What's the big marketing idea?

The growth in multi-asset portfolios shows no sign of slowing down as Investment Week reported last week with three more products coming to the market hot of the heels of the success, in asset-raising terms, of William Littlewood's Artemis fund or J.P. Morgan's move into the sector.

The question is, are multi-asset funds just this autumn’s big marketing idea following on from strategic bond and absolute return vehicles earlier in the year, or do they have a strong investment case? Arguably, multi-asset funds are a rebranding of multi-manager or fund of funds from previous marketing cycles, that in themselves were a rebranding of broker funds from the 1980s and early 1990s. Clearly, some current and planned multi-asset portfolios will use different fund structures, but the principle of an asset allocation vehicle for a client’s portfolio is the driving theme behin...