Two of the largest fund platforms – Fidelity FundsNetwork and Cofunds
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will begin to offer trusts to investors some time next year, but de Sausmarez (pictured) says they should not have to wait so long. "It is a shame that the major investment platforms are taking so long to accommodate the whole of the market, especially investment trusts. Investors who have bought into them have done extremely well over the years," he explained.
"The main objective of the Retail Distribution Review is to open up all the markets to individual investors."
"RDR means that independent financial advisers can choose from the whole of the market for all their clients and not be influenced by commission fees anymore."
"I feel that the major platforms, like Fidelity’s FundsNetwork, Cofunds and Skandia, should make all markets available for investors."
"However without certain areas of the market, like the closed-ended space, investors and financial advisers are not going to get access to the whole market, are they?"
According to FE Analytics, the majority of closed-ended sectors have beaten their open-ended counterparts over the long term.
For example, the IT UK Growth sector has beaten the IMA UK All Companies sector by more than 27 percentage points over 10 years.
Performance of sectors over 10-yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Neil Shillito, director of SG Wealth Management, says that the culture of financial advising will change so that investment trusts will become more popular, but it will take time.
"The main reason that investment trusts have not been more readily available for investors is because of the culture that has been in place for years and years."
"IFAs wouldn’t recommend trusts because they were shares and didn’t pay any commission and stockbrokers wouldn’t recommend OEICs because they didn’t understand them."
"But now, with RDR, we are seeing a huge blurring of these lines."
"We agree with the FSA that advisers should now be researching different areas of the market. These things will take time though, it’s not like people are going to wake up on 1 January and everything will change."
Shillito says it is understandable that IFAs have tended not to recommend closed-ended trusts as they were rightly sticking to their area of expertise.
"Advisers recommend OEICs and unit trusts because the large majority of them have met with the managers and have built up a large understanding of them."
"For IFAs to do that all again with investment trusts is a big ask, especially in a short period of time."
"At SG, we do use investment trusts to a limited extent, but we use more open-ended funds because of customer practice and doing what we know."
"With investment trusts you need a higher level of understanding. It is not good enough to say they are closed-ended and trade on either a discount or premium to their NAV, then say 'I know everything about them' and launch in."
"It takes time to really get a grip of the market," he added.
A spokesperson from Skandia Investment Platform said that there were no immediate plans to include investment trusts on the platform but that it would reconsider its decision if there was more demand.