WEALTH WATCH
STEPHEN CRANSTON: A parade of winners and losers
Alexander Forbes manager table shows gap narrowing between institutional and retail funds
There was a time when the institutional and retail investment worlds would never meet. The use of the term "institutional" for wholesale portfolios evokes the smell of Dettol in hospital wards, but ultimately there is no reason a pension fund or life office should have a different investment strategy from a retail investor. In the 1980s and 1990s retail unit trusts were more racy, as it was thought private investors saw a fund as a bit of a flutter and had a higher risk tolerance, They certainly flocked to internet funds and such nonsense as intellectual capital funds. These funds became obsolete once unit trusts were no longer bought as lottery tickets but as the building blocks of retirement annuities and post-retirement living annuities. Now the retail and wholesale markets have begun to converge, although it is true that the large managers still have separate distribution teams. For example, wholesale distribution at Coronation Fund Managers is run by Kirshni Totaram, an actuary...
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