KiwiSaver start-ups face pressure

[UPDATED, ADDS GENERATE COMMENT] A financial adviser who used to manage a small KiwiSaver scheme says the pressure will be on Pie Funds if it launches into the market.

Thursday, September 10th 2015, 6:00AM

by Susan Edmunds

Pie Funds is believed to be planning to open a KiwiSaver scheme next year.

Pie’s funder and chief executive Mike Taylor was not available to confirm that.

It had reportedly been waiting to get enough funds under management to make the move. It now has $250 million in FUM.

Norman Stacey’s firm, Diversified Investment Management Services, used to manage the Law Retirement KiwiSaver scheme, with just over $5 million in FUM and 382 members.

He said it would be a courageous step for Pie to enter the market.

Diversified was recommended to take the LRKS scheme to Fisher Funds, which it did in the middle of last year.

“The FMA indicated they wanted fund managers with substantial assets to be running KiwiSaver schemes. The FMA certainly puts pressure on the little outfits," he said.

But he said he would love to see Pie Funds succeed with KiwiSaver. “There is a lot of group think to KiwiSaver, they are much of a muchness if you deal with the big banks and providers.”

He said most were invested in similar ways and that could lead to systemic risk.

Stacey said KiwiSaver seemed to be a numbers game. “Generate is the only one I think of as being independent out there. I don't think there are too many smaller ones left."

Generate chief executive Henry Tongue said: “I think we need more KiwiSaver providers. Consumers will be the winners as competition will drive the industry to provide better products and service. Generate was voted Investment Provider of the Year 2015 by the PAA, we were ranked 1st for services earlier this year by Sorted and in the most recent FundSource tables our Focused Growth Fund was the top performing KiwiSaver Growth fund with a return of 27% for the year. Our Conservative Fund also topped the Conservative KiwiSaver rankings for the year. The net result of that is we are growing strongly with over 11,000 members and around $100m under management.”

Tags: KiwiSaver Norman Stacy