Key Takeaways
- Access to LTAFs provides a number of potential benefits for retail investors with a long-term investment horizon.
- Retail platform adoption of LTAFs has been cautious, which means that for now LTAFs are not widely available to retail investors.
- But Schroders Capital’s partnership with Hargreaves Lansdown marked the first step in making LTAFs available to the retail investment market.
Long-term asset funds, which were first introduced in the UK in 2021, can now be held in stocks and shares ISAs as of April 2026.
The launch of LTAFs in the UK five years ago marked an important step in providing access to long-term, illiquid private assets to defined-contribution pension schemes and private wealth clients. While adoption by investment platforms has so far been cautious, their inclusion in stocks and shares ISAs could be a catalyst for change.
What Are LTAFs and What Are the Benefits?
LTAFs are open-end funds authorized by the FCA which allow investors to make partial redemptions at predetermined intervals, typically quarterly.
Having access to LTAFs provides a number of potential benefits for retail investors with a long-term investment horizon. Allocation to private markets can add diversification and additional sources of returns and yields within diversified multi-asset portfolios. LTAFs can also provide access to a wide range of local private UK businesses and exposure to a innovation that is happening in the private space.
What Do LTAF Investors Need to Know?
Although LTAFs are “semi-liquid”, these funds only provide limited liquidity and are only suitable for long-term investment horizon allocations. Investors have to set appropriate risk/return expectations based on the underlying strategies included in LTAFs. They also have to carefully review redemption and liquidity terms, fee structures, and valuation and allocation processes before deciding if an LTAF can be part of their diversified portfolio.
Typically 5% of NAV per quarter can be returned to investors after they serve a notice period and in some cases after a lock-up period. Therefore, in most cases it takes several years for investors to get their capital back. For example, getting 5% per quarter it would take five years for investors to get their entire capital back, and that is without taking into account a potential initial lock-up period during which redemptions are not allowed.
LTAFs are classified as Restricted Mass Market Investments which require retail investor self-certification, mandatory risk warnings, and an appropriateness assessment before purchase.
What Are Platforms Doing About LTAFs?
Retail platform adoption of LTAFs has been cautious, which means that for now LTAFs are not widely available to the retail audience. Platforms are awaiting clear evidence of demand from wealth managers, advisors, and retail investors. There are also operational, technological, and regulatory challenges that have so far prevented wide retail platform adoption. The main operational challenges are linked to redemption processing, settlement infrastructure and data standardization. Current electronic messaging standards have limitations when applied to nondaily dealing funds such as LTAFs.
Collaborative work across asset managers, platforms, and service providers can help tackle the operational challenges. Designing LTAFs with platform infrastructure in mind, including standardized liquidity and data templates, and clear dealing date calendars could help.
Achieving “standard asset” classification for LTAFs within pension wrappers would improve their retail accessibility, and there is ongoing industry engagement with the FCA on this point. Their current classification as “non-standard” assets requires self-invested personal pension or SIPP operators to often hold additional regulatory capital in order to offer LTAFs, which is an obstacle for many platforms and prevents them from offering LTAFs to retail investors.
How Can Investors Access LTAFs?
In September 2025 Hargreaves Lansdown partnered with Schroders Capital to offer two Schroders LTAFs via its platform. This marked the first step in making LTAFs available to the retail investment market. These LTAFs are offered within the SIPP wrapper. Both LTAFs are feeder funds into existing Schroders funds. The benefit of the feeder fund structure is that it provides immediate access and capital deployment to an existing master fund with a diversified portfolio.
Which Funds Are Available?
Schroders Capital Global Private Equity LTAF
Schroders Capital Global Private Equity LTAF is a feeder fund into Schroders Capital Semi-Liquid Global Private Equity, an evergreen strategy with a current assets under management of USD 2.9bn. The strategy is focusing on small/mid buyout (60-80%), large buyout (10-30%), and venture/growth, (0-20%). Around 30-50% of capital is deployed via co-investments—minority investment made directly into a private company alongside a lead private equity investor—30-50% via secondaries—trading existing investor commitments—and 0-20% via primaries, which is when companies issue equity directly to investors for the first time. There is a target cash balance of 10-20% managed according to subscription levels, liquidity requirements and market conditions. The fund has a global focus with a target allocation of 40-50% in North America, 40-50% in Europe, and 0-20% in Asia. The master fund has delivered 14.3% a year net of fees since its inception in September 2019, with performance data to the end of December 2025.
Schroders Capital Global Energy Infrastructure LTAF
Schroders Capital Global Energy Infrastructure LTAF is a feeder fund into Schroders Capital Semi-Liquid Global Energy Infrastructure, an evergreen strategy—open-end fund that allows for regular subscriptions and periodic redemptions and provides exposure to private markets—that was launched in December 2023 and has a current AUM of USD 300mn. The strategy will invest into renewable energy—60-80% allocation, predominantly into wind farms and solar parks—and energy transition aligned infrastructure, between 20-40%, which includes such assets as large scale batteries, green hydrogen plants and heat networks.
The fund will mainly invest in operational assets that are generating electricity or delivering other energy transition benefits or services, with the aim of delivering robust cash flows. The balance of between 10% and 20% is invested into assets being developed or built. The fund will be invested predominantly across Europe (50-70%) and the US (30-50%), with the ability to invest into other parts of the world as their energy transition markets mature. The return target of the fund is 10%+ gross, and also aims to deliver positive environmental impact through climate change mitigation by supporting the energy transition and the path to net zero.
For more on LTAFs, see the Morningstar landscape report published in April, 2026.
