Daring deals

Cofunds steps up with IFDS agreement

UK fund supermarket Cofunds has formed a strategic alliance with IFDS, the 50-50 administration joint venture between State Street and DST Systems. The deal is a financial lifeline for the fund supermarket, which has been battling for business with Fundsnetwork – a rival supermarket with the weight of Fidelity behind it. Fidelity, meanwhile, has agreed to allow Cofunds to offer its products, bringing the fund supermarket’s product range to 363 and fund manager range to 46. After lengthy negotiations, FundsNetwork will be allowed in return to offer products managed by Cofunds’s owners, Gartmore, Jupiter, M&G and Threadneedle. Charlie Eppinger, chief executive of IFDS, said he believed Cofunds’ “independent, intermediary-focused model” was the way forward for fund supermarkets, which, he added, were set to play a “central role” in the investment industry.

Martin Currie sells off private client arm Edinburgh-based fund management boutique Martin Currie is bowing out of the wealth management business, having sold its Ł190m (E296m) private client arm to UK rival Thornhill Investment Management. Thornhill’s chairman Mark Davies said he was on the lookout for further acquisitions and hoped to boost assets under management from Ł400m (including Martin Currie’s assets) to at least Ł1bn in the next three years. Martin Currie will retain a stake in the merged business, which will be known as Thornhill. Communications director at Martin Currie, Ross Leckie, said “we didn’t feel the private client business would get scalable fast enough when the markets are this volatile. We are now are free to focus on our core institutional business.”