Chant West Financial Services will provide some competition to Lonsec next month when it releases a batch of ratings on multimanager products.

The initial reports will cover multimanager offerings from a variety of pedigrees. There will be products from funds managers (BT, Colonial First State, MLC and ING Optimix), implemented asset consultants (Mercer, Russell, InTech, JANA, van Eyk) and super funds (Host Plus, with AustralianSuper also a possibility). Chant West managing director, Warren Chant, said the reports would use the firm’s established “five apples and below” rating criteria, while each firms’ products would be assigned a score based on organisational structure and talent (15 per cent), research quality (35 per cent), portfolio management ability (35 per cent including just a 4 per cent nod to past performance) and fees (15 per cent). Chant said the reports were designed to assist financial planners in choosing the best multimanager products for their clients.