FE’s Model Portfolio Service Hits £1Billion in Assets Under Management

LONDON, 5 FEBRUARY 2018: FE announced today that FE Invest - the firm’s Managed Portfolio Service - has surpassed the £1bn Assets Under Management (AUM) mark, less than three years since its launch.

FE Invest is a range of range of risk-optimised, term specific discretionary model portfolios which combine FE’s industry renowned ratings system, comprehensive fund data and cutting-edge technology with the oversight of experienced professionals to deliver portfolios that are completely free from bias.

Head of FE Research Rob Gleeson said: “We’ve been supporting the fund management industry for more than 20 years - monitoring, analysing and rating funds – which gives us an unparalleled quantitative foundation from which to identify ‘best of breed’ funds. It is trust in this heritage, combined with the insights of our analysts and our specialist diversification technology, that I believe is giving us an edge with advisers.”

The range was launched in March 2015 in response to adviser demand for a transparent, straightforward third party offering for investors, whilst remaining in control of their client relationship.

Gleeson continued: “Often, the advisers outsourcing to us have never used a discretionary fund manager before and are turning to us to alleviate the pressures of regular rebalancing. Many of them have trusted our data to power their businesses from behind the scenes for years so for them it’s a natural progression. We only deliver the models via advisers and all the reporting is white-labelled so that it is the adviser’s brand seen by the end investor.”

Advisers can analyse holdings data on FE Invest and any changes made to the model portfolios are communicated instantly. FE Invest is also fully integrated with FE Analytics and FE Analytics+ Investment planner, FE’s risk profiling tool, providing advisers with a robust and repeatable process and a fully verifiable audit trail.

About the model portfolio range

The range of 37 model portfolios are built using the FE Invest Approved Fund List – a shortlist of best of breed funds within the whole of market. The funds with the highest scores based on their FE ratings (FE Crowns, FE Alpha Manager, AFI and Group ratings) are reviewed by FE’s expert team of analysts who independently research each fund, interview all the key individuals and conduct thorough due diligence.

The portfolios include a variety of asset types, active and passive strategies to offer advisers an 'Active Core' range, 'Hybrid' range and a dedicated income portfolio. The Active and Hybrid range are available in five risk levels and term weighted in short, medium and long term at each risk level.

Each portfolio is created using specialist optimising technology built in house that runs 17 trillion fund combinations from the Approved Fund List to select funds that will give each portfolio the appropriate level of volatility and largest diversification benefit. Once the most diverse portfolio for each risk level has been identified, additional scenario analysis is conducted to ensure the portfolio behaves as it should in a wide variety of market conditions.

Gleeson commented: ““We are seeing a tremendous response from advisers to the model portfolios, with new firms signing up every week to the FE Invest service. Our primary focus is to expand the reach of the portfolios via advisers and platforms.

“We’re also expanding the offering in collaboration with advisers. They have asked us first for Responsibly Managed Portfolios, to meet the demand from clients for sustainable and ethical investments. These have already proven popular, reaching £5m AUM in just two months.”

Lewis Brownlee Financial Services signed up with FE Invest last year. Chris Page, director at the firm, said: “We are delighted with the innovative approach and use of technology FE’s model portfolio service provides to meet our needs. Their willingness to adapt and continually improve has resulted in both an enhanced service and cost saving for valued clients.”

FE Invest model portfolios are available on all the main UK platforms.

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