Fund manager group in fresh fight with EU

The coalition of fund managers that led the campaign against an EU bonus cap is drawing up a code of standards over how their staff are paid to ward off further onerous proposals.

The European Parliament last week rejected a plan to extend a curb on bonuses to a maximum of 100 per cent of salary from bankers to fund managers. The New City Initiative (NCI), comprising more than 40 independent fund managers, helped to persuade the UK Treasury and EU politicians that the move would damage their industry and ultimately pension funds.

However, NCI board member Dominic Johnson said there were further bureaucratic threats to fund managers, such as needing to establish independent remuneration committees even at firms that are partnerships with a small number of staff.

He added that the NCI would come up with alternative proposals to be submitted to the Treasury and the EU by the autumn. "We need to look at a code of standards for how performance fees are structured and made transparent to investors."