Tillit has removed Supermarket Income REIT from its investor platform after the trust ignored “multiple attempts” from the firm to engage with the investment committee.
While Tillit has removed the fund from its investable universe, investors will not be forced to sell their holding. It will move the income REIT from its ‘main universe’ to the ‘dark universe’ which means investors can still add to or reduce their current holding but can’t repurchase if the investor decides to sell.
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Tillit said part of its due diligence for funds includes access to meeting with a fund manager at least once a year, but said Supermarket Income REIT has not responded to Tillit’s attempts to engage for this. Due to this distance, Tillit made the decision to remove the fund.
Sheridan Admans, head of fund selection at Tillit said: “The decision to remove Supermarket Income REIT was not taken lightly. We firmly believe it is in our investors’ interests to speak regularly to the fund managers on our platform. Meeting (in person or virtually) with the fund manager(s) and assessing their expertise and thinking process is a key part of our fund selection process.
“Our investment committee is determined to ensure that the Tillit Universe offers what they believe to be best-in-class funds, investment trusts and ETFs. We make it abundantly clear at the outset that the only non-negotiable in a fund being onboarded once it has been selected is access to the investment team at least once a year. Therefore, though rare, some funds may be removed from the universe from time to time.”
Atrato, investment adviser to Supermarket Income REIT said in response: “We are surprised at TILLIT’s statement that we have ignored attempts to engage, having exchanged emails over the summer. In the most recent dated 12 July, we requested dates from them for a video interview. As far as we are aware we did not receive a response to this most recent email and nor was an attempt made to follow up with us via phone. We take shareholder engagement very seriously and remain available to them to answer any questions about the company.”
