Fees  

Ranking for VCT and EIS fees added to Micap tool

Ranking for VCT and EIS fees added to Micap tool
Mark O'Donnell, head of research at Micap said assessing fees is "notoriously difficult". (Dreamstime)

Advisers will be able to rank Venture Capital Trust and Enterprise Investment Scheme fees with a new rating tool. 

Micap has launched a score to rate funds on their fees and charges as part of its research tool used by more than 1,000 financial advice and wealth management firms. 

Earlier this year Micap, a subsidiary of Defaqto, was bought by Fintel - it provides independent research and advice tools for tax advantaged investment products.

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Instead of giving each fund an overall score it does so across a number of key areas with the new fees and charging score becoming the ninth. 

The other areas are: the manager, the track record of the fund, the level of diversification, the stage of companies targeted, the exit strategy, any liquidity, the manager’s HMRC procedures and the fund’s regulatory status.

The new score captures not just the fees outlined in the fund’s marketing material, but also the fees that managers are charging to investee companies, which are typically not disclosed. 

Mark O’Donnell, head of research at Micap, said: “We have been thinking long and hard about how we can better support advisers struggling with the implementation of consumer duty into their advice process.

"This new score follows a number of initiatives launched this year such as our track record score and making fair value assessments and target market statements available on the platform. 

“Assessing fees in the tax-advantaged market is notoriously difficult for a number of reasons, not least because investment managers are not obliged to publish the fees they charge to investee companies.

"We are immensely proud of our new fees and charges scores which we hope will bring increased transparency to the sector, and allow advisers to demonstrate their compliance with consumer duty with just a few clicks of their mouse.” 

tara.o'connor@ft.com

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