KBC Asset Management has teamed up with US financial services group Northern Trust to launch a new range of "manager of managers" funds aimed at the Irish pension market.
KBC says the initiative provides an alternative for trustees seeking to improve pension fund performance. The firm points to the fact that one in five Irish pension schemes is currently underfunded. Multi-manager investing is seen as one of the major growth areas of the global fund industry, recording growth of around 14 per cent a year over the past four years, compared to 3 per cent for the industry as a whole.
KBC sees the "manager of managers" concept as a user-friendly method for pension investors to tap into the trend to use specialist managers rather than give control to one manager.
"While the use of a number of specialist managers has definite advantages, it creates the hugely onerous task of finding, hiring, blending and monitoring and, where necessary, firing these specialist managers," says KBC chief executive Mr Seán Hawkshaw.
He says the new approach switches these functions to people whose full-time job is the selection of asset managers. KBC expects to attract around €1 billion into the new funds.
