Speaking at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Sydney last week, Morningstar’s head of adviser solutions, Andrew Whelan, said the growth of SMSFs is “astounding”, with at least 27,000 new funds every year and total assets now estimated to be $531 billion.
“In 2004, SMSFs made 10 per cent [growth] and now it is 30 per cent, and through all this rapid growth do you know how much the asset allocation has changed over that time? Practically not at all,” he said.
“So there is a clear opportunity here for an adviser to make some changes for the better,” he added.
Mr Whelan said 32 per cent of all SMSFs’ assets are in Australian shares, 29 per cent is in cash, with residential property only comprising 3.5 per cent.
Mr Whelan also mentioned that 42 per cent of trustees with balances between $200,000 and $500,000 and 46 per cent with balances over $500,000 seek financial advice regularly.
“So if you combine this with the asset allocation… plus the fact that there are some clear people that should be in SMSFs and not everybody that owns an SMSF knows what to do, it seems that there is a clear role to play for wealth management businesses,” he said.
Could have used this caption for a story 20 years ago.