Fund investment platform Tillit has unveiled its investment universe and teased details on its “unique” fees structure ahead of its public launch later this year.
The new D2C platform founded by former Baillie Gifford fund manager Felicia Hjertman (pictured), has a focus on transparency and fairness.
Last year, it closed a £1m funding round led by Techstart Ventures and supported by industry heavyweights like Schroders’ Nick Kirrage and has since been working on getting regulatory permissions, integrating with its partners and building the platform.
Tillit founder and CEO Hjertman said: “We continue to onboard pre-registered customers who have signed up for early access. The focus now is to iterate and improve the platform based on their feedback. We will continue to release new features and refine the user interface and experience in the run up to the full launch in the autumn.”
She added: “We want Tillit to be the most customer friendly DIY platform in the market and this version of the platform is just the beginning.”
Investment universe well stocked with Vanguard, Fidelity and Baillie Gifford funds
At launch, the platform features 95 funds from 44 asset managers that have been handpicked by its investment committee, which includes Hjertman and former Baillie Gifford multi-asset boss Patrick Edwardson, as well as Fairview Investing’s Ben Yearsley and Gavin Haynes.
Its investment universe includes a blend of asset classes and management styles with passives accounting for a quarter of the funds, investment trusts making up one fifth and 15 sustainable options also making the cut.
Vanguard features prominently with six funds, including two of its Lifestrategy vehicles, making the list, as does Fidelity which has nine funds in total.
Hjertman’s previous employer Baillie Gifford also has a number of funds on the platform, including the Positive Change fund and James Anderson’s Scottish Mortgage trust.
The DIY platform, which focuses on “quality over quantity,” has notably excluded Terry Smith’s £24bn Fundsmith Equity fund.
Nick Train’s Finsbury Growth & Income fund is present though neither his £6.7bn Lindsell Train UK Equity and £8.9bn Global Equity funds feature.
Fee structure designed to reward long-termism
Hjertman also teased more details on the platform’s “unique” fee structure which is designed to reward customers for taking a long-term view.
Customers will pay a platform fee of 0.40% per annum which reduces by 0.01% every year for all customers regardless of the size of their assets on the platform. The maximum discount is achieved after 15 years when a client would pay 0.25% per annum.
There are no trading fees for investment trusts and ETFs, with Tillit absorbing the costs, and clients will have access to discounted share classes.
Hjertman said: “We want to do things differently at Tillit. We want the Tillit investment platform to be free from all the flaws and biases found elsewhere in the industry. We want to offer the best investment choices regardless of structure and we want to reward customer loyalty and long-term thinking.”
