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The Consensus Investment Funds Survey

"Using the IFS syndicated surveys have proved extremely useful for our business. Not only do we obtain brand tracking and advertising awareness amongst intermediaries, we also discover valuable information on key products and asset classes. The flexible format allows us to have an input into shaping the survey so that it continues to be beneficial to us and the rest of the syndicate"

Louisa Dickinson, Market Insight Executive, Aviva.

What are the trends and the current thinking in the UK’s Discretionary Asset Management, IFA and private investor sectors – and what are the market opportunities ahead? Your answers are provided by the bi-annual Investment Funds Survey (IFS) researched and published by Consensus since 1985.

Managed on behalf of a syndicate of leading UK Fund Managers, IFS comprises four research modules. Three are quantitative:

  • Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) who regularly advise their clients on the purchase of collective investments.
  • Discretionary Asset Managers – over 50% of whose business is discretionary/non-advisory and who are registered with the FSA as 'able to hold and control client money'.
  • Private investors who are holders of unit trusts, PEPs, OEICs or equity-based ISAs.

The fourth module – a qualitative one that we added in 2006 – is based on face-to-face depth interviews with IFAs, top-end IFAs and Discretionaries.

The Survey content evolves annually to ensure that topical issues influencing market attitudes and investment behaviour are considered and covered.

How can you gain from the IFS and syndicate membership?

  • Understand the current positioning of your market.
  • Acquire essential market data to drive your product development and marketing and communications strategies.
  • Share the cost of researching critical but often hard-to-reach audiences.
  • Gain access to the tracking of the long-term performance of your own and your competitors’ brands.
  • Propose topical Survey questions – for example, when new legislation is pending – and commission questions tailored to your own business needs.
  • Participation in Survey development workshops.
  • Presentations of the results by the Consensus team.