Wellington-based multi-manager firm Grosvenor Financial Services is pitching for the fee-conscious, passively-inclined crowd with a swag of new products.
On top of the four multi-sector growth funds released last week under the brand Focus Series – essentially, simplified products carved out of the group’s Investment Series – Grosvenor will shortly launch four, niche exchange-traded fund (ETF) PIE-wrappers.
David Beattie, Grosvenor chief investment officer, said the only active component of the Focus series would be Australasian shares (managed in-house) with the remainder ploughed into passive funds, with international assets handled by Vanguard.
Beattie said international shares would be 50 per cent hedged.
He said asset allocation would also be on a passive basis with standard rebalancing over time.
“[Actual asset allocation} will probably drift around a bit,” Beattie said.
The Focus balanced fund will cost investors a total annual fee of 1.45 per cent while the high growth option has been priced at 1.55 per cent.
Beattie said Grosvenor may seed the products but he expected reasonable initial support from the group’s aligned advisers.
The Focus funds invest into Grosvenor’s long-standing “index-enhanced” wholesale Investment Series pools, he said.
According to the latest accounts, as at March 31 this year, the Investment Series managed about $762 million, up from $491 million 12 months previously.
Grosvenor’s KiwiSaver scheme accounted for more than $292 million of the Investment Series funds under management as at March 31, 2015.
The Grosvenor default KiwiSaver fund, which launched in July 2014, recorded about $3.7 million under management in the accounts.
Beattie said Grosvenor had also added three more socially responsible (SRI) funds to the Investment Series, based on the popularity of its ethical KiwiSaver option. Collectively, the two Grosvenor SRI KiwiSaver funds reported over $4.5 million under management as at March 31 this year.
In total, Beattie said Grosvenor manages about $1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the four ETF-based products, to be marketed under the Specialist Series label, would initially play in the healthcare, precious metals, sustainable resources, and, technology sectors.
According to Beattie, the underlying ETFs would be “a bit more expensive” than standard equity index products given their niche natures.
He said the explosion in ETF products globally has given Grosvenor a wide range of choice to build the Specialist funds, which will be structured as portfolio investment entities (PIEs).
“We’ll be keeping an eye on [ETF] trends, too, and adding themes,” Beattie said.
The Specialist Series offer documents should be available soon, he said.