Top fund manager slams Sandler

THE world's biggest fund manager has slammed the Government and Ron Sandler for their bias against active fund managers - money managers who try to pick stock market winners rather than passively track indices.

City veteran Barry Bateman, head of Fidelity in the UK, which runs £20bn of money for more than 1m British investors, accused them of consigning millions of people to unnecessarily poor retirements.

In an impassioned attack on Sandler's newly published Treasury-sponsored report into long-term saving, Bateman described his conclusions as 'yet another attempt by the Government to undermine the active fund management industry'.

He described the recommendations as 'an own goal'. The new generation of low-cost products suggested by Sandler was closely modelled on CAT standards and stakeholder pensions, both of which had been failures, he said. 'I find it disappointing that Sandler is saying let's do more of the things that don't work.'

Earlier he vented his fury in a letter to the Financial Times. 'It almost beggars belief that the Government has taken every opportunity to denigrate an industry that has for decades managed savers' investments, provided capital to industry and thousands of jobs across the country, and has made the UK the international centre for the fund management industry,' Bateman wrote. 'Mr Sandler's recommendations could consign millions to stock market mediocrity.'

Fund managers under fire