Harbour Asset Management has rolled out a new fund bringing its retail product suite to 11.
Launched last week, the Harbour Enhanced Cash Fund is a portfolio investment entity (PIE) version of the manager’s existing wholesale offer, formerly known as the Short Duration Fund.
In a note to clients, Harbour says the new PIE product follows “demand from many of the advisors who support us”.
“This change has been implemented to improve accessibility for a wider range of clients. There has been no change in how the fund is managed,” the note says.
The enhanced cash strategy, first offered by Harbour to wholesale investors in 2012, has a target asset allocation of 55 per cent in NZ fixed interest and the remainder in cash (or equivalents).
According to the latest Harbour product disclosure statement (PDS), the fund aims to outperform the benchmark S&P/NZX Bank Bills 90-Day Index “by 85 basis points per annum over a rolling 3-year period”.
Mark Brown, Harbour head of fixed income, and portfolio manager, George Henderson, manage the enhanced cash strategy.
“The Enhanced Cash Fund is designed as a short term, higher liquidity and lower volatility investment option,” Harbour says.
Harbour has priced the new PIE fund at 0.25 per cent while also lowering fees on two other products: the Advanced Beta and Corporate Bond funds.
Both the Advanced Beta and Corporate Bond products now charge all-in annual fees (excluding GST) of 0.45 per cent, down from 0.54 per cent and 0.63 per cent, respectively.
“We have been working on reducing outsourced costs and, as these funds have grown, the fixed costs are also spread across higher FUM,” the Harbour note says. “We want to share the improvement in costs with our investors.”
Since launch in 2014 the Advanced Beta fund – which combines a 70 per cent weighting to the NZ shares main index with the remainder allocated to “quantitative tilts” – has grown to over $220 million. The longer-running Corporate Bond fund, launched in 2009, boasts almost $400 million under management.
In a rare back-office move this March, Harbour appointed Guardian Trust as supervisor and custodian, displacing incumbent Trustees Executors.
The Wellington-headquartered Harbour has about $4.8 billion under management including about $2 billion in fixed income.