Buckles to close Snowdonia Property fund as it brings investments in-house

Rhyl-based IFA firm Buckles is planning to close it's Snowdonia Property fund and complete the process of bringing its products in-house.

The fund is currently managed by Premier Asset Management's fund manager Alex Ross, who also runs the Premier pan-European Property Share fund. Buckles has been offering clients invested in the Snowdonia fund a free switch into the Premier fund , which mimics the former.

Ross' fund is a specialist, unconstrained offering which buys shares in listed property companies throughout Europe.

The property fund is part of Buckles' Snowdonia Fund Oeic, and having transferred the management of the other funds within the Oeic to Sanlam - the South African insurer and the firm's majority shareholder - Buckles said the property offering no longer fits with its proposition.

Rick Eling (pictured), investment solutions manager at Buckles, said: 'It will be wound up and that's been the plan for a while, so we have been offering clients a transfer into the Premier fund for free.

'We have tried to do this gradually and have spoken individually to clients, and we are working with Premier on that.'

Buckles has switched the management of its Snowdonia Balanced and Growth portfolios, as well as its Income offering, over the last two years. 

The adviser firm is also looking at replacing Premier as the authorised corporate director (ACD) on the Snowdonia Oeic. Eling said: 'We've had a first rate service from Premier, but part of our job is to review our funds and get costs down for investors and we are looking at that.'

Simon Weldon, Premier's managing director of sales and marketing, said his firm was expecting to be replaced as ACD on the Snowdonia Oeic in the near future.

Last year Premier questioned the independence of Buckles’ Snowdonia funds following its switch to Sanlam. Eling responded by stating that the north Wales-based firm had taken legal advice to examine potential conflict of interest issues by using Sanlam multi-manager to manage the funds. It said the feedback it received was that the move did not disadvantage clients.