Austock Life has added Macquarie Treasury Fund as the cash fund to its imputation bond menu.
The life company has also dropped the Templeton Global Smaller Companies Fund from the menu and replaced it with Lazard’s Global Small Cap Fund.
Austock Life managing director Ross Higgins said the Macquarie option would have fees of 0.5 per cent to make it an attractive investment option.
“We’re really keen to position the new Macquarie cash option as an attractive free-standing investment rather than just as the safe-house option,” Higgins said.
“Our aim is to generate ‘tax-paid’ returns in the region of 3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent with this option and to make it more than competitive against the older-style capital guaranteed insurance bonds.”
The normal fee for the Macquarie product is 1.17 per cent, and Higgins said the saving will go straight to the investor’s bottom line.
“Adding Macquarie’s Treasury Fund to the menu, and the big fee reduction, was in response to financial planner demand,” he said.
“This will be an attractive option for higher taxed investors, who can be considerably better off if cash investments are held via the imputation bond structure.”
The Austock bond has 19 investment options and includes wholesale products from CreditSuisse, Dimensional, Perennial, Perpetual, Tyndall, UBS and Vanguard.
