Less than a third of adviser clients familiar with thematic investing

Advisers were asked: what proportion of your clients are familiar with the term "thematic investing"?

Almost all those who responded to the survey — 97.2 per cent — said less than 30 per cent of their clients understood the term thematic investing.

The remaining 2.8 per cent said it was between 30 per cent and 50 per cent.

Thematic investing is a top-down investment approach that relies on research to explore macroeconomic, geopolitical and technological trends such as decarbonisation, changing demographics and deglobalisation.

Wes Wilkes, chief executive at Ntwrk, said themes and thematic investing was a really important part of asset allocation and the profession needed to do better at educating more generally about this. 

Wilkes added: “Sadly, most clients wouldn’t know what is meant by thematic investing and for that matter neither would most advisers; especially when you consider that with the advent of the ETF and the incredible choice available at low cost, having an element of a strategy or a portfolio with a theme on, say, climate change or even AI is something clients would take an interest in.”

Ross Lacey, director and chartered planner at Fairview Financial Management, said that while clients might not immediately know what was meant by thematic investing, they would, however, expect any fund manager who offered "active management" to be considering where to allocate money — not just based on individual company prospects but also wider sector or industry trends.

Samuel Mather-Holgate, an independent financial adviser at Mather and Murray Financial, added: “Most clients won't know what thematic investing means. In fact, most advisers won't know the specifics of the term. 

“That's because it's a purposefully woolly, generic concept used for a variety of different strategies adopted by fund managers trying to justify their fees. If your money manager is not thematically investing, then just use a passive fund.”