Speaking to International Adviser, OMGI’s global head of distribution Warren Tonkinson said a project committee has been in place for six months to talk to the key distributors in the marketplace.
“We are having a number of ongoing discussions to bring us closer to understand what will be the needs of the market. Is it multi-asset income that people will need? Is it guaranteed products? Is it a secure income?
“Our view is that there will be a number of products going into that space, not one of which will dominate entirely. You need to offer a range of solutions and I fully expect us to launch some new products.”
Tonkinson said OMGI was obviously also talking to Old Mutual Wealth as well as across the whole spectrum of the marketplace about bespoke “pooled-fund solutions”.
“It’s very important that we are in touch with them, and some of the conversations are at an advanced stage.
“It is a space that we’ve been targeting for quite a time because I think it fits in with what we’ve got. The Old Mutual strapline is about building better solutions. Where would that apply more than the current retirement market, which needs better solutions than it’s got at the moment?”
The existing product range starts from a very solid base to address that marketplace, he said.
“The multi-asset team runs products like the risk-targeted Spectrum range, which has been very successful over the last five or six years. We’ve launched a product called Generation, which is a lower-cost, multi-asset solution and another product called Foundation, which is a multi-asset income range of four funds with variable levels of performance and income targets launched nearly two years ago. So those funds fit very neatly into conventional thinking of, ‘What will replace annuities?”
