Fisher Funds to jettison fees

Fisher clients were told performance fees will go in their monthly performance update. CEO Bruce McLachlan says Fisher wants to leverage the scale it has achieved through its acquisition of Kiwi Wealth last year.

The $310 million buyout maneuvered Fisher into the number three spot of the country’s largest KiwiSaver fund providers behind ANZ and ASB. Fisher gained Kiwi Wealth’s 270,000 members, and says client numbers now stand at more than half a million and funds under management are at $22 billion.

Currently Fisher’s KiwiSaver Growth Fund has a performance-based fee based on a hurdle rate of return of OCR+5% per annum. The hurdle rate is the minimum return the fund must achieve before the client is charged a performance fee. This means clients might pay a performance fee even when the fund’s performance is below the market index.

Fisher says it has provided a range of performance fees in its product disclosure statements as they vary considerably year-to-year and it informs clients. The highest performance fee paid by the growth fund was in the exceptional year to 30 June 2021, when it paid 1.78% against a fund performance of 21.19%. That performance fee was zero the following year ending 30 June 2022.