EUROPE – Northern Trust and Nordea have launched two manager-of-manager funds in Finland, with a view to rolling them out across Sweden, Denmark and Norway in the near future.

The launch saw Northern Trust becoming sub advisor – on a manager-of-managers basis – to two Nordea “choice” funds to be sold via Nordea’s life and pension distribution channel.

According to Northern Trust, Nordea was looking to add a manager of manager option to its pension unit linked product offering.

The funds – one global and one European – each have between two and four underlying sub managers.

“These funds are aimed at providing outperformance versus relevant benchmark in a risk controlled manner using manager diversification and style neutrality,” said a Northern Trust spokesperson.

“The funds are initially aimed at the unit linked market, including high net worth individuals and institutionals.”

Nordea and Northern Trust have been in talks regarding the funds since the first quarter of this year. As far as Northern Trust was aware, Nordea did not use an adviser.

The funds are also expected to be launched across Sweden, Norway and Denmark pending regulatory and fund approval.

“Nordea is handling the approvals process. Sweden and Norway are in the pipeline but Denmark requires further work due to tax issues,” said the spokesperson.

He added that Northern Trust did not expect any difficulties, and that it believed the regulatory approval was “merely a formality”.

Research for these new funds was led by Northern Trust’s London-based manager of manager international research team under Tony Earnshaw.

They were also supported by Northern Trust’s global research team located in the US, Canada and London under Chris Vella, Heather Cooke and chief investment officer Andrew Smith, respectively.

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