Boutique asset manager Garraway Capital Management has launched a discretionary fund management platform, which has been designed with the needs of independent financial advisers (IFAs) in mind, and aims to help alleviate their regulatory burden and allow them to focus on servicing clients, while providing full transparency. Powered by digital wealth management platform Fundment, the platform integrates Garraway’s fund management capabilities and simplifies account management for financial advisers. It includes digital onboarding technology which allows the onboarding process to be completed within minutes rather than days.
The all-in fee for its active investment solution is 0.99 per cent, making the Garraway platform competitive as this takes into account the DFM service, fund charges, tax wrappers, platform costs, and VAT. Having separate processes can often have the potential to increase costs for clients, and can result in less control for advisers. A centralised proposition allows advisers and their clients to save time and money.
The platform can be white-labelled and tailored to meet individual IFA needs and those of their clients. IFAs will be able to onboard clients and transfer any existing investments, including tax wrappers, to the platform as well as choose from an actively managed range of model portfolios targeting a spectrum of volatility-based risk profiles that have been analysed and rated by Garraway’s investment team. Investors will be able to assess the progress of their investments on-the-go via an app.
The platform includes a number of features currently unavailable from competitors, including automated execution and daily rebalancing, a native mobile app and online portal for advisers and their clients, and onboarding and top-up facilities for tax wrappers including pensions, general investment accounts, ISAs, offshore bonds and trusts.
The investment team is headed by industry veteran Mark Harris, Garraway’s head of multi asset investing. Harris joined Garraway in 2019 having previously headed the multi-asset team at City Financial. Harris previously also managed a range of award-winning funds at New Star Asset Management, joining Henderson Global Investors when they acquired New Star in 2009. Joining Harris on the team is Pushpanshu Prakash as senior investment analyst and Simon Newell as the alternative funds specialist.
Within the actively managed discretionary model portfolios, strategic asset allocation is modelled in-house to provide alignment with client risk profiling and is managed to a volatility corridor, with the aim of maximising the risk/reward ratio. Garraway will offer 8 risk-graded model portfolios.
Hiren Patel, managing director of Garraway, says: “Despite the global disruption caused by Covid-19, it’s business as usual for Garraway as we continue to offer the best in service to our clients. The launch of our DFM service represents a natural progression for the business since Mark and the multi-asset team joined us. Anath Capital Group, Garraway’s parent company, also owns bond specialist Stratton Street Capital and both companies benefit from the group’s vast experience and resources covering management, operation, compliance, legal, business development and administration.
“With the wide and experienced investment talent we have accrued over the last few years, we now have the breadth and depth of investment skills to provide a quality and highly competitive investment proposition. Combine this with Fundment’s technical knowhow and we have a blend of expert discretionary fund management, a digital investment platform built, not adapted, from scratch for model portfolio services and the ability to provide resources to help with the initial migration of client assets.
“The combination of our expert and rigorous investment process, together with the latest in digital processing power, without the drag of legacy technology, will enable advisers to significantly modernise their offerings. This allows them to position themselves for the next generation of clients, with the onset of the transgenerational wealth transfer, without giving up control of their businesses.”
