Dr Chris Sier, the transparency pioneer whose ground-breaking work into hidden pension and investment charges uncovered billions of pounds of hidden costs, has died after a fight against cancer.
His wide-ranging career also included founding and partnering with several businesses, including Stonefish Consulting, AgeWage and ClearGlass, as well as academic posts as Professor of Practice at Newcastle University Business School, Visiting Professor, University of Leeds, and Honorary Professor, Durham University. He was also involved in the foundation of the Transparency Task Force.
Corporate Adviser’s 2013 profile of Chris Sier
Sier combined his skills as an academic, financial services expert and police officer to carry out some of the most insightful analysis of hidden charges in the UK investment system ever conducted.
His work played a big part in driving pressure for changes to investment charge regulation, including the abolition of the asset manager practice of bundling research costs into transactions for which research was not used, to effectively reduce asset manager running costs at the expense of pension schemes. Control of this practice has subsequently been relaxed.
He carried out Freedom of Information Act requests to LGPS schemes, as private sector schemes were not required to answer such requests, finding out one scheme had portfolio turnover of 3,800 per cent in a single year, generating significant research costs for its asset manager.”
A memorial service will be held in the coming weeks.
His wife said: “For the last two years, he fought his cancer battle with the incredible bravery and stubbornness that defined his entire life. Though he was strong, the disease proved too much for the treatments available.
“Chris simply wasn’t finished. He always had big, bold dreams and a relentless drive to experience and achieve more. He truly made a difference in so many lives, living many amazing chapters—as a marine biologist, a police officer, an entrepreneur who transformed the asset management industry, and most importantly, as a generous friend, son, father, and my husband. He was also fun, and would always find a way to make people laugh. We will all miss him dearly.”
Henry Tapper said: “He was and is in memory someone of great integrity, he could show irascibility when he felt his integrity was challenged but he was a great inspiration to those who worked with him. The Chris we saw at the end was what we saw when they first met, he did not change for times and circumstances, health could not bend him.”
Corporate Adviser editor John Greenwood said: “Chris dug into the dark corners of investment management charges in a way no-one had ever done before. It is hard to state how significant he was in building the academic basis for the work on transparency that has been done over the last two decades.
“The revelations contained in his research sent shock waves through the industry and placed him under considerable personal pressure for many years, pressure he resisted because he believed and knew he was right. The analysis he did was technical in its nature – which means few people fully understood just how significant his contribution was, or just how impactful it has been. The changes he helped drive will have saved consumers, not just in the UK but across the world, potentially billions of pounds in charges.”