Leading fund selectors unite to launch groundbreaking group

Leading fund selectors have united to form a dedicated, first of its kind body aimed at representing the interests of professional investors.

The Association for Professional Fund Investors was officially unveiled on Wednesday at the gala dinner of Citywire’s flagship Berlin event.

APFI is the brain-child of leading fund selectors Luca De Biasi, Carlos Fernandez and Mussie Kidane and was developed as a way of putting selector issues and concerns into a broader forum.

The steering group has been formed to help increase interaction between a worldwide network of fund selection professionals.

Speaking to Citywire Global, the organisation's spokesperson Roland Meerdter said: ‘This will be a key platform for professional investors and, in recognition of that, there needs to be some collective perspective, a collective voice, from that group for the industry.’

‘The core of what we are trying to do is keep it investment rather than commercially focused and give selectors a forum in which to share ideas, to discuss methods and to really progress the profession of being a fund selector.’

Co-founder Luca De Biasi added there would be an important function of the group in enabling new fund selectors to engage with their more experienced peers.

‘The profession, from an investor point-of-view, has really changed over the last decade. It was not previously seen as something which warranted a dedicated platform representing the interests of fund selectors,' he said.

APFI has been launched with a number of core tenets and at the forefront of these is putting investment interests before commercial issues and driving improvements on the product side by creating a collective push for quality and enhanced offerings from fund managers and fund houses.