Parmenion has launched a partnership programme to allow advisers to use the firm’s discretionary fund management services.
The company said it wanted to provide more options for advice firms who want to focus on planning by reducing the “administrative burden” and risk of running their own model portfolio services, while giving the adviser direct influence over investment decisions.
The Affinity partnership will see Parmenion act as an investment adviser to advice firms.
A number of firms have been working with Parmenion in this way for some time and the investment company expects to add six advice firms per year for the next three years.
Parmenion will manage the advice firm’s investment solutions, based on their existing model portfolios and investment philosophy.
Martin Jennings, chief executive of Parmenion, said the partnership is part of his focus on developing and delivering greater investment choice for advice firms.
He said advice firms are wary of the additional costs and risks that gaining their own discretionary permissions brings.
“With Affinity, Parmenion is delivering greater investment control and choice for advisers.”
Mike Barrett, consulting director of the Lang Cat, said partnerships like this are an increasingly attractive option for many firms.
“They need to ensure the agreements between advice firm, discretionary partner, and client are robust, and responsibilities as to who does what are clearly set out," he said.
“But once this is achieved these arrangements can deliver good outcomes for the advice firm and more importantly, the client.”
Last November, Parmenion allowed advisers to access external discretionary fund managers and model portfolios on its platform.
Jennings said advisers regularly gave him feedback about how much they liked the company's offering, but complained about a lack of "breadth of product".
sally.hickey@ft.com
