AJ Bell has launched an active management version of its Managed Portfolio Service for financial advisers.

The new portfolios, which are available exclusively on the AJ Bell Investcentre platform, give advisers greater flexibility to meet differing client needs by mirroring AJ Bell’s existing passive MPS but with the new portfolios implemented via a choice of actively managed funds.

Although the vast majority of underlying investments will be active funds, AJ Bell will only select active funds when it is confident the fund manager can deliver performance worth paying for, giving the AJ Bell team the flexibility to use passive investments where it believes that is the right option.

The new active range will contain six portfolios which are benchmarked against risk profiles 3 – 8 in Distribution Technology’s Dynamic Planner risk ratings. They are risk targeted to ensure the portfolios consistently target the stated level of volatility, giving advisers and their clients greater certainty that the portfolios are meeting their objectives.

All the portfolios will have an annual management charge of 0.15% + VAT, in line with the recent price cut AJ Bell announced on its passive MPS. The OCFs of the underlying funds at launch range from 0.39% for risk level 3 to 0.84% for risk level 8. This gives a total cost for the portfolios ranging from 0.57% to 1.02%, making them one of the best value active Managed Portfolio Services in the market.

Each portfolio will contain around 15 underlying active funds and are available for advisers to use immediately – full details of the underlying funds are available on request.

AJ Bell Investments chief investment officer Kevin Doran commented: “Our passive MPS is becoming increasingly popular with advisers, particularly following the price cut we implemented earlier this month. Many of these advisers we work with have asked if we can add an active management option and so, thanks to our commitment to offer investors choice, we are delighted to be able to do that to meet this demand.

“Advisers will now have access to managed portfolios matched to six risk levels, with an active and passive option in each level. This will enable them to meet the vast majority of their clients’ risk profiles, investment preferences, all at a market leading price point.”

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