Couillault returns to funds business

Warren Couillault's Hobson Wealth has teamed up with Anthony Edmonds' business to create a range of new funds to fill the "advice-gap".

Monday, October 14th 2019, 6:00AM

Warren Couillault, CEO of Hobson Wealth, has returned to the managed funds sector in leading the development and launch of Hobson Wealth’s funds within its unique Navigator Service.

Hobson Wealth’s new funds offering will allow the group’s financial advisers to service a large cohort of New Zealanders who have fallen through the ‘advice gap’.

Couillault says advisers are focussed on giving advice to clients with $1 million or more, meaning peeple with smaller balances aren't getting a good level of advice.

Hobson's approach has been to unitise its model portfolios into a range of three funds.

A key philosophy behind this is that all Hobson clients are getting access to the company's best ideas. Other sharebroking firms have their on model portfolios, funds management and institutional businesses and each can have different investment views.

"Hobson Wealth’s Navigator Service provides a financial advice overlay to construct a blend of the underlying Hobson Wealth funds to suit the investors risk profile and investment goals."

The funds have a fee of 1.5% which covers advice, reporting and management.

While clients will be in a series of funds they will get full access to the investment portfolio including transactions, pricing, valuation, returns attributes and research notes. Every time there is a change in the portfolios they will get a note explaining the change, rather just a monthly or quarterly newsletter.

“We think all New Zealanders deserve access to great financial advice, not just high net worth investors,” Couillault said. “With these new funds, and the portfolio solutions we’re able to construct from them, our advisers now have a cost-effective, robust solution for clients who have up to $500,000 to invest.”

“I’ve been disappointed at the lack of investment alternatives that are available to those that have a substantial amount of savings but not the millions that are required for detailed personalised financial advice – we’ve fixed that now with the Navigator Service. And there will be further enhancements over the coming months with more features making the Navigator Service even more accessible to a wider range of investors.”

Hobson Wealth has partnered with Anthony Edmonds' Implemented Investment Solutions (IIS) to launch the new funds.

Edmonds says its is "a first-of-a-kind arrangement in New Zealand" with Hobson tapping IIS's expertise in ‘fund hosting’ to develop three new single-sector portfolio investment entity (PIE) products.

“We see the Hobson Wealth deal as a natural evolution in the local market, enabling financial advisory and wealth management firms to focus on investment management and their investors, while outsourcing the day to day running of the funds to us.”

As a licensed managed investment scheme (MIS) manager, IIS formally issues and offers the new funds, providing the compliance, fund administration and custody framework it already supplies to seven other investment firms.

“To date, the IIS fund hosting business has created PIE funds that offer Kiwi investors access to the investment expertise of large offshore groups such as Legg Mason, Russell Investments, Antipodes, APN Property Group, First State Investments, and PIMCO,” Edmonds said.

Couillault said Hobson Wealth saw the value in outsourcing the fund operation, regulation and compliance services to IIS, which offers proven systems and economies of scale with underlying service providers.

The three Hobson Wealth funds – the International Growth, NZ Equity and NZ Fixed Interest funds – are managed according to the firm’s asset allocation models in a “robust, clean and transparent way”, Couillault said.

Tags: Hobson Wealth