Auckland-based investment boutique, Generate, is to launch five new diversified funds next month across its KiwiSaver and unit trust range.
Under the plans revealed last week, Generate will also lower the fees and change the risk profile of its existing products, currently limited to three KiwiSaver funds (plus a series of age-based ‘Stepping Stones’ funds that mix the underlying strategies) and one unit trust.
Due to launch on May 16, the new Generate KiwiSaver funds cover defensive, conservative and balanced risk profiles with the latter two issued as unit trusts to join the Focused Growth strategy as non locked-in products.
As well, the revamp will see investors in the current Generate KiwiSaver conservative product bumped up to a higher growth allocation under a new fund title.
“When these funds launch, our current Conservative Fund will be renamed the Generate KiwiSaver Moderate Fund. If you currently hold units in this Fund, these units will become units in the Generate KiwiSaver Moderate Fund,” the Generate website says.
The Moderate fund follows a 60/40 growth-to-income asset allocation, representing an increase in exposure to equities of 7.5 per cent compared to the Conservative strategy.
“It’s important that current Conservative members carefully consider their investment timeline and investment objectives, and make sure that the fund is right for their savings goals,” Generate says.
The Stepping Stones lifecycle options will also move up a notch in growth allocation while mixing in some of the new products and adding an extra age range (75 plus).
Generate will lower fees across the range by 4 or 5 basis points once the change takes place in May.
According to the group’s website, Generate has been planning the fund expansion “for a while”.
“It is not driven by any market event, or any change to our investment approach at Generate. It creates a wider selection of funds which we think will create an even better product offering for our members,” the site says.
“… The broader fund range means each fund has a narrower focus. This should be advantageous for the different stages of our members investment journey. To accommodate the new funds, we needed to change the existing target asset allocation of our existing funds.”
Generate, headed by Henry Tongue, reported about $3.4 billion in its KiwSaver scheme and almost $30 million in the unit trust product as at the end of last year.