Columbia Threadneedle is working on plans to allow advisers to use white label versions of their Universal multi-asset portfolios.
The fund range, which comprises a number of risk weighted products as well as a range of ESG funds, grew in size by £900mn in 2024, to £3.5bn, as a result of both new money and from market gains.
And, since the start of 2025 the funds have grown to £3.7bn.
Columbia Threadneedle’s co-head of UK Wholesale Distribution, Steve Armitage, said the vast majority of the assets are on behalf of financial advisers and discretionary wealth managers, with a focus on winning business from the large networks but also from regional advice firms.
He confirmed to FT Adviser the firm is “exploring white labelling”, where advice firms would be able to use their own branding on products run by Columbia Threadneedle and “built on the foundations” of the Universal funds.
The product range, which has an annual management charge of 0.29 per cent, was designed with advisers in mind.
The company’s “adviser edge” involves visits to advice firms and run sessions that help advisers. It believes this has helped grow the assets of the Universal fund range.
Armitage said: “We like to think of it as a partnership with advice firms and networks. We offer them availability from our investment professionals, but also have two people whose job is to support advisers in terms of soft skills and knowledge.
“It is about development of skills, so we might work with the advisers, or in a large firm, with the paraplanners, to help with their understanding of issues such as capital gains tax, or trusts. We work with the advice firms to create a programme of support, I wouldn’t call it a help desk [but not far from that].”
The Universal funds are run by the multi-asset team at Columbia Threadneedle which manages around £60bn of assets in total.
Keith Balmer, who is jointly responsible for running the investments within the Universal fund range, said the team is “quite positive” on risk assets at the moment.
He added: “The global economy isn’t in bad shape, the US economy is in good shape, and even in regions where there is more uncertainty, that is reflected in valuations. The market may have overdone it with its fears on US inflation, in Europe we aren’t worried about inflation, while in the UK it’s a mixed bag.”
He added the Universal Income fund within the range, which has assets of £53mn, “will always be run with total return in mind in the first place”.
“That’s why stocks such as Nvidia [which are not usually in income portfolios] are in the fund,” said Balmer. “There is no point in owning an income fund and just being paid your income from your own money.
“The target is to pay an income of 4 per cent a year, and the annualised return since we launched is 4.8 per cent, so clients have been getting income from the capital gains, not their own money.”
The writer of this article is an investor in one of the funds mentioned in this piece.
david.thorpe@ft.com
