Forget the FANGs, should regulators be watching Vanguard?
Size matters in the corporate world. Grow big enough to control your market and you’ll be able to offer your customers very appealing prices and unbeatable service. But there is a tipping point: companies which get too big are said to have too much influence on society which puts them under the glare of the regulators.
The four original FANGs – Facebook (US: FB), Amazon (US: AMZN), Netflix (US: NFLX) and Google-owner Alphabet (US: GOOGL) – are prime examples. Having developed products or services that have become seemingly indispensable to consumers, they have now been deemed to have exceeded the tipping point. Regulators are circling. But perhaps their attentions would be better placed elsewhere. Vanguard is the among the top two institutional holders in all four FANGs. From its very humble beginnings (the company’s IPO valuation fell 95% short of its target in 1976), it has grown to become one of the biggest fund managers in the world thanks to…