North, one of Australia’s leading wrap investment platforms, has partnered with three of the industry’s leading investment managers to add a further 12 managed portfolios to its investment menu.
In total, North now offers 230 managed portfolios to advisers and their clients, covering all asset classes and risk profiles. The portfolios continue to attract strong interest, with AUM for the portfolio range recently passing $6.5 billion, and helping drive increasing cash inflows onto North from independent financial advisers, which increased 45 per cent from 3Q21 to 3Q22.
North’s growing managed portfolio offer contributed to it recently being awarded the highest possible 5 Apples platform rating by Chant West.
BlackRock
North has partnered with BlackRock to design and launch the platform’s first international equity portfolio - the iShares Enhanced Strategic International Managed Portfolio. It is a dynamically managed diversified portfolio, comprising 10-20 ETF holdings, providing exposure to over 2,500 underlying securities across developed and emerging markets. BlackRock uses a four-step framework for the managed portfolio construction process, which covers strategic country and sector allocations, dynamic tilting, portfolio implementation and monitoring of risk exposures.
Morningstar
Morningstar’s six new managed portfolios have been designed to meet the broad needs of all investors, covering Australian equities, ETFs and managed funds. They are intended to grow savings above a clearly defined rate of inflation, utilising Morningstar’s asset allocation, security selection, portfolio construction, and research capabilities.
InvestSense
Five new multi-asset portfolios from InvestSense provide exposure to a diversified portfolio of 7-30 managed funds and ETFs and 20-40 direct Australian equities. The portfolios offer a broadly diversified exposure to a mix of securities that are out of favour with the market and therefore trading at attractive valuations, combined with those that have attractive growth prospects but with reasonable valuations. Each portfolio aims to ensure that it is sufficiently diversified across sectors and controls for any biases.
Edwina Maloney, AMP Director of Platfoms, said:
“These latest additions to North’s growing managed portfolio range are delivered in partnership with industry leading investment managers and reflect a commitment to ensuring we provide advisers and their clients with access quality investment choice and flexibility.
“Every enhancement we make to North, across investment choice and functionality, is informed by advisers, and designed to support the delivery of high-quality advice as efficiently as possible.”
Katie Petering, Head of Product Strategy, Multi-Asset Strategies & Solutions at BlackRock, said:
“We’re delighted to be partnering with one of the market’s leading investment platforms, North, to provide more advisers and clients with access to BlackRock’s global investment capabilities and insights. We’ve designed the iShares Enhanced Strategic International Managed Portfolio to provide diversified exposure to international equities with a long-term investment objective.
