ANZ Wealth sets targets for FUM

• Tweet

ANZ Wealth aims to have around $20 billion in assets under management in the next three to four years and sees a generational shift in the attitude to saving, and KiwiSaver, as key drivers for that growth.

Thursday, March 17th 2011, 6:57AM 2 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

ANZ Wealth managing director John Body said, "we could see ourselves growing reasonably quickly and it wouldn't be out of the question for us to have $20 billion under management in the next three to four years."

The bank yesterday appointed former Brook manager and Securities Commission member, Simon Botherway as general manager investment management at ANZ Wealth.

At present the company has around $12 billion in funds under management, and both Body and Botherway believe that figure will swell as the focus moves towards greater saving and retirement provision and improved regulation boosts confidence in the capital markets.

"My view is that over the next 20-25 years you're going to see a generational shift away from debt accumulation to investment accumulation," said Botherway.

"There's a real part to play for individual savings over the next 20 or 30 years."

Both men also see KiwiSaver playing a key role in this new savings-focused environment.

"Our key growth area where we see the New Zealand savings industry growing is KiwiSaver," said Body.

"We're currently around 25% of the KiwiSaver market with 375,000 customers under our KiwiSaver brands, so we would see us growing our market share around growing with the market and then providing investment solutions for wealth generated outside KiwiSaver and having a good part of that market."

Body also outlined ANZ Wealth's belief in a long-term, ‘lifestyle' approach to KiwiSaver.

"We've had the view for a long time that a lifestyle approach to KiwiSaver is a more appropriate structure, where we move people through the risk profile as they get older. Our view is we want to have all our investors if possible in the most appropriate structure for what they need to achieve, and KiwiSaver is a mass market product, it's hard to do but it is certainly something we're very committed to, getting the right solution across that market."

Botherway also said he believed his appointment - coming from a fund management background - was a statement of intent from ANZ Wealth.

"I think it indicates we want to play an increasingly active role on the management of wealth of New Zealanders. It demonstrated we believe that saving for retirement and building wealth are critical to New Zealand's future and as New Zealand's largest financial institution, we want to play a key role that has us as a real influence on the success of that."

Benn Bathgate is a business reporter for ASSET and Good Returns, email story ideas to benn@goodreturns.co.nz

Comments from our readers

Commenting is closed