Aegon has introduced its own funds to a wider-market with a launch of a six-strong fund range on Aegon Retirement Choices and the Aegon Platform.
The Aegon’s Risk-Managed Portfolios consist of mainly passives, predominantly provided by Blackrock, and have an ongoing charge figure of 0.25 per cent.
Aegon launched its first open-ended investment companies funds distributed through Nationwide last year.
Aegon’s partnership with Nationwide dates back to 2016, when it bought Cofunds and inherited Nationwide’s online direct investment platform, investor portfolio service, previously run by Cofunds, through the deal.
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Upon completing the transfer of 79,000 clients and £8bn assets under management, Aegon launched its first own fund-range on the platform last May.
The funds became Nationwide’s advisers’ “primary investment offering” for their clients.
Aegon’s funds now have more than £500m assets under management.
Aegon hopes that its funds will prove popular with a wider adviser and investor market.
The firm’s investment solutions managing director Tim Orton, who joined Aegon from Aviva last year, says: “Half a billion over 12 months is a significant scale that we’ve achieved.
“So certainly in the short term, we would expect that to grow but the franchise over financial adviser community would gather pace over a period of time.”
Orton adds: “We operate the business in the UK across multiple channels, and I think our strength is our diversification across them.
“We also have a workplace business and provide solutions for that. It gives us strength no matter what the preference or buying patters would be.
“The partnership with Nationwide is very powerful, it’s a central part of that process, so it’s gathering good assets at the moment.
“I think we would want to see that the strength of the franchise we’ve got across the financial adviser market allows to gather strength over a period of time and give us that diversification so we could benefit from the strength of the different channels as they grow over time.”
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