent weeks proposed their own £3bn loan plan that they say could save the utility hundreds of millions of pounds in interest and other costs.

A spokesperson for the class A bondholders described it as “a decisive vote of confidence in the first stage of our restructuring plan for Thames Water from a large group of its creditors”.

The class A deal comes with an annual 9.75 per cent interest rate as well as steep fees, which will substantially raise the effective return for bondholders. The loan agreement also allows for a new package of “retention” incentives for Thames Water’s management team on “terms acceptable” to the creditors.

It will be provided in two tranches — an initial £1.5bn that would last until October 2025 and a further £1.5bn to be released if industry regulator Ofwat does not give permission to Thames Water to increase bills as much as it wants. The company has asked for a 53 per cent rise in bills and a decision is expected by Christmas or the new year.

The extra debt would give it more headroom to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority in a process that could take up to a year.

Thames Water is separately seeking to raise at least £3bn of equity from investors after its existing shareholders — a group of pension funds and sovereign wealth funds — declared this year that the business was “uninvestable” and were prepared to walk away. That process is being run by investment bank Rothschild and has drawn a handful of interested bidders including Castle Water and KKR.

The group of class B bondholders, which is represented by law firm Quinn Emanuel, could still launch a legal challenge against the new loan proposal and restructuring plan. People close to these lower-ranking bondholders have argued that the 75 per cent approval from class A bondholder is simply a minimum requirement for courts to consider a proposal.

A spokesperson for Class B bondholders said it “will continue to press for a better alternative for Thames Water, which we are confident can and should still be implemented”.

Who Is Xhoana Xheneti? Meet Gavin Rossdale’s New Girlfriend.

Gavin Rossdale has officially gone red carpet public with his girlfriend, Xhoana Xheneti, after over a year of dating. The couple made their debut at the MTV EMAs in Manchester, England, on November 10, 2024, sparking curiosity about Xhoana, who has even been noted for her resemblance to Gavin’s ex-wife, Gwen Stefani.

xhoana_x – Instagram

What Does Xhoana Xheneti Do? Xhoana is a musician like Gavin, specializing in electro-pop. Describing herself as an “artist” in her Instagram bio, she debuted her seven-track EP The Villain in January 2021 under the stage name Xhoana X, followed by another EP, Girlgun, in 2023.

Where Is Xhoana Xheneti From? Originally from Tirana, Albania, Xhoana moved to Los Angeles, where she now resides. She arrived in the United States as a young girl after her mother won the Green Card Lottery, following her parents’ divorce. The culture shock of moving from post-communist Albania to the United States had a profound impact on her music, blending nostalgia and rebellion into her style.

When Did Xhoana Xheneti and Gavin Rossdale Start Dating? Xhoana and Gavin began dating in 2023, with Gavin making his first appearance on Xhoana’s Instagram in October of that year. They officially “hard launched” their relationship on Instagram in March 2024 and attended the iHeartRadio Music Awards together a month later, though they did not walk the red carpet at the time. Their first official red carpet appearance was at the MTV EMAs.

Xhoana’s Connection to Gwen Stefani’s Music When Xhoana arrived in the U.S. in the mid-90s, Gwen Stefani’s band No Doubt was at its peak, influencing Xhoana’s musical journey. Reflecting on that time, she said, “When I came here in ’96, there was Tupac, Biggie, No Doubt, Prodigy, and Radiohead — all of this was nonstop inspiration.” Xhoana credits her diverse background and musical influences for her unique style, which blends attitude, vulnerability, and eclectic sounds.

Growing Up in Post-Communist Albania In a 2021 interview, Xhoana shared insights into her early life in Albania. She grew up in a society still shaped by its communist past, with limited access to Western media until the fall of the regime. “When I was little, finally you could watch different TV channels and see things like MTV,” she recalled, highlighting the stark contrast between her upbringing and the culture she encountered upon moving to the U.S.

Xhoana’s journey, from post-communist Albania to the American music scene, and her new relationship with Gavin, marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the artist. Her evolving music continues to reflect the many layers of her past, now intertwined with her life in Los Angeles.

After a massive rally over the past two years, India’s stock markets have been under pressure over the past month, on the back of massive selling by foreign institutional investors. Disappointing corporate earnings in several pockets, especially consumer goods, where companies have warned of urban demand slowdown, have also added into the negative sentiments among investors. 

From its recent high of 85,978.25 touched on September 27, the BSE Sensex has declined over 8 per cent. The NSE Nifty50 has slipped 9 per cent from its life high of 26,277.35. 

The decline comes as foreign portfolio investors sold over Rs 94,000 worth of Indian stocks in October and a further Rs 23,900 thus far in November. Signs of a slowdown in demand in areas like passenger vehicles and fast-moving consumer goods have raised concerns about whether a sharp economic slowdown looms. Many companies missing their earnings estimates in the September quarter have added to those worries.

Ace investor Saurabh Mukherjea, the founder and chief investment officer of Marcellus Investment Managers pointed to several reasons behind the slowdown being seen, especially in consumption. One, he feels revenge spending seen post-COVID-19 pandemic has ebbed. While the elite class is thriving, the middle class has been hit hard, he noted. There is a risk that automation and AI (artificial intelligence) could squeeze mid-level jobs further over time unless AI is harnessed constructively and can complement jobs.   

“We are seeing a middle-class consumption slowdown, elite items are rocking,” he noted. 

However, he is not too surprised by the sudden slowdown. He pointed out that after three years of strong economic growth, a cyclical downturn was expected. He doesn’t see this as a massive economic crisis but still feels that the corporate earnings slowdown will perhaps worsen over the next few quarters before it gets better.

“This is a classical cyclical downturn. You had three years of strong economy, you are going to get a few quarters of softness. That’s the way the whole world works. Two steps forward, one step back,” said Mukherjea.

One good thing he sees is there are signs of private sector capital expenditures picking up, as was visible from earnings growth by private sector capex-oriented companies. As private investment picks up, it will create more jobs, in turn driving up consumption. However, that will play out over a few quarters and not instantly.

“It will take time for the private sector capex cycle, which has started, to create jobs. And therefore, we are looking at a few quarters of soft consumption,” said Mukherjea.

So, how do navigate the equity markets in these uncertain times?

“This is a time to be circumspect, but this is not a time to be fearful,” he stressed. 

Mukherjea noted that the Nifty at 23 times its forward price-to-earnings ratio was still well above its long-term average of around 17-18 times. Marcellus is currently fully invested in its large-cap portfolios but is holding on to some cash in midcaps.

“Our view to our client base, whether it’s foreign clients or domestic family offices, is to hold your horses a little bit, especially in midcaps. Wait a little bit, we can see the opportunities coming. The country is a fundamentally healthy, buoyant economy,” he said. 

Marcellus remains positive on the equity markets in the long-term; there are a lot of businesses they want to buy, but would like the valuations to come down a bit, said Mukherjea. For instance, consumer stocks could get cheaper over the next few quarters, with consumption expected to remain soft.

This is a time to rebalance the portfolios, he says. 

“Deploy incremental money outside of equities and there will be a time. If this correction sustains, your equity allocation will go down and that will be a time to buy,” said Mukherjea. 

One advise he has is that investors allocate some money to US equities now, especially to US midcaps. According to Mukherjea, US midcaps are attractively valued and earnings growth was healthy. The US midcap stocks could also rally should US President Donald Trump take measures to boost manufacturing there.