Managers at Insight force fund closures

Insight Investment is to close three multi-manager portfolios and is reviewing the status of two others after the managers deliberately shrunk the portfolios.

The firm's UK Fixed Interest, Global Fixed Interest and Europe portfolios, managed by Patrick Armstrong and Ana Cukic-Munro, were identified as being too small in a recent review, along with the Insight Cash Portfolio.

All will be wound up on 23 August, with investors being offered a free switch into other funds in the range. The firm claims these funds are so small that running costs have been negatively impacted.

Six months ago, each of the closing multi-manager funds was 10 times larger and, as of 13 June last year, the UK Fixed Interest Portfolio had £28m under management, according to Standard & Poor's.

By 14 June this year that had dropped to around £950,000, according to Insight.

The Global Fixed Interest Portfolio held £4m last year and £75,000 this month while a year ago the Europe portfolio held £29m, falling to £1.7m on 14 June this year.

The three offerings came from Wealth Management Service (WMS), which has £260m in assets under management and was acquired as part of Rothschild Asset Management.

Brett Greatrex, head of products and marketing at Insight, explained the decision to transfer assets away from these portfolios was in the interests of investors, adding optimal asset allocation can be achieved in a narrower range.

The firm also revealed it is removing its UK Portfolio, Japan Portfolio and Asia Pacific Portfolio funds from the WMS as they are no longer being used as part of the platform, although there are no immediate plans to close the offerings.

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