European Products
June 2009
Standard Life Investments has made its Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV fund range available through MFEX’s Mutual Fund Exchange, an independent fund marketplace in Europe, in all countries where the SICAV is registered for public distribution and where MFEX clients operate. MFEX platforms feature 268 fund companies from 15 legal domiciles, and funds are distributed in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
BlackRock has launched its BGF Global Inflation Linked Bond Fund, aimed at investors with a long-term asset needing protection against the erosion of returns. The fund invests predominantly in inflation-linked bonds issued globally that will produce a real rate of return over inflation. The BGF Global Inflation Linked Bond Fund will be overseen and managed by Brian Weinstein and Adam Bowman, whose expertise is in managing inflation linked securities.
Investment Solutions has launched its Fiduciary Management Solutions product, designed for defined benefit (DB) pension schemes. The product will allow pension fund trustees to outsource their investment decision making to Investment Solutions. Fiduciary Management Solutions requires trustees to set targets for Investment Solutions to deliver returns that will improve funding levels over time.
ETF Securities is to launch Europe’s
first complete platform of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) tracking double
leveraged and double short benchmarks based off Europe’s main equity
indices. The eight new ETFs will track double leveraged and double short
equity devices that provide exposure to the daily percentage return of
various benchmarks through a simple ETF. They are aimed at investors who
do not wish to use derivatives to create short-term leveraged directional
strategies. The new ETFs stand alongside and complement the existing platform
of thirteen equity ETFs, which launch last year have shown a strong performance
and growth as the economic cycle improves.
BNY Mellon Asset Management has launched its Universal
Euro Sovereign Fund to its Dublin-based money market fund range. Initially,
the fund will be distributed in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Germany and
Spain, and aims to provide investors with a high level of current income
in Euro terms.
Standard Life has launched its Tailored Investment Bond
(TIB), developed around the principles of the Retail Distribution Review
(RDR) and Treating Customers Fairly (TCF). The TIB meets the demand for
more transparency in the bond market and offers complete admission control,
large fund discounts, the potential to reduce IHT liability, a wide fund
range, a phased investment option and tax options.
Iveagh and Berkeley Burke SIPP Administration
have joined forces to create and launch the Iveagh Private Pension. The
SIPP is free to customers investing over £25,000 in the Iveagh wealth
fund, launched in September 2008.
European companies will have the opportunity to save up to 15 per cent off of their total cost of risk with the launch of Aon’s Risk Financing Decision Platform (RFDP) in Europe. The process, which aims to help businesses decide how much risk to retain and how much to transfer to insurance markets, should optimise the risk financing spend in the long-term, Aon says. RFDP links actuarial risk modelling, financial analysis and programme design and stress testing, and companies can view how the total cost of risk could be split for each of the potential insurance options.
Zurich International Life has launched the International Pension Plan (IPP) in the UK, a unit-linked group savings plan. The IPP is designed to meet the retirement needs of expatriate and internationally mobile members of a multi-national organisation’s workforce, and consists of online administration, flexible plan design, multiple currency options and optional trust services. A wide range of institutionally priced funds are offered through the plan, and it has a transparent pricing structure.
PIMCO has launched the GIS Global Advantage Fund, which is designed to help fixed-income investors to take advantage of opportunities created by shifts in the global economy. The fund will feature a broad range of fixed-income instruments, and is benchmarked against PIMCO’s Global Advantage Bond Index. Co-chief investment officer Mohamed El-Erian and executive vice president Ramin Tolouj will co-manage the fund.
