Football finance: the 'Cristiano Ronaldo' bond

Whilst Reading's sporting entourage were packing the trains to Wembley for the Reading FC against Swansea City playoff final, ICMA Centre's very own Tom Markham was speaking to Nicki Whiteman on her BBC Radio Berkshire radio show about the economic impact promotion to the Premier League would have.

£0.5m research grant awarded to Henley Business School to investigate the effects of cognitive and emotional bias on retail investment choices.

Fidelity, the asset manager with $2.4 trillion assets under management, recently announced the launch of two index mutual funds with a 0% fee! This announcement is interesting for several reasons. First, the asset management industry has been involved in an intense price war and this new fee level of 0% represents a very tough benchmark for the competition to beat. Not surprisingly, the share price of rival asset managers fell by a few percentage points shortly after the announcement. Second, the new fee level is unusual as it indicates that, for the first time, investors could get exposure to both US and international equities without incurring any fee. This is a curious business decision. How will Fidelity manage to pay for all its expenses? Will this product be a loss-making venture? Is there more to it than meets the eyes?