Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s largest retail broker, launched its Select UK Shares fund yesterday, hailing it as the firm’s biggest ever and the second biggest for its platform.
The fund raised £168 million (€198.8 million) during the offer period, and can be bought for as little as £1.
This is the biggest launch of a Hargreaves Lansdown fund ever, and the second biggest ever to take place on the firm’s Vantage platform, after the 2014 launch of Neil Woodford’s £1.6 billion Equity Income fund.
The HL Multi-Manager UK Growth fund, which raised £162 million in January last year, is the third biggest.
The firm stated the fund would already at launch be bigger than two-thirds of the retail funds available to UK investors. Moreover, with an ongoing charge of 0.6%, the firm said it is cheaper than 94% of similar funds and 90% of all active funds available in the UK.
Steve Clayton, manager of the fund, said the fund’s model, which offers a “unique” level of fund manager communication, had “struck a chord” with investors.
The high initial inflows come despite the firm issuing a study suggesting investor confidence was at a record low last month.
The launch is the first in a series for the firm, with a UK equity income fund planned next.
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