FE, the UK’s leading investment ratings and research agency, announced on the 23 February that is has launched FE Connect, a service which combines asset managers’ research and insights with fund data, all in one place.  Asset managers registered with FE Connect can now target more than 84% of the top UK advisers with their content through a single channel.

Key points:

• FE Connect is a service which allows asset managers to add content to the award-winning FE Analytics tool, saving advisers and discretionary managers time at point of research

• Asset managers can now reach more than 84% of the top UK adviser firms[1] and over 300,000 Trustnet users with their content

Asset managers seeking to engage with advisers and discretionary managers via FE Connect simply supply fund research and insights in a pdf or video format.  Advisers researching funds are then able to access the content alongside the relevant fund factsheets on the award-winning FE Analytics adviser research tool as well as the FE Trustnet website. They are also able to rate the content, providing asset managers with valuable insights on their content.

Gary Wheeler, sales director at FE, commented: “Producing engaging and informative content has long been a priority for asset managers but making sure it is seen by advisers remains a challenge.  For advisers, trawling through asset managers’ websites for individual insights and research adds significant time to the fund selection journey. 

“FE Connect effectively removes these roadblocks by organising asset managers’ content so that it is available alongside fund data at the point of research within a market-leading platform.”

Asset managers already signed up to FE Connect include: BNY Mellon, Columbia Threadneedle, ETF Securities, Fidelity, Henderson, M&G, Neptune, Royal London Asset Management and T. Rowe Price.  The groups receive regular detailed reports on the numbers of advisers viewing their content.  Early statistics have shown that when researching funds on FE Analytics, more than half the advisers are also viewing the asset managers’ content[2].

Jemma Gosling, head of programme management at BNY Mellon Investment Management, said: “We are really pleased with the new FE Connect service. FE is able to help us connect and provide fund research and other valuable insights directly to the adviser base via this service, thereby adding value to our business and enabling advisers to make better investment decisions. Since we started using Connect, we have seen a substantial increase in readership of our material and greater views of our investment videos.”

FE Connect is the firm’s latest innovation aimed at connecting the marketplace to help drive more informed investment decision making.  For further information about the service, please visit: http://www.financialexpress.net/connect-fe-connect-for-asset-managers-and-institutions.

[1] Published by Matrix Solutions and FT Adviser, 2016

[2] FE MI data October 2016 – February 2017