JPMorgan urges platforms to raise investment trusts’ profile

JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) has called for stricter rules on platforms to place investment trusts on a level footing with other investments.

JPMAM has called for platforms to be required to offer the widest range of investments possible, making clear which investments they do not offer, and operate an unbundled service to ensure neutrality between different investments.

It added that all investments should be given equal coverage by platform research tools and features such as model portfolios.

Under retail distribution review (RDR) proposals, independent advisers will be obliged to include investment trusts in the range of investments they advise on from 2013.

JPMAM said platforms should be encouraged to ensure investment trusts were visible to advisers and investors. Investment trusts should not be ‘siloed’ with individual shares and should be classified according to their AIC sector or objective, it said.

It added that advisers should push for platforms to include investment trusts as part of their offering.

‘Access via investment platforms, including fund supermarkets and wraps, is likely to prove critical,’ it said. ‘Unless an investment product has a presence “on platform”, it is very unlikely that advisers will include them in their assessments in any sustained way.’

David Ferguson (pictured) chief executive of the Nucleus wrap, said platforms should provide advisers with unfiltered access to investments.

‘IFAs and clients should be able to rely on the platforms they choose to offer the assets they wish to invest in,’ he said.

‘We make it clear that we do offer investment trusts in our proposition and we believe platforms should be asset agnostic and just support what they need to, to support the client,’ he added.

‘I think IFAs should be very careful when they’re choosing a platform on whether the assets they like are available because if an IFA has chosen a platform that does not offer them, it makes it very difficult for them.’