I hope you are well and looking forward to a sunny weekend.
As a testament to ebi’s ongoing commitment to improving investment outcomes, whilst also reducing costs, we are pleased to announce a couple of updates to ebi’s portfolio suites. This will involve a fund switch within the Earth portfolios and a share class switch within the Core Portfolios. Please refer to the relevant section below depending upon which portfolio suite you are using.
ebi is your appointed Discretionary Investment Manager; this means they are able to make changes to the underlying investment funds and allocations as they deem appropriate for the investment strategy.
These switches will be instructed automatically, and you may notice trades occurring on your wrap platform account over the next few weeks. No action is required on your part.
For those invested in General Investment Accounts (GIA), we have checked the capital gains position, and excluded the wrapper if this change might lead to a tax liability.
There are no implementation or advice charges associated with these transactions.
The upcoming changes involve adjustments to specific funds within the portfolios, as outlined below:
Vantage Earth
For the Vantage Earth portfolios there will be a sale of one of the assets, which will be replaced with an alternative asset as detailed below:
Key reasons for the switch:
The Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF) of the new fund (0.12%) is slightly lower than the current fund (0.13%)
ebi has secured access to a restricted share class of the Fidelity World ESG Fund. While the standard institutional OCF is 0.15%, ebi clients benefit from a reduced rate of 0.12%, providing a 0.03% discount.
The new fund offers broad, diversified, and ESG-screened exposure to developed markets, tracking over 4,000 large, mid, and small-cap securities across 23 countries. It provides more balanced sector exposure, including energy, helping reduce risk and improve alignment with the broader market.
The fund uses MSCI as its benchmark, a respected and transparent provider in the asset management industry, enhancing ESG reporting and communication.
Vantage Core
For the Vantage Core portfolios, ebi has secured access to a lower-cost share class of the iShares North American Equity Index Fund (already held within the Core portfolios).
Key reasons for the switch:
This switch results in a 0.02% OCF saving for the accumulation share class and 0.03% for the income share class.
These savings equate to a 0.01% overall OCF reduction for the accumulation equity portfolio and 0.02% for the income version.
As the Core portfolios continue to grow, ebi hopes to access similar discounts on other regional iShares funds.
As always, if you have any questions about this piece or any other finance-related matter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Ponting CFP Chartered MCSI
Managing Partner
