Manulife Investments is introducing the Manulife International Equity Private Trust and a Series F for the Manulife Dollar-Cost Averaging Fund (DCAF).
The Manulife International Equity Private Trust will be part of the Manulife Private Investment Pools, which now has a lower minimum entry point of USD100,000.
Launched in December 2012, Manulife Private Investment Pools offer investment pools spanning a range of asset classes.
The portfolios are managed by asset managers at Manulife Asset Management and Mawer Investment Management. The Manulife International Equity Private Trust is invested primarily in equity securities of companies located outside of Canada and the US.
"The new pool offers investors another way to diversify with investments outside of North America," says Bernard Letendre (pictured), president, Manulife Investments.
Manulife International Equity Private Trust will be managed by Mawer's David Ragan and Peter Lampert, who have a combined 20 years of investing experience. The portfolio managers will be allocating capital to the best international opportunities, which will normally include companies across different market capitalisations. The portfolio managers will identify wealth creating companies that they believe have solid management teams and are trading at a discount to their intrinsic values.
The new pool will provide investors with a non-North American equity mandate within the overall Manulife Private Investment Pool line-up. Manulife Investments has had an exclusive partnership with Mawer since 2008.
Series F of Manulife Dollar-Cost Averaging Fund (DCAF) is now available. This solution provides investors in fee-based programmes with an automated and systematic approach to investing in the markets over time. DCAF offers a competitive rate of return equivalent to the interest rate offered by the Manulife Bank Investment Savings Account as the assets wait to be transitioned to the pre-selected long-term investment fund.
"With the growth in demand for our fee based series, it's important for us to provide our automated Dollar-Cost Averaging Fund for Series F in addition to Advisor Series which has been available for quite some time," says Letendre.