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It's also worth observing that fund and asset management is one of those areas where the more successful a manager you a the lower the fees you charge. People are used from other areas with higher fees = better. However a good manager can charge lower fees on a much larger pot of money and make an awful lot more than a worse manager charging higher fees on a much smaller fund.

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This is untrue. Good investments are often capacity constrained. In this scenario it makes sense for managers to charge high fees to investors to allow them access the best products.

A) You need to build up to capacity, so you've got a multi-billion dollar fund already by that point that is charging low fees and presumably doing very well. You just close it to new business until outflows make space.

B) You can win major plaudits by lowering client fees. Guess what - when investment performance inevitably goes through a bad patch the client will stay with a manager they like for a lot longer than one they don't. That gives you time to recover performance and avoid a yo-yo effect.

If your manager is telling you that you need to pay high fees because they're popular you are being ripped off.

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