SIPP Investment Platform (SIP) was founded in 2010, and until now has specialised in evaluating investment products capable of being held in such UK investment structures as self invested personal pensions (SIPPs).
However, FEIFA chief executive Paul Stanfield believes that what SIP does for UK SIPP investors would also be of enormous benefit to European financial advisers, many of whom have been caught up in some recent problems involving a handful of particularly toxic alternative investment schemes.
“For some time we have been concerned with the amount of alternative investment funds and products, and funds based outside Europe, which have been gated or liquidated,” Stanfield said, citing LM Investment Management, Harlequin, Axiom and EEA as some of the best-known examples.
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“These concerns are shared, of course, by much of the industry and many of our member companies, many of whom have discussed with us ways that we may be able to assist them in continuing to include alternative funds and strategies within [their clients’] portfolios, while better protecting [them] against these risks.”
Stanfield said that the partnership deal will enable FEIFA member companies to benefit from SIP’s “good quality, independent research” at a price they can afford.
What is more, all prospective FEIFA partner companies operating in the alternative space “and/or with non-Ucits funds or funds based outside of Europe” will now have to be independently reviewed by SIP, which will provide its findings to FEIFA’s executive committee.
The review document may, if the provider wishes, be included in SIP’s online investment directory and thus be available to all of its registered subscribers, which currently comprises pension scheme operators and platforms, Stanfield said.
In addition, if the review is listed on the online directory, “FEIFA has also arranged with SIP for a copy to be made available to FEIFA member companies at a heavily discounted cost,” Stanfield added, noting that such research materials possess value and represent “exactly the sort of analysis that our membership has expressed a desire for”.
To see the SIPP Investment Platform website, click here.
