Fidelity has reduced the fees on several of its multi-asset funds, and merged several others.
The company announced this morning (January 30) that it will merge its Multi-Asset fund range into its Multi Asset Open fund range.
The move will see fund fees cut by 15 basis points on one fund and five basis points on four others.
The merger comes in the wake of Fidelity having moved its multi asset fund strategy to a multi manager approach, which means it is now investing the capital in other funds, including funds not operated by Fidelity.
This differs from a multi asset investment strategy whereby the fund manager selects the individual underlying investments.
James Bateman, chief investment officer for multi-asset investing at Fidelity, said: "Our move to a ‘manager of manager’ structure last year was a major milestone for Fidelity’s Multi Asset business.
"It has enabled lower-cost access to a broader range of third-party managers, giving our portfolio managers an enhanced toolkit to deliver the right outcomes for clients.
"We remain focused on extracting value for our clients at every stage of the investment process, and we’re excited to be able to offer retail investors the power of Fidelity’s global institutional infrastructure to help achieve their objectives."
The full list of funds impacted, and the new charges applied to each, is in the table below.
Merging from
| Merging to | ||
Fund | OCF (N shares) | Fund | Post-merger OCF (N shares) |
Fidelity Multi Asset Defensive | 1.15% | Fidelity Multi Asset Open Defensive | 1.00% |
Fidelity Multi Asset Strategic | 1.10% | Fidelity Multi Asset Open Strategic | 1.05% |
Fidelity Multi Asset Growth | 1.15% | Fidelity Multi Asset Open Growth | 1.10% |
Fidelity Multi Asset Adventurous | 1.20% | Fidelity Multi Asset Open Adventurous | 1.15% |
Fidelity WealthBuilder | 1.25% | Fidelity Open World | 1.20% |
Tom Sparke, investment director at GDIM, a discretionary fund management firm in Cambridge, said: "Lower costs on funds is always a welcome development and it is an especially prominent issue in today’s market.
"While these will not be the cheapest funds in the market, Fidelity have demonstrated that they can achieve superior levels of performance in recent times which would justify these.
"As a one-stop solution these funds will stand-out and manager Bill McQuaker has an excellent record of managing high quality portfolios."
david.thorpe@ft.com
