M&G announces a partnership with platform technology provider FNZ, paving the way for greater access to its flagship £64 billion PruFund range through many of the leading UK platforms, powered by FNZ.
FNZ, the leader in global, end-to-end wealth management platforms, partners with over 650 of the world’s leading financial institutions and more than 12,000 wealth management firms. The partnership means that the PruFund range will become available later this year on FNZ-powered platforms, supported by FNZ’s Q-Hub technology, allowing M&G to expand its distribution reach onto third-party platforms for the first time.
PruFund has gained around £64 billion of investment from more than 450,000 individual policyholders in the UK over the last 20 years, advised by 5,000 advice firms. The range has grown to meet a variety of customer needs and risk appetites across major tax wrappers.
Advised platform assets in the UK are currently worth over £600 billion. There is increasing demand for smoothed solutions offering volatility protection and flexible retirement income solutions for those individuals seeking to preserve capital, as they head towards retirement or draw down income as they enter retirement.
PruFund’s globally diverse asset allocation allows retail investors access to private assets capability, the medium to long-term outlook appeals to savers seeking benchmark-beating investment returns (over periods of 10 to 15 years or more) and the fund’s smoothing mechanism helps to reduce the impact of market fluctuations, providing a more stable investment and income drawdown experience. Over the last five years the PruFund Growth fund has delivered an annualised return of 7.00%.
Due to its size and scale, customers have exposure to alternative investments such as infrastructure, real estate and unlisted companies, with between 25-30% of the range invested in alternative asset classes, drawing on the heritage and experience of M&G’s asset management business of investing in these areas.
Anusha Mittal, Managing Director, Individual Life and Pensions, at M&G, said: “This agreement with FNZ is an important step in our ambition to grow and diversify access to PruFund in the retail advised platform market. We are enabling advisers greater choice and flexibility in how they invest on behalf of their clients by making the market-leading smoothed product available to as many people as possible.”
Alastair Conway, Group Head of UK at FNZ, said: “Our ambition is to open up wealth by using our industry-leading technology to make savings products more affordable, personalised and accessible for more people. We’re excited to be bringing M&G’s PruFund range to advisers and their clients via our FNZ-powered UK platforms later this year. This reflects our commitment to expanding investment choice and helping everyone, everywhere invest in their future on their terms.”
