David Coombs, who is responsible for the Rathbone range of multi-asset funds, has recently added new funds to the fold.
One of them, The Rathbone Multi-Asset Dynamic Growth Portfolio fund, embraces the philosophy of multi-asset investing to try and deliver inflation (CPI) plus 4 per cent return, but with lower volatility than the FTSE Developed Index – targeting less than five-sixths .
Mr Coombs takes a global view to multi-asset funds, so does not have a UK bias and there is a focus on liquidity.
The Covid-19 crisis just accelerated some of the trends they were already seeing in markets, such as increased spending in healthcare and digitisation. The range of funds was therefore well placed through the crisis.
Mr Coombs is not a value manager, but is conscious that value plays an important role, so he is willing to take profits.
This fund will be suitable for medium to higher risk investors, so sits towards the top of the range in terms of risk and volatility.
The launch of the new funds gives advisers and their customers a choice of six funds with different risk factors from one-third of the risk of the FTSE Developed market through to 100 per cent of the risk.
The fund is primarily invested in equities with about 80 per cent exposure to the asset class, but the remaining 20 per cent is invested in bonds; both government and corporate, including emerging market debt, commodities, cash as well as real assets.
In addition, and in order to manage the volatility of the portfolio, the fund uses derivatives and invests directly into individual companies, bonds and other assets.
This not only keeps the costs down but it also allows the manager to have greater control over the asset allocation.
With a total charge of 0.84 per cent and an OCF of 0.66 per cent, the fund is competitively priced for an actively managed fund in an area of the market where fees are very important and advisers have a wide range of choice.
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