Perpetual has enhanced its WealthFocus product with a new offering that will allow investors to switch between fund managers within the platform, without triggering a capital gains tax (CGT) event.
Investors in WealthFocus Investment Advantage will now buy units in the platform itself, as opposed to units in the individual underlying managed funds.
"Investment Advantage allows investors in a non-superannuation environment to invest across a range of 76 managed funds, with three specific tax benefits," Perpetual group executive of platforms and structured products Eric Wang said.
"One is CGT-free switching between investment options. The second is what we call partial withdrawals before CGT occurs, and the third is once 12 months goes by after the initial investment, all gains are long gains," he said.
The partial withdrawal feature allows investors to draw down on their initial investment, and will not incur any CGT until the original amount is fully expended.
The tax effective nature of WealthFocus Investment Advantage is supported by a specific ruling from the Australian Taxation Office that was finalised in September.
The new platform structure has arisen from the original WealthFocus platform, and Investor Choice, which was a product that allowed investors to move between asset groups rather than unit trusts, but only had eight underlying investments on offer.
Perpetual will continue to run WealthFocus in its original form for existing customers, as there is no automatic process for them to switch to the new structure, without triggering a CGT event.
The product disclosure statement for Investment Advantage will be released on November 10, 2008.
