Suspension of the Global Strategic Balanced broker fund
The fund, which is managed by deVere and Partners, has been suspended as at 25 February 2013.
Background
The Global Strategic Balanced broker fund currently invests directly into the UAM Strategic Growth fund.
The UAM Strategic Growth fund has received a significant number of redemption requests recently and as a consequence the fund has immediately been suspended whilst the fund administrators manage the redemption process. The fund administrators have issued a statement to shareholders which advises that should they process all redemption requests received it would have a material impact on the percentage of liquid assets left in the fund. As this could seriously impact the interests of remaining shareholders as a whole (which includes our policyholders) they have made a decision to suspended the fund whilst they seek ways to rectify the current position.
As a consequence of the UAM Strategic Growth fund being suspended, this means that we are unable to calculate a price for the Global Strategic Balanced broker fund and have therefore also had to immediately suspend the fund. This has been done to protect the interests of our own policyholders.
How this impacts our policyholders
Whilst in suspension, policyholders will be unable to make a switch into, or out of, the Global Strategic Balanced broker fund. They will also be unable to surrender units from, or pay premiums into, the fund. The fund effectively becomes frozen during this period.
Regular premium paying policies
As the suspended fund cannot currently accept subscriptions, during the suspension period it is important that any policies paying regular premiums into the Global Strategic Balanced broker fund are allocated to an alternative fund available. This fund will be the SPILA Deposit fund in the same currency the policy is denominated in.
*Important - The SPILA Deposit Fund is a money market fund and therefore of a lower risk asset class than the Global Strategic Balanced fund. Although it is likely to be a less volatile fund, the returns on these types of funds are also likely to be lower due to the current interest rates available.
Updates As RL360 are dependent on receiving information from the fund administrator as to the current position with the UAM Strategic Growth fund, we are unable to provide any timeline as to when the fund may start pricing again. We will provide an udpate to policyholders and their advisers when we receive any updates from the fund administrator.
A policyholder communication has been issued to those affected by the suspension. A copy has also been sent to the servicing adviser firm for their information. A sample of the letters issued can be obtained from the links opposite.