This unique and authoritative study of the investment management business focuses on the use of capital requirements for investment managers as a means of investor protection. Commissioned by the Investment Management Regulatory Organization and drawing on extensive discussions with investment managers themselves, it provides an account of this burgeoning sector that is both comprehensive in its coverage and penetrating in its analysis. The authors review the way in which the investment management business is organized and its inherent risks; they examine the causes and incidence of market failures as well as the dangers to investors through mismanagement and malpractice. The book includes an extensive treatment of fraud, with a full listing of fraud cases in the UK since the early 1970s.

The report concludes with a summary of the evidence on the nature and scale of the risks faced by investors and recommendations for appropriate forms of protection; and, on the basis of existing regulatory structures in the UK and USA, sets out a proposed structure in accordance with the thrust of the authors' analysis.

While specific in its coverage, much of the argument presented here is closely applicable to other financial sectors in which regulation is a crucial issue; and it is especially pertinent to current debates on financial regulation in the run-up to the completion of the European internal market in 1992.