If there are no hitches to the marriage between the Commonwealth Bank and Colonial, the amalgamation will create a funds management powerhouse the likes of which Australia has never seen before.
Colonial and the Commonwealth together will easily take the mantle as the biggest fund manager in the country, managing about $76 billion on behalf of their huge collective client base. It will be the first time a competitor has wrestled the crown from the giant AMP funds management group which has just over $61 billion under management, according to research house Assirt.
The combined entity will dwarf its nearest competitor on the retail side of the funds management business with about $30 billion of retail money. BT Funds Management, MLC and AMP will all be relegated to a second tier with each of them managing about $18 billion in retail funds.
And the news is not any better in the short term to competitors’ aspirations to the throne. Both Colonial and Commonwealth figured in the top four retail inflows in the last three months of 1999 with a combined total of nearly $800 million in inflows, although they would still trail AMP’s massive showing of $1 billion in inflows in the last months of the millennium.
Colonial Commonwealth
Total Funds under management ($billion) 48.3 27.9
Retail funds under management 13.0 16.7
Quarterly inflows – Dec 1999($million) 297 545
Source: Assirt.
