Tenet's Sinfonia to stop marketing funds externally

Three sales manager at Sinfonia Asset Management, the investment business of Tenet group, have been put on notice of redundancy after the company decided to stop marketing its proposition externally.

Helen Turner, who took over from Andy Richards as Sinfonia's sales and business director in February, said the change came after an evaluation of Sinfonia's marketing activities.

Sinfonia offers investors a range of risk-rated funds and recently partnered with F&C and 7IM to launch its Prime Investment Portfolio. It has about £80m in assets under management.

She added: "Risk rated funds are now well understood in the market and it doesn't make sense as a business model to have three dedicated salespeople on the road all the time.

"Now we will have one dedicated person on the road and two head office based sales people.

"That's more than sufficient for five funds considering it's a Tenet proposition and we're promoting to Tenet members."

The three existing regional sales managers have been placed on notice of redundancy, although Turner said the company is seeking to find other positions for them.

Earlier this year, Tenet revealed the Sinfonia arm of its business recorded an operating loss of £1.3m in the 12 months to 30 September 2010.

The company said it had struggled to attract the funds under management needed to break even, adding retail investors seemed to have "favoured longer-established asset managers".