Platform provider Standard Life has revealed the names of the first seven fund groups that it claims have agreed to offer super-cheap annual mangement fees to its customers.
The providers will in most cases add new share classes to their funds which contain annual management fees priced at discounted rates to their standard retail prices, to offer on the Standard Life platform.
Standard Life said that while it was naming seven groups it had signed deals with 11, out of the 15 groups that it initially engaged in negotations with.
The groups which have officially signed up are Cazenove and its owner Schroders, Henderson Global Investors, Investec Asset Management, Neptune, Threadneedle and the group’s own asset manager Standard Life Investments.
The deals mean that the platform has signed preferential terms on more than 200 funds it offers to investors, but Standard Life did not reveal when the firms would have the new shares on its platform, with it likely to be spread out through the end of the year and into early 2014.
The average discount on the shares is expected to similar to the platform’s existing rebate discount, which was 9 basis points.
Investec earlier this week revealed that it was making six of its best-selling funds available for 0.65 per cent, a 10 basis points discount, to selected strategic partners.
However, Standard Life said not all preferential share classes will take the form of just lower a annual management charge, with some groups dropping other charges so that the discount is on the total cost of ownership of the shares.
Graham Dow, head of investment group relationships at Standard Life, said the other four groups that had agreed terms but did not want their name revealed yet before they could speak to their clients and other platforms.
He said the remaining four firms not signed up were still in negotiations and he was confident of getting them signed up by the end of the year, while he said there were other firms, with whom Standard Life had not previously had discount arrangements with, that had expressed an interest in providing preferential clean share classes.
“By March 2014 we will be rebate free and have pretty much the full initial range of share classes we were looking for,” said Mr Dow.
Mr Dow also dismissed reports that Standard Life had promised firms help with marketing and guaranteed future fund flows as part of the negotiations for preferential shares.
He said the platform does have partnerships in place with certain firms to aid them with marketing and sales but that such deals were not contingent on firms providing preferential shares.
