TD Waterhouse Launches U.K. Fund Supermarket

Firm Latest to Add to Growing Number of U.K. Supermarkets

TD Waterhouse Group announced today the launch of its U.K. fund supermarket, making approximately 400 funds available to retail investors via telephone and the Internet.

TD Waterhouse joins a growing number of companies that are competing for retail assets in the U.K. by offering fund supermarkets. Those companies include Fidelity, Prudential plc, Skandia and Virgin.

High expectations for U.K. fund supermarkets as a distribution channel appears to be driving much of the growth. By 2004, at least 25% of annual net new inflows to British authorized funds will go through fund supermarkets and could go as high as 35% to 40%, according to Cerulli Associates.

TD Waterhouse's supermarket will offer unit trusts and open ended investment companies provided by Fidelity, Schroders, Invesco Perpetual, Standard Life and Jupiter. The company will also offer six of its own funds as well as institutional research and analysis from TD Asset Management and Morningstar U.K.

'We already provide one of the largest fund supermarket offerings in the U.S. and the launch of the UK fund supermarket, coupled with our own TD Waterhouse funds builds on our unique and compelling value proposition,' said Bharat Masrani, vice chairman of TD Waterhouse, in a statement.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Money Management Executive
MORE FROM FINANCIAL PLANNING