Nucleus on brink of becoming profitable, says chief

This decade promised so much but delivered so little as supermarket launches remained little more than an online extension of what had been happening with packaged products, according to Mr Ferguson.

Essentially, Mr Ferguson said supermarket launches were little more than a bunch of fund managers paying a life company (and then a supermarket) to distribute their funds but he said the world they have dominated was about to turn.

He said: "The life sector (particularly in the platform space) has achieved little more than the destruction of shareholder value.

"The supermarkets are increasingly seeking to dictate IFA propositions in order to support their own business model and the aggregate assets held on wrap platforms are probably less than 20 per cent of the overall platform space.

"Yet, there is no need to feel despondent as behind the scenes, the world has turned. The market momentum is unquestionably with the more open, transparent wraps.

"Nucleus will soon join Transact in being a profitable wrap business and the RDR-catalysed IFA market is only heading in one direction. And perhaps strangely it is some of the larger organisations that are finding themselves playing catch-up."