The Questions I’d Ask If I Were Reviewing a Fund Manager for the First Time

I meet investors regularly who have had a bad experience with a fund manager. The conversation usually starts the same way. They trusted the marketing. They didn’t ask the right questions early. And something surprised them later, at the point where surprises cost the most.

What strikes me about these conversations is that the questions that would have prevented the surprise were rarely complicated. They simply weren’t asked. Partly because the industry doesn’t invite them, and partly because most investors have never been handed a framework for asking them.

The market context sharpens the point. The Mercer Shaping Super Report 2026 found that adviser-focused platforms hold around 6 per cent of superannuation accounts, yet they are attracting 42 per cent of retirement account flows. Investors are actively selecting their fund managers rather than defaulting into them, and that selection is accelerating. When choice becomes the norm, the quality of the questions behind each choice matters more, not less.

The stakes are higher again for wholesale investors reviewing fund managers directly. No institution is running due diligence on their behalf. The discipline has to be their own.

So I want to do something slightly unusual for someone in my position. Rather than tell you what to look for in a way that conveniently describes my own firm, I want to set out the questions I would ask if I were reviewing a fund manager for the first time. Including if the fund manager under review were us.

1. What is your communication track record when things go wrong?

Any fund manager can look composed when markets cooperate. The real information is in what they do when markets don’t. Do they communicate proactively, explain what happened and what it means for investors? Or do they go quiet and hope the period passes without comment?

Ask for a specific example. A period that didn’t go to plan, and a clear account of how investors were told, when, and by whom. A fund manager who cannot produce one may be indicating a lack of documented communication practices. Either nothing has ever gone wrong, which is improbable over any meaningful history, or the story is not one they want to tell.

This is not about expecting perfection. Every strategy has periods that test it. It is about whether the manager treats investors as people who deserve the full picture, or as an audience to be managed.

2. How is the fee structure designed, and who benefits from it?

Fees themselves are not the problem. Opacity is. Management fees should compensate for genuine work: research, risk management, administration, reporting. The harder question is who the structure is designed to benefit, and whether that is visible from the documents alone.

Net-of-fees returns are the right standard, and it is worth being precise about what net means for every fund you review. Which costs sit inside that figure, and which sit outside it? A fund manager who welcomes that question has usually designed the structure carefully. A fund manager who deflects it usually hasn’t.

3. Who runs compliance and risk, and what is their background?

In my view, an AFS Licence is the baseline, not a differentiator. Every licensed fund manager in Australia holds one. It gets a firm into the industry. It says very little about how the firm behaves once inside it.

What matters is the substance behind the licence. Who is the compliance manager? What is their background? Is the risk framework embedded in day-to-day operations, shaping decisions as they are made, or does it live in a document that is reviewed once a year and filed away? The difference between those two answers is the difference between a control and a decoration.

4. What happens to my capital if this fund is wound up?

This is the question almost nobody asks, precisely because it is uncomfortable. Ask it anyway, and know the answer before you ever need it.

What are the trustee’s obligations in a wind-up? What protections exist under the trust deed? In what order are investors paid, and how long might the return of capital realistically take? A fund manager who has thought seriously about these scenarios can answer plainly and without hesitation. Hesitation here deserves your attention.

Asking this question does not suggest a wind-up is likely for any particular fund. It is simply part of understanding the structure you are entering, on the same footing as fees and redemption terms.

5. Why do you run this specific strategy, and not something else?

This is the question that separates conviction from convenience. A fund manager with a genuine edge can explain why this strategy, in this market, with this team. The answer references their actual investment approach, the credentials of the people executing it, and the investor base it was built to serve.

A fund manager who generalises, whose answer could describe any strategy at any firm, may struggle to articulate a genuine investment edge. Specificity is hard to fake. Listen for it.

The standard applies to everyone.

I don’t offer these questions as a checklist to work through and file. They are a way of thinking about the relationship between an investor and a fund manager: one built on scrutiny rather than on trust extended by default.

We believe transparency is a professional obligation for every fund manager, not a marketing choice. Investors making active manager selection decisions are entitled to clear answers on communication, fees, compliance, wind-up provisions and strategy rationale, from every fund manager they review.

So ask these questions. Of everyone. Including us.

Disclaimer: Issued by Trivesta Funds Pty Ltd ACN 627 270 900 (Trivesta Funds), a Corporate Authorised Representative (AR No. 1274820) of Trivesta Capital Ltd ACN 126 975 282, AFSL 320497 (Trivesta Capital). Trivesta Funds is authorised to provide financial services in connection with the Trivesta Protected Yield Fund (Fund). The Information on this page is general only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, and does not constitute legal, tax, financial or investment advice. The Fund is available only to wholesale clients (including sophisticated investors) under section 761G or 761GA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Offers to invest in the Fund will only be made via an Information Memorandum (IM) issued by Trivesta Funds. Investment is subject to risks, including capital loss, delays in repayment and loss of income. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Returns, income and capital preservation are not guaranteed. Visit www.trivesta.com.au for further information.