Baillie Gifford Reduces Investment Management Fees On 20 Funds

Robbie Lawther

7 September 2017

, the Edinburgh-based investment management firm, has reduced investment management fees on 20 funds across its range of UK open-ended investment companies and Irish UCITS funds, effective from 1 October 2017.

The reduction of Bailie Gifford’s annual management fees for these funds is part of a continued strategy of offering active management to investors at an attractive price whenever fund scale and ongoing costs allow, the firm said in a statement.

The main changes include the Baillie Gifford European Fund has reduced from 0.65 per cent to 0.55 per cent and the Baillie Gifford Japanese Fund is down from 0.65 per cent to 0.60 per cent.

Baillie Gifford has previously adopted a tiered approach to fees across its range of investment trusts, as it announced fee reductions for Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Monks Investment Trust earlier this year.

“Active managers should take the initiative in today’s environment,” said Andrew Telfer, joint senior partner. “Value for money is an often neglected element of the fund buying process. Investors should be able to choose between passive and attractively priced active funds alongside considering the quality and future capability of active funds to deliver after-fees outperformance.”

Telfer added: “All active funds are not the same. Sharing economies of scale with investors as funds grow is one way in which Baillie Gifford looks to deliver ongoing value for clients. Meeting all research costs internally is another. We believe that keeping costs low, maintaining high active share, low turnover and engaging with the management of companies in which we invest are key ingredients of a successful active manager.”