Up to 4,300 retail clients holding £90 million in assets under management (AUM) are to transfer from BlackRock to Hargreaves Lansdown.
Hargreaves Lansdown said BlackRock has chosen to work with the firm to give investors the chance to transfer their holdings in its Investment Trust Savings Plan and Investment Trust Stocks and Shares NISA Schemes onto the HL Vantage platform.
The transfer to Hargreaves Lansdown is expected to complete in October 2017, subject to regulatory approval.
BlackRock will continue as the investment manager for the underlying investment trusts.
BlackRock head of investment trusts Simon White said: ‘In an evolving market, we understand that many clients increasingly expect to be able to access and manage their accounts online or by telephone, rather than being restricted to a paper based system.
‘After careful consideration, we have concluded that investors will recognise the advantages provided by Hargreaves Lansdown, which offers increased functionality with mobile and online account management and dealing as well as the option to manage investments by telephone and post.’
Hargreaves Lansdown chief executive Chris Hill (pictured) added: ‘We are pleased to support BlackRock’s decision and look forward to welcoming these new clients to our range of services.’
The latest transfer comes after Hargreaves Lansdown bagged 7,000 retail clients with around £65 million in AUM from Legg Mason in April 2016, after the asset management firm decided to pull out of the ISA market.
In July 2015, Hargreaves Lansdown added another 5,000 retail clients to its books with another investment trust deal, this time with Jupiter, which withdrew administering its Retail Investment Trust Savings schemes.
That came after the firm acquired a £370 million client bank from JP Morgan Asset Management, with the deal at the time equating to 6% of JP Morgan AM’s individual client accounts.
Article originally posted in New Model Adviser
