Growing attractions of boutique funds

Multi-managers may not have lived up to their hype over the past three years but smaller boutique funds are promising to come to the rescue

Multi-manager offerings have become a major product fad of the financial industry over the past three years, yet their record of performance generation and asset gathering has been relatively poor to date. Launched into the vacuum created by the death of with-profit funds, the multi-manager product was, by conventional wisdom, the must-have accessory for any self-respecting fund management house. It was believed that IFAs would no longer wish to be held accountable for investment choice and, at the time, there was an unprecedented proliferation of fund choice and a wayward stock market. ...