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Hello and welcome to the programme.

We don't see this as a personal finance programme.

There's quite enough discussion of all of that elsewhere.

But the business of taking our money and choosing where to invest it is a particularly important one,

important to anyone with savings or a pension.

And a particularly interesting one too. Firstly, it shapes the economy because it's responsible for

allocating capital and choosing which other industries get the money to grow and which don't.

So even though you can't eat investment management, it might shape what you do eat. Secondly,

it's an industry vulnerable to dysfunction in that it's very hard for clients, even very clever

clients, to tell who's good at allocating capital and who is just lucky. And that means that

customers looking to have their money invested have little idea about who is worth paying for that

task. And as we gaze upon the world of finance, we do observe some expensive providers of dubious

quality. So on the programme today, we'll look at the investment management industry. We have been,

of course, motivated to do that by the troubles at Neil Woodford's Equity Income Fund.

And if the three people with me can't help us make sense of all of this, then we really do need some help.

So let me introduce my guests.

First up is Bella Caridad-Ferera, chief executive and founder of Fundscape, a research company that looks at the UK fund industry.

And Bella, you're going to be a objective, impartial external observer to some extent today.

Yes. I'm representing the consumers.

Right.

Now, can we just talk about charges?

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