Are Mutual Fund Managers’ Compensation Reasonable In Relation To Their Contributions? : - A study regarding actively managed mutual funds

This thesis aims to investigate fund managers salaries in relation to their contributions. The study is conducted on the Swedish fund market under a period over five years, 2014-2018, and include 332 funds. The result observed shows a positive relation between salaries and risk-adjusted performance. The result proves that fund managers are able to outperform the market on average, which should not be possible to do systematically over time according to the efficient market hypothesis. It also turns out that salary has a positive relationship with assets under management. This indicates that fund managers are employed and compensated for more reasons than to generate a high return, namely to contribute to more significant inflows of cash to the fund company. Interpretations of fund managers’ salaries are primarily linked to agency theory and economics of superstars. The agency problem alter in the fund industry since the setting is two-folded. Agency problem could be mitigated by implementing a performance-based compensation structure, to aligning investors, management and fund managers’ ambitions. The result shows signs that a performance-based salary is present in the fund industry. A fund managers’ salary assumes to be based on his/her skillfulness, but could also be due to an individual’s stardom. To conclude, the thesis state that fund managers’ deserve their salary, which in relative terms are fairly high, since they procure additional benefits to the fund company