Barclays and Legal & General (L&G) have reached an agreement to provide UK independent financial advisers (IFAs) with a new range of structured retail products.
L&G's head of structured solutions, James Harrington, told SRP that the joint venture is aimed at taking advantage of the Barclays move to the unbundled range and L&G's strategy of delivering bundled products.
"In the past, L&G and Barclays would have been competitors. The key here is that Barclays is offering an unbundled solution which is a growing area of the market that L&G is not part of, and it helps that both companies have similar outlooks on product offerings," he said. "Our greatest strength is that we are able to bring quality counterparties to the market with plans that are deeply analysed, highly researched and in a plan format that is both managed and administered totally in-house. Many of our competitors outsource one or indeed both of these highly regulated responsibilities."
Harrington said that the range will not replace the firm's existing suite of products and that the new 'combined' range will not be "that different" from what is currently selling in the IFA arena.
"We are aiming to launch a regular series together and will, of course, explore opportunities for innovation where it matches the ambitions of both companies and - most importantly - where it meets the needs and demands of the investors," added Harrington.
Structured products director at Barclays, Richard Henry, told SRP that the joint venture sits well alongside the bank's 'unbundled structured products strategy,' and will help to diversify the firm's current offering.
"This tie-up is complementary with our own strategy of offering unbundled investments to platforms and is a response to demand from the IFA market," he said.
The first product is set to launch on 8 April with a series of structured investments set to follow.
Barclays has been promoting its unbundled range through third party platforms and stockbrokers since the Retail Distribution Review came into effect on 1 January. It closed Woolwich Plan Managers in December 2012 as part of the migration of all structured investment products to the bank's unbundled format for IFAs.
According to SRP, Barclays has launched six products from its unbundled range since January 2013, while L&G has marketed nine structured investments.