Daniel Godfrey, Investment AssociationThe chief executive of the UK’s asset management trade body
has resigned amid a deepening rift within his organisation’s membership.
Daniel Godfrey, who has led the Investment Association (IA) since December 2012, quit yesterday as speculation mounted that several of its biggest members were considering abandoning the organisation.
Guy Sears, currently director of risk, compliance, and legal at the IA, has been made interim chief executive while the association seeks a permanent replacement.
According to multiple reports, Godfrey met with the IA’s board yesterday and handed in his resignation soon afterwards.
In the past few days, it emerged that M&G and Schroders—two of the UK’s largest fund groups with a collective £566 billion in assets under management—were considering exiting the IA due to concerns over the overall direction the trade body was taking.
According to Sky News, Aberdeen Asset Management and Invesco Perpetual were also considering their future in the organization before Godfrey quit.
A major source of conflict came after Godfrey promoted a new “statement of principles” for IA members, to combat criticism that asset management fees were too high and opaque. Only 25 fund groups (of more than 200 members) signed up to the principles, promising to “always put their clients’ interests first and ahead of their own” and “make all costs and charges transparent and understandable”.
While the initiative was designed to stave off regulatory intervention in the UK fund management industry, the statement of principles was not supported by the majority of the IA’s largest members.
No fund groups contacted by CIO would comment on Godfrey’s exit.
In a statement, IA Chair Helena Morrissey thanked Godfrey for his “significant contribution” to the association, and highlighted his work merging the trade body with the investment division of the Association of British Insurers, which completed last year.
“His commitment and passion for our industry is widely admired by all those who have worked with him,” Morrissey added. “We owe him a great debt of gratitude and wish him the very best for the future.”
Godfrey joined the IA in December 2012, succeeding Richard Saunders who had led the organization—then known as the Investment Management Association—for nearly 12 years.
Guy Sears joined the IA in 2007 as director of institutional, before moving to his current role in 2013. A former solicitor, Sears has also served as head of market conduct at the Financial Services Authority, the UK’s previous financial regulator.
Related: Daniel Godfrey Profile: Troubleshooting Short-Termism, One Country at a Time