Brooks Macdonald, the London-based, AIM-listed investment management group, is teaming up with the Generali Worldwide arm of Italy’s Generali insurance company to provide its clients with discretionary fund management services.
In a statement today, the company said the services would be available to international investors through Generali Worldwide’s professional portfolio, where they will now be able to access Brooks Macdonald’s multi-currency discretionary investment strategies.
The announcement comes as more and more financial services businesses are looking to outsource asset management operations that they formerly handled in-house.
In its statement, Brooks Macdonald said the minimum investment for Generali Worldwide clients looking to access the full Brooks DFM service, via one of its six risk-rated “International Managed Portfolio Strategies” will be £50,000, with bespoke and alternative strategies available for portfolios of £500,000 or above.
The investments will be held in segregated accounts, of which the asset manager will be the custodian.
‘Important step’
Jonathan Mynes, who heads up international adviser solutions at Brooks Macdonald, said the new arrangement was an “another important step” for Brooks, as it continues to “expand the availability of our adviser offering internationally”.
He added: “Research shows that a large proportion of advisers’ time is spent on administration and drafting investment reports, so our service will offer a quick and efficient way for advisers to complete this work through an accessible platform, giving them more time to spend with existing and potential clients.”
Brooks Macdonald Group plc was founded in 1991 and began trading on London’s Alternative Investment Market in 2005. It has 13 offices across the UK and the Channel Islands, and at the end of September it had £11bn in discretionary funds under management.
In addition to providing discretionary fund management services it also markets a range of investment management services to private high-net-worth-individuals, pension funds, institutions, charities and trusts and acts as a fund manager to regulated open-ended investment companies.
As reported, it was one of five UK DFM services providers to announce in February that they were joining forces to launch a partnership called the DFM Alliance, aimed at offering financial advisers an information platform relating to outsourcing investments, regulatory support and assistance in meeting ‘best practice’ requirements.
Generali Worldwide is headquartered in Guernsey and provides life-insurance-based wealth management and employee benefit products to a global audience, including multi-national organisations, international expatriates and local resident populations in licensed territories.
Its parent, the Generali Group, is based in Turin and its shares are traded on the Borsa Italiana. It is one of the world’s largest insurance companies, with a presence in more than 60 countries and some 55 million clients.
