Fund manager Fidelity International has launched its first global equity separately managed account (SMA) for Australian investors, supported by wealth manager Emanuel Whybourne & Loehr.
The Fidelity Global Top 50 ex Australia Portfolio provides exposure to 50 listed global equities from a portfolio management team as well as a systematic investment process.
Its launch was prompted by a partnership with national wealth manager Emanuel Whybourne & Loehr and the two firms worked collaboratively on its portfolio design and launch.
Lauren Jackson, head of wholesale sales, Australia, at Fidelity International, said: “The SMA will help solve the problem that financial advisers face when allocating to core global equities. Many financial advisers still allocate passively or use discretionary active global managers at a much higher fee within their portfolios.
“This SMA gives financial advisers the choice to invest in an actively managed global portfolio, maintain a lower fee structure, and meet the need for a core global equities solution.”
Ryan Loehr, partner at Emanuel Whybourne & Loehr, said it hopes the SMA will be an active way to rival index funds which are gaining popularity for their cheaper fees as the SMA is priced at 30 basis points.
“Public markets still play an incredibly important role, but fee budgets are shifting away from active equity managers. Recognising this, we wanted to achieve the best of both worlds for our clients in public equities and offer a highly competitive fee structure to rival index funds, with an active overlay from a risk and quantitative perspective from one of the world’s largest investment managers, Fidelity International,” he said.
“In partnership, this will provide our clients with the transparency, tax flexibility and ownership of some of the best listed businesses in the world, without the embedded risk or concentration limits of an index, and at a price point that rivals the cheapest index available. This is the next frontier of active indexing, and partnering with Fidelity International was the right step to be able to bring this first-in-kind solution to market for our investors.”
Earlier this year, the latest State Street Global Advisors SPDR/Investment Trends Managed Accounts report found managed accounts are used by 59 per cent of advisers, typically allocating close to three-quarters of total client assets into the accounts.
While off-the-shelf models remain the dominant type of usage at over 70 per cent, just over a third said they were using models which were custom-built for the licensee or practice.
