The latest wave of enhancements, part of a multimillion-pound and multi-year investment into 7IM’s proprietary technology, is a key pillar of its strategic growth plans and commitment to providing unrivalled service to advisers and clients.

The upgrades include the ability for advisers to charge for advice costs by setting up regular contributions from clients. This opens the option of advice to a new cohort of clients who may need support with their pensions but not necessarily need a full advice service. The fees can be paid in instalments that coincide with clients’ regular contributions and, to speed up the process, do not require online approval.

Other additions include:

• Portfolio drift reports for advisers who use DFM (Discretionary Fund Manager) model portfolios on 7IM’s platform. These will flag any possible ‘drift’ between the current fund weighting in an account and the DFM’s original model. The tool will help advisers to identify any further action that might be needed to rebalance client portfolios while updating clients.

• The addition of flexi ISA allowance on Client Review Reports. 7IM offers a flexi ISA as part of its platform proposition, meaning clients can replace money withdrawn in the same tax year, however, this can sometimes result in clients appearing to use ISA allowances greater than £20,000. This reporting enhancement will make it clear for clients what their full ISA allowance is.

• Funds SEDOL codes will now be included in client reports for positions and transactions to help advisers identify funds for reporting and to make transfers easier.

7IM has recently announced major investment into its servicing and transformation teams. The recruitment drive positions 7IM for growth as it seeks to cement its position as one of the leading vertically integrated players in the wealth management industry.

Russell Lancaster, MD Platform and Intermediary Partnerships at 7IM said: “We have introduced this latest series of enhancements to our platform as part of ongoing commitment to listen and respond to advisers and their clients. By adding the option for advisers to charge fees for setting up regular contributions, we are enabling them to offer their services to a cohort of clients that may not necessarily need full and comprehensive advice, while at the same time, making it financially viable for them to offer this service.”

“We continue to put advisers and clients first – standing in their shoes so that we can understand the challenges they face and address them by delivering tangible solutions. We know that we must constantly evolve what we offer in line with our adviser and clients’ needs if we are to realise our ambitious growth plans.”

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The video is part of Investment International’s II Awards Winner’s Story video series – which is being rolled out ahead of tomorrow’s launch of the II Awards 2024-25 entry period, which starts tomorrow on July 16, 2024. The II Awards will be open for entry until mid-August with the shortlisting to follow and results set to be revealed 25th Annual II Awards 2024 ceremony being broadcast live on both IA and II on October 10, 2024.

In a final notice statement on 12 July, the regulator said the decision followed civil proceedings brought by the FCA before the High Court of Justice where the High Court ruled that Mongelard was knowingly concerned in multiple contraventions of sections 19 and 21 of the Act, and of section 89 of the FSA 2012 by two companies operated as a joint business and trading as Gemini, that he was deemed to be the director of between 25 January 2015 and 18 November 2015.

On 6 May 2020, Mongelard was ordered by the High Court to pay to the FCA £1,207,050 on a joint and several basis, representing the losses suffered by investors in respect of their investment into Gemini.

Mongelard failed to satisfy the order and the FCA made an application to the High Court to petition for his bankruptcy. A bankruptcy order was made against Mongelard on 6 April 2021.

The FCA concluded that Mongelard was “not a fit and proper person to perform any function in relation to any regulated activity carried on by any authorised person, exempt person or exempt professional firm.”

It said the adverse findings by the High Court “demonstrate a clear and serious lack of integrity, such that Mr Mongelard is not fit and proper to perform regulated activities.”

To read the FCA full notice, click here.

Through this collaboration, UK and European retail investors using Trading 212 can now access WisdomTree’s pre-built and carefully constructed core and thematic model portfolios at no additional cost.

The offering includes three core model portfolios and three thematic model portfolios. The core models are designed to suit different risk tolerance levels, allowing investors to choose between conservative, moderate or aggressive portfolios. The thematic models provide multi-thematic exposure to around 15 growth themes and targeted exposure to environmental and tech investment themes.

The six model portfolios are exclusively built with exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) and with an open architecture approach, allowing investors to benefit from the efficiency, flexibility and low cost of the underlying wrappers.

The core portfolios give diversified exposure to equities, bonds and commodities:
• Conservative: Provides diversified exposure across asset classes with a focus on lower risk by allocating a higher exposure to bonds. While the equity exposure is reduced compared to the moderate portfolio, it remains at a meaningful weight to enable a stable level of growth.
• Moderate: Aims to deliver steady growth potential with moderate volatility through a balanced exposure to equity, bonds, and commodities.
• Aggressive: Seeks to maximise long-term growth through higher exposure to equities. Commodities are maintained to counterbalance the higher volatility typical of this investment approach.

