Tim Cobb

Aviva has appointed five fund managers to the separately managed account (SMA) facility it will launch on its Navigator platform in September.

The “range of well-known fund managers” will be divulged in the course of the next few weeks, according to general manager, marketing and public relations, Tim Cobb.

“We think the range of managers will give us really strong SMA models and in turn is a big opportunity for those managers to pick up revenues through the SMA models.”

Cobb revealed the appointments while reacting to a report in Money Management yesterday that rival platform Netwealth intended to make a concerted effort to attract Navigator planners away from the forthcoming Aviva/NAB merger.

He said the SMA was part of an ongoing focus on product development and service that had delivered success for Aviva in the platform space.

“I can understand that there will be other smaller platforms looking for opportunities, but we are really confident in our proposition.

“We have the same relationships with advisers going forward and the same distribution team, and we believe we have big opportunities for growth, notable through our SMA.”

He said Aviva was actually building performance on the platform and life insurance side rather than having any question mark over its status under the merger.

“In June on the platform side we have had our best production month in 12 months, while we posted another record month for submissions and completions on the life insurance business, which are significantly up on 2008 levels.”