Touchstone closes flagship fund

Touchstone Asset Management has closed its flagship Australian equity fund nearly a decade after it launched.

The Touchstone Index Unaware Fund shuttered in May, having been in operation since 4 April 2016.

The fund aimed to outperform the return of the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index by 2% p.a. over a rolling five-year period, investing in 15 to 25 securities. It required an initial investment minimum of $25,000.

According to Morningstar, the fund had $13.9 million in assets and generated 10.6% p.a. in the past year.

Touchstone, an affiliate of Bennelong Funds Management, was launched in 2015 by principals Jack Chemello, Suellen Morgan and Mary Feros.

Bennelong said in a statement to Financial Standard: "After consultation with the fund's investment manager Touchstone Asset Management Pty Ltd (Touchstone) and our own analysis of the fund, we are of the view that the fund's viability was in question due to low funds under management and it was in investors' best interests to close the fund."

Touchstone, however, continues to actively manage more than $1 billion of Australian equities for direct, advised and institutional clients with no changes to personnel or its investment strategy.

While the managed fund has closed, Bennelong said the Touchstone "team continues to manage funds invested directly through private mandates."

Bennelong recently partnered with Allspring Global Investments to distribute its global income strategy across Australia and New Zealand - the Allspring Global Income Fund.

The fund is a fixed income portfolio utilising an unconstrained multi-sector approach and has a 10-year track record. It tracks the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index and aims to achieve total returns.

Allspring has $930 billion of assets under management and advisement, managing over $715 billion fixed income assets for a global client base.