The ViewFund managers need some iPhone inspiration

One of my finest hours - at least at the time - was dealing with a New Zealand client investing in a French stock in Hong Kong, for a London stockbroker owned by a Swedish bank, in the corner of a Chinese shirt maker's shop on a line that scratched and whistled, while using a mobile phone the size of a brick.

A quarter of a century ago, Hong Kong was a leading centre in investment management, with three major competitors - HSBC, Jardine Fleming (which I worked for) and Schroders.

A professional local pension fund industry developed from this base (which was sadly not the basis of the design of the Mandatory Provident Fund), with Asian mutual funds emerging around 1970 and money management for wealthy individuals during the '80s.

By 1990, Hong Kong was a global asset management centre that could manage Asian investor money all around the world and attracted foreign funds to invest in Asia. It was a golden age.

Fast forward 25 years, and investment management is in crisis. The industry commoditised investment strategies into standard products. Firms marketed themselves as product providers, not knowledge leaders such as lawyers or doctors, and hid their fees within the products they sold.

There are now so many competitors that fees have collapsed and profits are razor thin. The emphasis on short-term performance means that money is run by process, which is good for discipline but hinders creative thought.

Meanwhile, the actions of unscrupulous practitioners have led to mushrooming regulations and heavy compliance costs. Market professionals today get better training but poorer experience, so much so that some of those who reach senior management do not fully understand the industry in which they operate.

Hong Kong itself has shifted from being a truly global centre to an Asian regional hub, larger in size but smaller in status.