Balanced fund is scrapped by OPM in RDR shake-up

28 April 2011 12:00 pm | By Joanne Ellul

OPM Fund Management is to close its balanced managed fund and suggests such funds will become unviable after the retail distribution review.

The £17m balanced managed fund will close on May 9 and will be replaced by two funds, the EFA OPM diversified target return and the EFA OPM worldwide opportunities. The two new funds will replace Jupiter worldwide opps and BlackRock UK absolute alpha in OPM’s model portfolio service.

Chief investment officer Tony Yousefian says: “We do not see a future for balanced managed-type funds after the RDR. We think balanced managed and cautious managed funds will have a limited appeal as the IFA will have to construct a port- folio for clients or outsource to a full-time portfolio manager.”

“You will not see IFAs buying just one fund and putting all their balanced investment in one. By splitting balanced managed into two risk components, each fund can be bought on its own or by putting the two together for a client you have a more balanced approach to risk.”

Michael Phillips proprietor Michael Both says: “We will definitely see more fund launches that move away from labels such as balanced managed but these new labels may not be any better.”

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