Recent coverage from wealth-focused publication Ignites Europe highlighted a striking reality: most asset manager marketing isn’t being read. Research in Finance found advisers open just 15% of fund house emails, while discretionary managers only slightly more at 20%.
That finding echoes Citywire’s reporting from a roundtable in Scotland earlier this year, where wealth managers described inboxes overflowing with repetitive content. One of their participants summed it up:
“If I got 20 emails from fund houses in 2019, I’m probably now getting 45–50 and all that makes me do is think what’s really worth my time.”
Another was blunter still:
You get brutal. It’s just delete, delete, delete.”
Having worked in fund distribution for nearly three decades, I’m not at all surprised by these frustrations. The intent of fund distributors has always been to engage, but too often the method can default to volume over value.
At Fundpath, we call this problem the Information Disconnect—the misalignment between what fund sellers communicate and what fund buyers actually want to hear.
The Information Disconnect isn’t just a problem for wealth managers. It also affects asset managers, who spend vast amounts of time and money on marketing and outreach that—as the above press coverage shows—does not often land. The result is a cycle of wasted time, effort, and missed opportunities.
To be clear, this isn’t anyone’s fault: for a long time, there has simply been no systematic way for fund buyers to privately and securely share their own fund searches, buying preferences, and future allocation intentions.
Fundpath was created to break that cycle. By surfacing live buying intentions, forward-looking allocation shifts, and firm-level changes from the wealth management industry, we create a clear line of communication between fund buyers and fund sellers.
For the first time, wealth managers can use a free, private, and secure service to share their current fund searches, buying preferences, and future intentions. This gives them more control over outreach they receive and reduces irrelevant approaches. Fundpath provides asset managers this information along with a live dataset which covers over 1,100 firms and 9,500 decision-makers across the UK wealth industry. This enables fund sellers to contact the right fund buyers at the right time, with the right information, and for the right reasons.
The result? Meaningful and productive conversations based on relevant outreach tailored to wealth managers’ real needs, less wasted time on irrelevant outreach, and a better fund distribution ecosystem for all!
If fund distribution is to be fit for the future, it has to work better for both sides. That means fewer false starts, fewer missed cues, and more conversations that actually matter.
The answer isn’t more content, more emails, or bigger decks. It’s smarter, better-timed engagement — underpinned by intelligence that helps asset managers bring relevance to the table, and wealth managers feel listened to rather than inundated.
That’s what closing the Information Disconnect really means: replacing noise with relevance, and building a system that works for everyone.
For asset managers, the challenge is to move beyond conventional outreach and focus on precision.
For wealth managers, the opportunity is to engage directly in shaping how this dialogue evolves. By signalling their priorities and participating in the conversation, they help build a system where communication feels less like noise and more like relevance.
This is Fundpath’s raison d’être: to help both the sides of fund distribution connect more meaningfully. And my invitation is simple — let’s bridge the Information Disconnect together.
Get in touch with me at: stuart.mcglynn@fundpath.com
Reach out to Fundpath’s Insight team at: insight@fundpath.com
For more information, see: Fundpath for Fund Buyers