“Adviser purchases of investment companies via adviser platforms have nearly tripled since RDR,” she points out.
“Fidelity FundsNetwork have added investment companies to their offering and there are now only two platforms – Old Mutual and Cofunds – that do not include investment companies.
“Both are working hard to get investment companies up soon with the purchasers of Cofunds, Aegon, announcing recently that they expect clients to have access to investment companies in early 2017.”
Often what is holding platforms back from adding investment trusts is technology.
“Some of the older ones haven’t got the necessary technology in place or the dealing teams to execute these in the same way,” points out Mr Burns. “But I just can’t believe there won’t be an ongoing move towards this.”
James Carthew, head of research at QuotedData, says: “There are now sufficient platforms offering investment companies for anyone to be able to access them.”
He expresses his disappointment though that some of the major platform players are still holding out on putting all investment companies onto their site and says he would like to see the range available expand.
“This will change over time as platforms recognise that over half of financial advisers are using investment companies. It may be this happens around the time of a new launch,” he concedes.
“The Woodford Patient Capital launch made a significant difference to platforms’ attitude towards investment companies.”
Quality research
The onus is not just on platforms to help improve awareness of investment trusts among advisers, as research firms also have a role to play.
In February 2017, FundCalibre entered the investment trust ratings market after research revealed its clients have a “strong interest” in education about closed-ended funds.
The firm initially awarded its ‘elite’ ratings to 11 trusts investing in global, UK, European, Asia and Japanese equities and said it expected to add more trusts to its ratings system in the future.
FundCalibre investment company research specialist Tony Yousefian notes: “We think our new, freely accessible, independent fund research on closed-ended funds will be extremely useful to investors and advisers alike.”
He believes there is "a real dearth of quality investment trust research that is freely available to investors".
He adds: “There are still some platforms that do not offer investment trusts but more and more are now doing so.”
But some research firms are not planning to provide investment trust ratings.
Victoria Hasler, head of research at Square Mile Investment Consulting and Research, explains investment trusts simply do not meet their criteria as they are not widely available on all platforms and suggests they are “difficult to use” because investors cannot buy fractions of shares.
