I have no idea how much of the fee goes to pay managers and how...

I have no idea how much of the fee goes to pay managers and how much is profit. There will probably be a formula of what is "fair". But who sets the formula? If I managed the company that collected the management expenses, I would think I should get a fair chunk of that before profit for the shareholders. It's all a bit murky to me. I just wanted a manager to say, I have your $160M dollars, I will charge 1.5% a year to manage it in the small caps space where I have expertise. Period. Instead we have CTN "buying" its management company a few years back (off the managers?), and if I recall CTN buying out another Contango fund, and now CTN chipping in $30M of our funds into another vehicle it wants to start. Probably all fair and above board, but I'm to dumb to follow all the details and check I am happy with them, and too smart to trust blindly. I suspect they are all fine deals for the managers, I just find it hard to assess if they are good for me. Also the DRP is dilutive. They sell shares for below NTA (the only way, as the price is below NTA), so the holders who don't participate are worth a little less after each DRP - honestly I felt I had no option but to enrol so I would be the one diluting. However I need the cash to pay my margin loan interest ;-)

If CTN is trading below NTA as it has always done - there is a sensible course of action for shareholders. Sell the lot. It is not in the managers interest to do so (I wouldn't if I was the manager!), and it will never be done.

If CTN returned above market that would all be fine, but according to my calculations it doesn't. This is exactly what theory says should happen, but I hoped that small cap managers would be the exception - operating in a world where careful research allowed good out-performance.

All said and done, I find i'm just a conservative index hugger and STW and VAS do it for 0.15%. I have lots of top 50 stocks individually, but they are weighted according the market cap anyway

Sorry, this is therapy for me. I am unloading a few years of pent up angst. Happy to be free.