A Chester-based Model Portfolio Service (MPS) provider is to launch a range of multi-asset funds in the coming months.
Clever Adviser was set up by Colum Wilde, an adviser at Helm Godfrey who created a quantitative based investment process to select funds, which was initially a research tool for advisers to use.
In 2017 the tools were used to create a model portfolio service using the dynamic planner risk profile tools to create portfolios from the funds chosen.
The provider now hopes to launch three multi-asset funds in the coming months. The funds will invest in other funds, and so be run on a multi-manager basis.
Nicola Cornish, managing director of Clever Adviser, said the decision to launch the fund range was the result of “demand from existing clients".
She said: “We think the unique selling point for what we do is that we just use the maths, there is no human intervention, historically many fund groups had personal relationships with advisers and this might have influenced fund selection, but we just use the maths, so that doesn't come into it.
"One feature we have is that advisers can have a white label email go out every month to the client, discussing what has happened with the funds they are invested in. It is the data that tells us when to switch out of a fund.”
Ms Cornish said a feature of the advice market since the Mifid rules were introduced in 2018 had been greater levels of client segmentation, with advisers placing clients into specific products depending on their wealth level.
She said adviser clients who use the model portfolio service for one group of clients may wish to use the multi-asset fund structure for another.
Ms Cornish added: “The regulatory environment means advisers are spending more time on compliance and less time on actually winning new clients and growing their business. This has led to an increase in the number of advice firms outsourcing their investment proposition.”
Research by fund house Liontrust showed that advisers are increasingly using multi-asset funds for clients with smaller pots of assets.
david.thorpe@ft.com
