OpinionMay 4 2016

Facts not favours

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I am proud and privileged to be a financial journalist. It has been my modus operandi for 30 years, and I can not imagine I will do anything else with the remainder of my working life. Once a hack, always a hack.

When I eventually leave the personal finance chair at The Mail on Sunday, I will spend the rest of my days doing occasional pieces (no doubt online) for publications that entertain me. Saga Magazine, perhaps.

Looking back, though, I can not deny that I have made mistakes along the way.

My blackest moment? Back in 2000, I wrote a story that Bradford & Bingley would remain a mutual, then the next day it confirmed it was demutualising (what good that did to anyone other than its executives, I do not know to this day). I was so embarrassed by how wrong I was I offered to resign.

Yet for every mistake I have made, I have had victories along the way. I was onto the failings at Equitable Life long before it imploded in 2000, and I waved the flag for appropriate compensation thereafter. Indeed, I still wave it today – most policyholders remain financially shafted even after government compensation.

I was the first journalist to report that Dunfermline Building Society had gone bust in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and I broke the news that Barclays Bank was closing 172 branches in April 2000.

I am also proud that I was first onto the lack of protection available for those whose pension schemes were wound up in the wake of their employers going out of business.

Without my coverage of this issue – and the fantastic work of Baroness Ros Altmann (long prior to her becoming a baroness and a government minister) – there would now be no pension protection fund to provide a financial comfort blanket to the likes of BHS employees.

It is just a shame that those I set out to help – early victims of wound-up pension schemes – are receiving inferior compensation.

Recent campaigns on armed forces pensions injustices and copycat websites are work in progress.

So there have been personal victories and defeats, moments of pride, followed by an occasional episode of acute embarrassment. But throughout, never once have I done my work without the utmost professionalism.

Despite working for a huge – and politicised – media company, I have remained my own man. I have steadfastly railed against financial injustice, criticised governments of all persuasions, and striven to help readers through the baffling jungle that is personal finance.

I have steadfastly railed against financial injustice, criticised governments of all persuasions, and striven to help readers through the jungle of personal finance

It is therefore disappointing to discover that Robin Powell of Evidenceinvestor.co.uk and communications agency Regis Media is challenging my integrity.

He believes that because I support a vibrant fund management industry, where active and passive management thrives (anyone who believes in competition would hold such a view), I am part of some conspiracy between the media and the funds industry. Mr Powell should be writing fairy tales, not financial blogs.

In a post entitled ‘Investors should trust the evidence, not The Mail on Sunday’, he says: ‘There is a symbiotic relationship between the fund industry and the financial media. The industry needs the media to talk about its products – to help flog its stuff.

The media needs fund management for its advertising revenue and, perhaps even more importantly, for something to write about. After all, recommending every week that readers simply buy and hold a widely diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds is not a great way to sell newspapers.”

Mr Powell ends his comment: “Journalists have an important part to play in highlighting the need for greater transparency and in educating investors – in explaining to people how the industry really works and how the costs of financial intermediation can seriously erode their savings over time. Journalists, in short, are part of the solution. It’s a shame, then, that too many are still part of the problem.”

Mr Powell has every right to hold the financial media to account (I applaud him for that).

Yet to suggest I am part of some symbiotic relationship is cloud cuckoo land-talk. I write for readers, no one else. Not to keep the industry sweet (perish the thought) or advertisers.

Mr Powell should ask Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, former directors of the Financial Services Authority, and current directors of the Financial Conduct Authority whether I perpetuate the status quo. Nothing could be further from the truth. My job is to challenge.

Writing about active fund management does not mean I endorse the industry. Far from it. There are good fund managers out there as there are outstanding investment houses (usually running active and passive funds).

But, equally, there are awful fund managers and groups that should not be plying their trade. Only investor inertia enables them to continue in business. It is my role to sift the good from the morass.

Where I do agree with Mr Powell is in the need for greater transparency on fund costs and for the industry to deliver better value for money.

By way of example, late last month, I had the pleasure of meeting the board of Bankers Investment Trust.

Bankers is understated and incredible value for money – delivering 49 years of consecutive annual dividend increases and outperformance against its benchmark (FTSE All Share Index). All for an ongoing charge of just over 0.5 per cent.

If the likes of Bankers can provide super investment performance, while not skimming off more than the top in fund charges, then why can’t others?

Jeff Prestridge is personal finance editor of the Mail on Sunday