As the company’s chief executive, he is the perfect person to deliver on an objective that, interestingly, does not just include being the best asset management business in Britain, but the best investment business.
This strategy includes Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI) being a top-five UK-based asset management business, doubling the current assets under management of Skandia Investment Group and Old Mutual Asset Managers – that combined make up OMGI – to £20bn.
And this is on top of making the “best model portfolio service” available to UK advisers; broadening the number of “world class investors” it has to expand its single strategy fund range – the recruitment of Richard Buxton is the first of many; as well as what should be hygiene factors for every firm, providing greater service and value for money to all its customer groups.
In terms of the breadth of product range Feeney wants to offer, comments like Richard Buxton being the first of many recruits is, at face value, not as powerful as it might seem.
The proposed new Select fund range is a narrower proposition of around 50 or 60 funds in total, all branded OMGI, though where there is no in-house expertise a third-party manager will run the mandate. The first 23 funds from ten selected groups have already been revealed with, for example, Neil Woodford running a UK equity income proposition.
The most recent funds to be confirmed are Old Mutual BlackRock UK Special Situations and Old Mutual Artemis Income, sub-advised versions of funds run by Richard Plackett and the two Adrians, Frost and Gosden, respectively.
They were originally targeted for launch in the middle of this year though a spokesperson recently confirmed they will not be available to retail investors until later in 2013.
Alongside Select will be Skandia’s existing Self-Select range of 1,100 funds from 90 providers, a combination of third-party and OMGI funds.
As I am sure you are more than well aware, what Skandia also brings to the party is multi-manager expertise and its platform business, running as it did the first open architecture proposition when it launched pushing 25 years ago – it is now one of 26 specialist platforms.
The fact that its platform strategy is at odds with that of Standard Life is well documented and, while both argue their case very well, the FCA and HMRC might have something to say on which one will end up in the stronger position.
Unsurprisingly, Feeney wants to make his platform “more competitive and more profitable” offering its users “not just wider choice but better choice”. Rather than simply putting any and every fund on its platform and widening the product base he will look to expand the choice by looking at adding ETFs, investment trusts, Sipps with individual stocks and so on.
The addition of new product types is costly and time-consuming and while it may not open to floods of new business, he is looking to add them for those who may want to invest in them. His priority, however, is to update the technology the platform uses (rather than the system itself) and given Skandia’s history of reinventing itself this should see a reinvigorated platform with new tools, capabilities, flexibility and, in time, products.
“I want to offer the best investment range bar none,” he told me, adding he wants it to be “the most accessible investment business”.
Are you picking up on the theme here?
Elsewhere, did you realise quite how much more expensive the new regulator is going to be for your business?
