How the Financial Managers’ Remuneration Can Affect the Optimal Portfolio Composition ?

In this paper we analyse the problem of an investor who must decide whether to manage his wealth by himself or give it in outsourcing. Financial managers are supposed to charge a commission composed of a fixed (A) and a variable (x) part, both deducted from portfolio payoffs. We demonstrate that the optimal portfolio composition crucially depends on the magnitude of A and x. We make a general analysis of this dependence and, in particular, we show that high level of A (respectively, x) lead to an outsourced portfolio which has a lower (respectively, higher) risk-return profile with respect to the self-managed portfolio.