Close Brothers Asset Management has unveiled its new proposition: Intelligent Retirement. It aims to provide a range of income solutions that meet clients’ changing needs, and is set to take advantage of the pension freedoms that came into force in 2015.
The product allows advisers to access Close Brothers’ Glide Path investment strategy, its income funds and a new modelling tool. The Glide Path strategy adjusts client portfolios, investing in higher risk assets in earlier years and gradually de-risks as the client moves closer and through retirement. The strategies can have different trajectories and allocations to best fit around goals and circumstances.
The firm says the retirement product has been launched because there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The solution also includes an annuity service. There are no costs for either internal or external adviser clients for using the product.
www.closebrothers.com
There have been a few products over the past two years that have been developed specifically for the pension freedoms, and this one does not look that different. Many tools have the ability to project retirement incomes and offer similar to this, so the new offering from Close Brothers is in no way groundbreaking material.
Despite the fact there has been an influx of this type of product, it should not necessarily be seen as a bad thing. Each provider tool is developed differently with different algorithms and analytics, so it would be worthwhile for advisers to use multiple tools, much like they would use different platforms for creating and holding fund portfolios. Variety is key, especially with something so difficult or near impossible to predict. The ability to add an annuity service is also useful, as not many fund providers will have this option on their tools.
One of the biggest issues that could arise from using this tool is that, as it stands, only Close Brothers income funds are available to use. While this may be a hindrance for many, it could be still used for certain risk profiles.
However, fund performance can in no way be predicted, and advisers should not use specific funds for this sort of projection anyway. Therefore, having a basis of different risk ratings could come in very handy.
