EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
LUKANYO MNYANDA: Wierzycka has done investors a favour
Whether her comments are fair or not is almost irrelevant. She’s already done a service by bringing up the subject
Magda Wierzycka’s brutal takedown of the hedge fund industry created a predictable degree of controversy. The announcement that her company, Sygnia, had closed its hedge funds has provoked a furious response from the industry, which she described as "a management-fee racket". Elsewhere in the paper, Giulietta Talevi details the industry’s response. And our colleague, Tim Cohen, has been covering the phenomenon of fees more broadly. Reading Wierzycka’s column, I was most intrigued about her timing. Had she only discovered this now? After all, the debate about whether hedge funds’ performance justified their high fees has been going on for a while. It was a decade ago already that Warren Buffett placed a $1m bet that simply placing money in a low-cost index tracker would deliver superior returns to those from hedge funds, with their typical 2% management fee and additional 20% of profits earned. Buffett won handsomely, with his pick, the S&P 500, gaining about 126% over a period of 10...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.