UK-based Lowes Group will create a discretionary fund management (DFM) subsidiary called Lowes Investment Management (Lim).
The firm already has an advice operation called Lowes Financial Management.
The investment team at Lowes Financial Management will be moving over to Lim, but will continue to provide the same investment service to Lowes’ existing clients as before.
Ian Lowes, managing director of the Lowes Group, said, “The launch of Lowes Investment Management gives us the opportunity to provide an additional service to our clients and another way they can benefit from our experience in an active management way alongside our two existing Oeics.
“We feel that the defined nature of the holdings within structured product funds offer an excellent opportunity to benefit from the recovery in the stock markets when it comes.”
Portfolio service
As part of this change, Lim will also be launching a managed portfolio service via the Zurich intermediary platform.
Clients will be able to access funds on a discretionary rather than advisory basis.
The service will begin with two portfolios.
The first will be a lower cost portfolio, with an initial ongoing charging fee of 0.36%, designed for investors looking for a regular income.
The second will be a portfolio of funds investing either solely in structured contracts or with a significant percentage of their assets in structured contracts, and will include Lowes’ own structured product fund, the Lowes UK Defined Strategy Fund.
Other portfolios will be added in the coming months, and the full range will be available for other advisers to use on the Zurich platform.
