With wealth managers increasingly unitising their model portfolios, fund groups are having to double efforts to promote their own multi-asset solutions.
Berens, managing director and head of UK retail, said he could not think of a more competitive industry with the funds market typified by a “panoply of choice” in each asset class.
“We asset managers are no longer just creators of traditional building blocks for asset allocation, but are focusing on outcomes,” he said.
In an environment where firms are launching their own passive model portfolios – recent examples being Coutts and Brewin Dolphin – Berens said he saw little difference between that and the role of JPM’s own multi-asset managers.
“I would say that an adviser that allocated between passives is a fund manager,” he said.
Berens also asserted that the current funds industry debate around costs has become “too narrow”, with much talk about equities, yet little consideration in asset classes where passives are not always an option.
He said: “Active managers are under pressure from passives in equities, but that is not so much the case in fixed income and alternatives – the funds industry is much wider than some people think”.
