Skandia adds absolute return to platforms
Skandiahas enhanced its platform offering through the inclusion of absolute return strategies to the fund-of-funds arm of both its Skandia One (bundled) and Skandia Global (unbundled) platforms.
Skandia has added three managers -Portfolio Partners,Queensland Investment Corporation(QIC) andBarclays Global Investors- by including their respective hedge funds in a move which takes the number of managers across its platforms to over 25 and its product choice to over 65.
The three funds are the Portfolio Partners High Growth Shares Trust, which is a long/short Australian equities fund, QIC’s absolute return Active Currency Trust, and the BGI Global Ascent Fund - a global long/short tactical asset allocation fund.
The Portfolio Partners fund will sit within the Australian Shares Fund at the expense of the Deutsche Australian Equities Alpha Fund, while the QIC and BGI funds will be part of a new Alternative Investments asset class on the platforms, which have over $1.3 billion in funds under administration.
Mercer Investment Consultingis responsible for Skandia’s underlying asset allocation across its platforms, while Skandia itself researches the individual managers using its ‘4-P’ process.
Early last month Skandia became the first Australian sign-up toMorningstar’s Portfolio X-Ray tool, in a move designed to allow advisers to assembling and monitor portfolios based on fundamental analysis of the underlying holdings.
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