VitalityInvest announces a number of enhancements including new Global Multi-Manager fund range with SEI

VitalityInvest has unveiled multiple enhancements to its investment offering, including five new actively-managed funds created in partnership with SEI (NASDAQ: SEI), a leading global provider of investment solutions, and the addition of a number of new partners to their Vitality Programme - now offered free for all VitalityInvest members - that brings together transactional and fund solutions with unique benefits that encourage positive lifestyle behaviour across both finances and health. 

The new funds
The new Global Multi-Manager funds are available exclusively through VitalityInvest’s ISA, Junior ISA and Retirement Plan and will sit alongside their existing fund range. They use SEI’s institutional expertise to bring an innovative solution to clients’ portfolios at a competitive price. The funds are based on SEI’s investment philosophy of building portfolios by accessing the diverse skills of some of the world’s best fund managers.

The new fund range will enable advisers to offer their clients: 
• Access to best-in-class investment managers globally, including institutional managers and boutique firms not commonly available to retail investors
• Funds comprising over 70 investment strategies, each a customised mandate carefully allocated to a manager with the right skill set and built into an optimised portfolio
• A specialist approach to active management using uncorrelated sources of returns across sectors, securities, managers and styles 
• Real-time risk management, combining proprietary and third-party tools with the transparency of investment mandates, enabling portfolio monitoring at all levels
• Value through institutional buying power, ensuring competitive pricing with a single all-in fund charge, allowing Vitality to pass savings onto advisers and their clients

Global Multi-Manager fund charges 
Unlike some managed portfolio solutions and discretionary fund managers, the Global Multi-Manager funds do not layer additional management charges, and the fund charge is unaffected by shifts in underlying holdings. 

Justin Taurog, Managing Director of VitalityInvest, said: “The way clients are preparing for later life, and their expectations for the sort of lifestyle they want to live when they retire, are dramatically different to that of only 10 years ago. It’s never been more important to save earlier and to take steps that will help you live longer in good health, and the range of initiatives launched today aim to support people to do just that. 

“As part of today’s announcement we are delighted to be partnering with respected experts in the investment space, SEI. The proposition we are able to offer together will help maximise risk adjusted returns for our clients and help them prepare for a healthy retirement.”

Kevin Barr, Head of SEI’s Asset Management Distribution team, added: “Vitality shares our commitment to developing solutions based on clients’ needs. This relationship gives VitalityInvest investors access to SEI’s specialised team of 115 investment professionals, who have decades of experience in building manager-of-manager funds across asset classes, investment styles and geographies.”

Further announcements 
In addition, VitalityInvest has made the following updates to its offering: 
• The Vitality Shared Value Invest Platform:  VitalityInvest has announced access to further savings with partners such as Expedia, Virgin Atlantic and Caffè Nero as part of its Vitality Programme. This follows the change in July 2019 which made the Vitality Programme free for all VitalityInvest members. The programme used incentives and rewards to help clients take steps towards a healthier later life, whilst still giving clients everything they would expect from an invest proposition. This provides better outcomes for clients, investors and Vitality (this alignment of interests is what Vitality refers to as Shared Value). 
• Healthy Fee Saver: Vitality also announced today a new way to access their proposition called the Healthy Fee Saver. These plans provide lower product and fund charges from day one, with the opportunity to reduce product charges to zero when savers invest in Vitality funds reach platinum Vitality status* and maintain positive lifestyle habits. 
• Improvements to its Adviser Hub: including new interactive statements, making it easier for advisers to track investment performance and plan transactions, and produce regular reports for their clients
• A new Junior ISA special offer: with the opportunity to pay no product charges from the start of the upcoming tax year on new Junior ISAs taken out before 5 April 2020

These enhancements are part of the business’s commitment to incentivise clients to save more effectively for a financially secure future, while maintaining the good health to enjoy it.