BT has appointed global fund manager Wellington Management to launch the Global Opportunistic Value Fund for Australian financial advisers.
The global equities contrarian value fund is described as an all-cap global equity strategy with high active share that favours shares with low momentum, low price to earning and price to book characteristics.
With a minimum time frame of seven years, it aims to provide investors with a total investment return that outperforms the MSCI ACWI ex Australia.
BT said it had received feedback from asset consultants and advisers that they were seeking investment options that solved a particular portfolio construction need. With this in mind, the Wellington fund has benefited from value style tailwinds while mitigating periods of value style headwinds via active stock selection.
Wellington Management was founded in 1928 and has over US$1.9 trillion in assets under management, having had a presence in Australia since 1997.
This is the first of several planned product launches in Australia as BT refreshes its investment proposition for advisers, asset consultants and their clients.
On LinkedIn, chief executive Matthew Rady said the deal between the two firms is a “significant step forward” in BT evolving its investment proposition for advisers and delivers an investment option previously reserved for large-scale institutional investors.
“We know advisers are looking for active strategies that solve specific portfolio needs. This fund does just that – offering a differentiated approach to global equities that has shown resilience across market cycles,” Rady said.
“Combining BT’s deep understanding of the Australian advice landscape with Wellington’s global investment depth, the fund delivers a strategy that has been historically reserved for large-scale institutional investors.”
Caitlin Hollebone, head of the Australian office of Wellington Management, said: “Wellington is the largest subadvisory firm globally, and we pride ourselves on being a trusted adviser and a strategic partner to our clients.
“We are delighted to be appointed as the investment manager for the BT Wellington Global Opportunistic Value Fund, providing financial advisers and asset consultants access to our global contrarian value strategy.”
In April, Vanguard also announced a strategic alliance with Wellington as well as alternatives manager Blackstone to broaden access to multi-asset portfolios. This would see the three firms collaborate on developing simplified multi-asset investment solutions that seamlessly integrate public and private markets, as well as active and index strategies.
Last year, BT teamed up with alternatives market data provider Preqin to form a strategic education partnership to help advisers understand private markets. This offers comprehensive resources and up-to-date research on private markets to enhance advisers’ understanding of the sector. Curated by Preqin’s analysts and researchers, the materials cover private equity, private debt, infrastructure, property and natural resources.
“Private markets were once considered the domain of institutional asset owners, but new products are increasingly available to private wealth investors. Once considered ‘alternatives’, we can see a time – as portfolios evolve – when private debt will be an extension of fixed income, real assets as an extension of listed property and infrastructure, and private equity as an extension of shares,” commented Stuart Cadzow, BT head of investment product solutions.
