Nov 5 2015

Premier to merge away highest-risk Liberation fund

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Premier to merge away highest-risk Liberation fund

Premier Asset Management is to merge two funds in its risk-targeted Liberation range later this month.

The Liberation range is currently made up of five risk-targeted funds, ranked from level four to eight and run by multi-asset managers David Hambridge, David Thornton, Ian Rees and Simon Evan-Cook.

Premier said it was planning to merge Liberation VIII, the riskiest portfolio in the range, with Liberation VII due to the former’s uneconomical size.

The five funds have a total £188m in assets under management, but Liberation VIII has failed to breach the £10m mark.

A Premier spokesperson said: “Liberation VIII is small in size at about £8m and we believe will attract less new investment than the other Liberation funds.

“As Liberation VII is very similar to Liberation VIII, we have proposed to shareholders to merge Liberation VIII into Liberation VII to make one larger, more cost effective and better value fund.”

The merger will take place on November 20, pending shareholder approval. The fund will be wound up in the event shareholders do not approve the proposals.

Liberation VIII has returned 18.9 per cent over the past three years compared to the 24.2 per cent return produced by Liberation VII, according to FE Analytics.

Close to half of UK-domiciled investment funds have been merged or closed in the last decade for either business continuity or cost-efficiency reasons, according to research from Lipper.