Lai See | CLSA's show goes on but without the annual gala party

The CLSA Investors' Forum is generally regarded as one of the highlights of the annual conference circuit for investors. The forum runs for five days and includes big name speakers, one-to-one meetings between investors and corporates and a lot of schmoozing and networking in between.

However, we learn that one popular element of the forum is to be axed this year - the gala party. This is generally a sumptuous affair with as much good food and drink as guests are prepared to consume, along with a top notch entertainer. Last year featured Jesse J, and previous years have featured Duran Duran, Katy Perry, Elton John, Rihanna and many more.

CLSA says the decision to drop the party was not a cost-cutting measure. CLSA's head of communications, Simone Wheeler said that while the investors' forum is always oversubscribed by clients, the number attending the party had been declining. "We noticed over time that we were entertaining fewer clients and more non-clients."

The reason for this decline, she explained was to do with the change in the way clients engage with brokers. This, she said, was being driven by their own internal policies along with regulatory requirements. "Increasingly clients were saying to us, 'We can come for the content but not for the canapés'".

In previous years, asset managers had been able to pass on the cost of research, conferences and access to corporates to the fund holders as part of the cost of running the fund. However, regulators in the past few years have taken an increasingly dim view of this and have said that asset managers should carry these costs themselves. "So after 21 years of the gala party, we have decided to retire it," said Wheeler.

This will be regarded as a pity in some circles as it was one of the best parties in town. Though whether we would want the cost of attending it added to the cost of our pension fund is another thing altogether.