LUXEMBOURG, 4 NOVEMBER 2019 – Document optimisation company More Carrot has completed what is believed to be the industry’s first study of UCITS prospectuses. The findings shed light on a range of issues, including who uses prospectuses, the main purposes of use, what types of information they look for and how easy it is to find and understand that information. The study looked at the top 50 cross-border asset managers, with the prospectus of each company’s flagship UCITS selected for analysis and testing.
“Since launching European operations in 2012, More Carrot has worked with a number of these firms and has accumulated a fair amount of anecdotal information about usage and usability,” said Bernard Lambeau, who has led the firm’s European operations since the launch. “But we didn’t have anything more formal, and were unable to find any studies done by others.”
A multi-part study directed by an independent committee
The study involved five main activities: interviews with asset managers and regulators, an entity-level survey of the asset managers whose prospectuses were studied, a survey of over 100 industry professionals, usability evaluations of each prospectus by a panel, and quantitative data such as word counts for various sections.
To ensure a strong degree of objectivity, the study was shaped and overseen by an expert committee consisting of three representatives from large asset managers, two independent directors, and one financial translation expert, with the “non-voting” participation of two representatives from More Carrot. A separate team of six evaluators, including the two independent directors, performed the usability tests, which involved finding and understanding the same types of information in different prospectuses.