Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp. has added a new international equity investment option to its Manulife Private Investment Pools program and reduced the minimum investment in the program to $100,000, the company announced on Wednesday.
Manulife International Equity Private Trust launched on Wednesday. The new pool presents a new non-North American equity option for investors in Manulife Private Investment Pools, which are geared to affluent investors.
The Manulife International Equity Private Trust is invested primarily in equities of companies located outside of Canada and the U.S.
“The new pool offers investors another way to diversify with investments outside of North America,” says Bernard Letendre, president of Manulife Investments, in a statement.
David Ragan and Peter Lampert, portfolio managers with Mawer Investment Management Ltd., who have a combined 20 years of investing experience, will manage the new product.
The portfolio managers will allocate capital to international opportunities, with a focus on wealth-creating companies with solid management teams, which are trading at a discount to their intrinsic values.
Manulife also announced that as of Aug. 2, the minimum initial investment in Manulife Private Investment Pools is $100,000 per pool, per account. That’s down from the previous minimum investment of $150,000. For clients who have accounts with $250,000 or more, there is no minimum investment per pool.
New series for Manulife Dollar Cost Averaging Fund
Manulife also announced on Wednesday the introduction of Series F for Manulife Dollar-Cost Averaging Fund, which enables clients to set up automated weekly contributions into a Manulife fund of their choice, while earning interest on the assets waiting to be transitioned to the pre-selected investment fund. The new series enables investors to utilize Manulife Dollar-Cost Averaging Fund with F-series mutual funds.
“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,” Letendre says.
The changes announced on Wednesday follow an earlier announcement in late July of a proposed new tiered pricing model for Manulife Mutual Funds and Manulife Private Investment Pools. The changes would enable standardized management fee reductions for clients who reach certain asset levels in their total Manulife mutual fund holdings across all series.
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