Typification of Opportunism of Investment Funds Management Companies

The methodological aspects of the opportunism manifestation of investment fund management companies are considered as a special case of the interaction between agents (fund managers) and principals (fund investors). The system-forming factors that allow to formulate the optimal strategy of fund’s asset management in the interests of its investors are signed out: 1) for funds intended for unqualified investors – passive asset management strategy of wide assets diversification in efficient markets, 2) for funds intended for qualified investors – active assets management strategy in markets with a low level of information efficiency. Within a framework of this goal-setting system, opportunism of management companies can be presented as one of the variants of distortion of optimal investment fund management strategies at which the management company is procuring the same or even increased level of profit by the worsening of investors’ situation. For funds of wide diversification in efficient markets, this distortion becomes the transition to an active asset management strategy and/or transition to a market with lower information efficiency (unjustified risk increase). For funds of qualified investors, on the contrary, the distortion of optimal strategy is manifested in a decrease in the activity of operations and/or transition to operations in efficient markets (unjustified risk reduction). In all these cases, the opportunism of investment fund management is a manifestation of “moral hazard” and redistribution of residual income on the basis of information asymmetry. The proposed typification of forms of manifestation of opportunism allows to systematize existing practices of reducing agency costs in investment funds and to formulate directions for their improvement and to apply them more effectively in specific conditions.