Client Affairs
New Book Guides Investors On How To Survive And Thrive In Funds Jungle

With even the most seemingly tame index fund or other plain
vanilla investment vehicle, the need to carry out full checks to
protect
clients from mishaps and fraudsters is essential, argues the
author of a new
book.
Jerome Lussan, who has spoken in the past about good
governance
and investments at a conference organised by this publication’s
parent firm, is
the author of the Financial Times Guide to Investing in
Funds: How to Select
Investments, Assess Managers and Protect Your Wealth: How to
Generate Wealth
and Protect Your Money (The FT Guides). Lussan is also chief
executive of Laven
Partners, a firm for consultation and advice about such issues.
The book, which was published earlier this summer, explores
the analysis and procedures investors and wealth advisors should
be aware of and
put in place. Lussan is determined that episodes such as the
Bernard Madoff
scam, and lesser crimes, are not allowed to fade into distant
memory. And even
where criminal activity is not involved and failings occur due to
lax controls,
he wants the industry to sharpen up its act.
Lussan started on the project to write this book in May
2009, according to his earliest recorded notes. His concern was
that, in many
comments about the financial crisis and the blowups that
occurred, people
were not giving sufficient attention to the processes and
operational side of
fund management.