Australian Skandia has taken two new fund-of-funds to the retail market, with plans to make them available to the wholesale market at the end of the year.
Skandia today launched the Skandia Blended Australian Shares Fund and the Skandia Blended Global Shares Fund. The Skandia Blended fund will take on Maple-Brown Abbott, Schroder and Deutsche, each to manage 30 per cent of the portfolio in Australian shares, and Investors Mutual, which will be allocated a 10 per cent slice.
Skandia’s global fund will be weighted 34 per cent to hedged and 66 per cent to foreign currency. The regional breakdown is 34 per cent global, a 34.32 per cent skew to North America, and the remaining 31.68 per cent investing in other regions of the globe. The funds selected for the multi-manager global fund are Barclays, Fidelity, Invesco, Alliance, Marsico and Gabelli.
Skandia managing director Ross Laidlaw says the funds should attract a level of risk appropriate to high growth financial products.
“Unlike our other diversified funds, the new funds are strategically designed to offer exposure to just one asset class. This enables advisers to still determine the asset allocation within their client’s portfolio but diversify away from a single manager,” he says.
Mercer Investment Consulting determined the strategic asset allocation and manager configuration from each of the Skandia Global Access Portfolios, which the two new funds comprise.
The two new funds can be added to Skandia’s existing five diversified 40-plus discretionary options by advisers, who can use ready-made portfolios or create their own, Laidlaw says.
Skandia has more than $185 billion in assets globally.
