There are plenty of global mangers who could put something together if the client gave them the mandate, Blayney says. “We have talked conceptually about giving up an inflation-plus mandate to a house that had capabilities in a lot of areas and could generate an absolute return, but that would be the domain of a large institutional manager.”

BNY Mellon Asset Management has plans to get institutional funding within the next month for a multi-asset fund comprised of its 16 in-house boutique managers. Don Russell, global investment strategist at BNY Mellon says it is ideally placed to offer a multi-asset solution from the diverse alpha streams of its managers. “The big advantage to the investor is that they don’t have to go out and negotiate seven sets of fee deals. They are paying for one fee, and they are only paying a performance fee if the overall multi-asset portfolio is doing what it should,” he says.

Multi-asset managers are basically a sophisticated balanced fund, Russell says. “It’s ironic in a way, that as investors have become more advanced, some have gone back to embracing this more traditional style of portfolio management where you pick a number of all-rounders and leverage their tactical asset allocation skills.”