Asset Intelligence Portfolio Management (AIPM) has launched a dual-fund investment solution, after recent research showed many multi-asset offerings are failing to perform against their benchmark.
The new proposition, named Gemini, is designed to offer advisers diversification and the ability to tailor the construction of portfolios to align with individual client’s risk appetite and personal requirements. It has been created alongside $1.4 trillion global asset manager T.Rowe Price.
It blends two funds managed by AIPM – the VT Asset Intelligence Growth Fund and the VT Asset Intelligence Defensive Fund.
The former is designed to deliver strong capital growth over the long-term by capitalising on global stock market opportunities, while the latter offers investors protection during periods of market uncertainty by focusing on lower-risk assets, AIPM said.
The launch follows recent research which revealed that more than £22 billion is sitting in multi-asset funds which have underperformed their peers over the last decade.
The discretionary fund manager said many of these funds capture more downside than upside due to mislabelling issues, which exposes investors to more risk than they realise.
Kel Nwanuforo, investment consultant at Asset Intelligence, said: “The problem with a lot of multi-asset funds is that when you look under the bonnet many of the underlying assets can all act similarly during periods of market stress. For example, our research has shown that global high yield bonds often correlate more closely to equities than to government bonds, yet many multi-asset funds class these as ‘defensive’ assets there to balance the volatility of equity holdings.
“Additionally, many UK multi-asset funds have a pronounced bias towards homegrown firms which limits the effectiveness of their diversification.”
Nwanuforo added: “Our investment managers have considered a wealth of data on how these asset classes truly behave, and this has given us the tools to lay the foundations for the creation of genuinely diversified portfolios.
“Gemini is a great way for advisers to access these exciting new funds and to ensure that their client’s money is invested sincerely in accordance with their risk profile.”
