CitiFirst blames platform giants for product delay

CitiFirst, the retail structured product division of Citigroup, has pushed back the launch of its first open-ended fund, blaming platforms for the delay.

CitiFirst has extended the closing date by over one month to 7 April, from the original 1 March.

Emma Davidson, director and head of UK retail structured product sales for CitiFirst, says the primary reason for delaying the launch is the intransigence of the bigger platform providers.

"Despite very strong support for our UK Autocall fund, we have been surprised at the sluggish nature of some of the biggest platforms when it comes to onboarding the fund," she says.

"We believe we will have made good progress by the launch date of our debut fund, but in the meantime we are enjoying very good flows from Transact and Nucleus."

CitiFirst has also made other changes to the fund following consultation with IFAs and discretionary wealth managers. These include halving the minimum investment to £5,000.

The UK Autocall fund offers the potential for annual returns up to 9.25%, linked to the FTSE 100, along with a level of capital protection. In addition, the fund's assets are fully collateralised by G7 sovereign debt.