ARE ROBO-ADVISORS RENDERING INVESTMENT MANAGERS OBSOLETE? // INVESTING
ARE ROBO-ADVISORS RENDERING INVESTMENT MANAGERS OBSOLETE? BY LAURA BOHNERT
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nvestment management fees have been stirring up controversy of late, but is the rise of robo-advisors rendering investment managers and advisors—and their fees—unnecessary? “No,” says Bruce Sansom, president, Global Wealth Builders Ltd., Investment Managers & Consultants. Sansom, who founded the first investment management firm in Edmonton in 1976 (Managed Investments Ltd.) before starting Global Wealth Builders Ltd. in 2003, has seen the industry’s share of changes, but he’s also seen the importance of what investment management can offer.
“A client hires a registered portfolio manager to contain risk, select investments, monitor the portfolio, report performance, and ensure each investment is appropriate for the client and consistent with client objectives,” Sansom explains. “It is not certain whether [the robo-advisor] approach will prosper through an entire market cycle. I think the methods are overly dependent upon historical data in the selection process. The process does not seem to be sufficiently forward looking. I suspect it is a process that is very reliant on bull (upward trending) market conditions to succeed—and that means the investor must be content with higher volatility.”
BUSINESSINEDMONTON.COM // BUSINESS IN EDMONTON // FEBRUARY 2018
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