AMP Capital Investors has made its first serious foray into the retail market with the launch of four open-ended funds through its Private Clients’ channel.
Three funds, the Core Property Fund, the AMP Capital Enhanced Yield Fund, and the AMP Capital Global Property Securities Fund, will be immediately available to retail investors either directly or via platforms, while the AMP Capital Australian Small Companies Fund will begin accepting monies in June.
“What we’re doing is bringing some of our funds that have only been available in the wholesale or platform market into a retail environment, giving access to things that are difficult to access such as high quality property investments, diversified property investments, and international property,” AMP Capital Investors head of Private Clients Giles Craig explained.
The organisation’s new retail focus is mainly aimed at capturing the self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) market, and is the result of three AMP surveys conducted in conjunction with Investment Trends that addressed SMSF members’ attitudes toward investing over a 12-month period, as well as financial planners’ feelings regarding this segment of the market.
A main finding of the research, and one that AMP has responded to, was that 18 per cent of SMSF members plan to make their largest investment in managed funds.
As such, the launch is specifically targeting people with over $250,000 invested in SMSFs, with minimum investment in the fund being $30,000. However, Craig said the move was also to help certain financial planners access these investments more easily.
“A lot of planners who want to offer fee-for-service find it easier to do so off-platform, so this is just providing another route for them,” he said.
To help the new funds gain traction in the market, an advertising campaign across several mediums will be launched next week.
AMP Capital Investors will be consolidating its retail offerings in the coming months, with more products that will cover other asset classes such as international equities. The firm also intends to carry out further research on the SMSF market with a view to gauging the accounting community’s attitude towards the space.
