The Ralph Stewart-founded Lifetime group has launched a new suite of four funds following client demand for regular investment options to complement the firm’s flagship retirement income product.
Released at the end of October, the three risk-weighted diversified funds plus a cash option “allow us to offer a comprehensive retirement income planning service catering for both retirement income and investment needs”, Stewart said.
He said Lifetime had also applied for a financial advice provider (FAP) licence to “enable us to provide retirement income option across our range of products and at the same have also built an advice fee into the customer total expense ratio to support the provision of independent financial advice”.
Launched in 2021 as the manager restructured its variable annuity product with a partial guaranteed income into an allocated pension model, the core income fund currently holds about $110 million under management with fees of 1.35 per cent.
The three new diversified funds (conservative, balanced and growth) are priced at 1 per cent while the cash option costs 0.65 per cent.
Stewart said bundling all of the Lifetime funds under a single offer means the manager can divert excess client capital to appropriate investments after assessing via its online retirement calculators how much should be allocated to the income fund.
“If there is surplus capital afterwards we apply the well-known buckets planning approach, applying the surplus capital to short term needs cash and conservative and long-term capital to balanced and growth,” he said.
Lifetime uses the same underlying funds across all products including its recently acquired ex AMP-managed legacy superannuation schemes: the manager line-up includes Fisher Funds, Kernel, Mercer and Simplicity.
The funds also have an in-house allocation to residential property through the novel Lifetime reverse mortgage product released earlier this year.
Global consultancy firm, Milliman, is investment manager and risk adviser to Lifetime. The manager also uses EriksensGlobal for fund consulting purposes. Adminis is custodian for the Lifetime products with Apex as administrator.
In total, Lifetime has about $1.1 billion under management across the funds, legacy super schemes and UK pension transfer product.
“We now have 16,000 customers approaching or in retirement,” Stewart said, with the business looking to grow its brand as a provider of “simple, trusted comprehensive retirement income solutions”.