In what he describes as a unique service, Geoff Mills, a director at RSMR, explained that in an expansion of the fund ratings services it already offers, there is a gap in the market to provide analysis and opinion on new funds, before they generate a proven performance track record.
“We will provide advisers with answers to questions about the fund and its working, giving information and opinion without a rating,” he said.
A second new offering is to provide extended profiles for funds already given a RSMR rating. Currently, for rated funds RSMR provides a fund fact sheet that includes a description of a fund’s objective, its manager and investment process as well as giving their own overall opinion on a fund and how, for example, it could fit within a portfolio as a core or satellite holding and how it blends with other funds in the same sector.
Valuable extras
Expanding on the research notes it gathers, RSMR is now able to provide a more complete fund profile that includes greater detail on all of the above as well as past and current fund positioning, its strategy and, again, its own evaluation of the fund and what it can offer.
The third offering is a review of fund ranges, such as Jupiter’s Merlin range, Old Mutual Spectrum and MyFolio from Standard Life Investments. Mills says this looks at the investment process, drivers and strategy behind the fund ranges.
Business as usual for RSMR is to review funds in the IMA sectors (bar Specialist) so specific funds within these ranges will be reviewed, with profiles and opinions published, as part of this process.
These services have all come about, Mills added, because of the increasing onus on advisory firms to do their own fund analysis rather than overly relying on provider information.
