Speaking at a recent State Street Asset Manager roundtable in Sydney, Aberdeen Asset Management managing director Brett Jollie said technology would be a “big enabler” for fund managers targeting the SMSF sector.
“The ASX managed fund service could provide another distribution opportunity for us if it gets off the ground, making our products available through the brokers that are aligned to the ASX,” said Mr Jollie.
Aberdeen will also be looking to align itself with larger financial advice providers that are currently building their own strategies around SMSFs, he said.
Mr Jollie admitted that SMSFs are never likely to take up managed funds in “a big way” since the main attraction of running a do-it-yourself fund is the ability to invest directly.
As a result, Aberdeen will not be promoting its core Australian equities products to SMSFs, he said.
“We think fund offerings like global equities, emerging markets, Asian equities, corporate and government bonds and even small cap funds are under-represented in SMSF investment portfolios,” said Mr Jollie.
But Russell Investments Asia Pacific chairman Alan Schoenheimer expressed his concern that an “explosion” in SMSF investors could lead to the delivery of substandard products.
“We’re going to have literally thousands of individual investors who can’t discriminate investments on quality,” he said.
“I think this could be a race to the bottom, in that you just serve up basically anything that’s cheap,” said Mr Schoenheimer.
Funny, fund managers were zero interested in my business when I was a mug punter – now I’m a SMSF – hey, they wanna “do coffee”. Forget it bud….. as Jimmy Barnes says – you got nothing I want – nothing I need….
I disagree with the comments that there will be thousands of SMSF Investors that cannot discriminate investments on quality. Sometimes I wonder if fund managers can discriminate on quality. There have been many managed funds that have not done well. Financial Planners recommend what their masters place on their lists and these advisers know very little of the actual underlying fund. So how do you choose a financial planner that can discriminate investments on quality? Can we trust fund managers who “own” the financial planning industry?
Mr Jollie admitted that SMSFs are never likely to take up managed funds in a big way since the main attraction of running a do-it-yourself fund is the ability to invest directly.
You keep thinking that Mr Jollie. My SMSF client base is safe from fund managers for a long time to come.