Thematic Portfolios:
• Multi-thematic: Delivers diversified exposure to around 15 relevant themes, across three megatrends – Technological Shifts, Environmental Pressures and Demographic & Social Shifts. Includes themes such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, renewable energy, decarbonisation, sustainable food, etc.
• Tech: Provides targeted exposure to the subset of tech-focused themes that we find in the Multi-thematic portfolio.
• Environmental: Provides focused exposure to the subset of environmental themes that we find in the Multi-thematic portfolio.

Adrià Beso, head of digital distribution, WisdomTree, said: “For many retail investors, building a robust portfolio from scratch may be too time-consuming and can seem daunting. This is where model portfolios can empower investors, as they remove the need for extensive research and can help allocate to a diversified portfolio which aligns with their investment needs and risk tolerance. Through our new collaboration with Trading 212, we are bringing our institutional expertise to their UK and European investors, helping them to meet their long-term investing goals.”

David Delchev, head of trading and product, Trading 212, added: “The opportunity to provide diversified portfolios powered by ETFs to our customers through an innovative provider like WisdomTree is an exciting development. WisdomTree brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and a track record of building model portfolios for professional investors, that our customers can leverage in their wealth building journey.

“These model portfolios are available on our app as ready-made pies, that are easy to invest in and do not carry any additional ongoing fees outside the fees charged by the underlying ETFs and ETCs comprising the portfolios. We believe that building wealth is a habit, and now our users can automate this with a ready-made pie.”

Trading 212 is a UK commission-free investing app, available to investors in the UK, Europe and Australia Trading 212 with £4bn in client assets and money under administration and 3 million lifetime funded accounts.

Expanding the offering reflects growing demand across European markets for exposure to high-growth US equities and the opportunity set beyond the S&P 500, the global asset manager said in a statement on 9 July.

At its core, Fiera Capital’s SMID Cap Growth strategy seeks to deliver significant capital appreciation across multiple market cycles, providing clients with stability during market downturns. The portfolio typically holds 60 to 90 names and consists of companies between US$150mn and US$10bn at time of initial purchase.

With a track-record of over 23 years, the US$6.1 billion fund has returned 24.61 percent over 12 months and 15.25 percent over three years (as at 31st March 2024), delivering significant outperformance versus its Russell 2500 Growth Index benchmark, providing some downside protection and reduced volatility.

“The market tends to underestimate the longer-term opportunity posed by small to mid-size companies,” said lead portfolio manager, Sunil Reddy (pictured). “US small and mid-caps represent an excellent opportunity for investors seeking exposure to dynamic US companies beyond the highly-subscribed and analysed large cap market. Our rigorous research process and proven portfolio management team enable us to identify standout companies that are positioned for growth and pose attractive risk return levels across.”

Through in-depth analysis the seven-strong team which was founded in 1987 identifies companies that provide innovative solutions to major technological, economic, demographic, regulatory, or societal change. Secular themes such as cloud computing, e-commerce, AI and advances in therapeutics form a tailwind for these companies, carving a path for their ongoing growth.

The managers balance growth and risk management by constructing a dynamic mix of stable and emerging growth companies within the portfolio. Stable growth companies exhibit persistent returns and consistent EPS growth while emerging growth companies are characterised by disruptive innovation, explosive revenue growth and have a large addressable market paired with low penetration.

Reddy said: “We believe the key to repeatable alpha generation is a disciplined, consistent and repeatable process. We have honed our process and proven its effectiveness in multiple economic cycles over the past 20 years.

“Almost a third of the companies on the index don’t have any earnings so a passive approach just doesn’t work when it comes to the small and mid-cap market. Our highly active approach is what allows us to identify and avoid these zombie companies and a lot of idiosyncratic risk unique to the smaller end of the market. More than 85% of our alpha comes from the team’s stock picking.”

The launch of the SMID Cap Growth strategy adds to Fiera Capital’s comprehensive suite of products covering public markets, underscoring the Company’s ongoing commitment to bringing long-term investors high quality, actively managed products and services.

“In recent years, US equities have been a growth powerhouse,” said Klaus Schuster, EMEA CEO, “however the small to mid-cap segment remains relatively under-owned and under-researched. Introducing this strategy to Europe underscores our commitment to providing our clients with strategies that can meaningfully elevate the performance of their portfolios.

“The US SMID Cap strategy can complement pre-existing exposure to large-cap equities and offers diversification without necessarily attracting additional risk.”

The strategy has an open-ended, publicly available track record via a US ’40 ACT vehicle. The UCITS is identical to the existing strategy.