Vanguard Australia’s head of investments, Daniel Reyes said the way the firm thought about its investment philosophy was based on building trust with clients while making sure they had clear investment goals, the right asset allocation relative to those goals, and discipline.
“It’s the perfect alignment between what we have to do and what’s in the best interest of our shareholders I really think that gives Vanguard an advantage in terms of clients trusting us – we take this trust extremely seriously and we appreciate the money and the honour of being able to manage clients,” he said.
With volatility making its come back in early 2018, he warned that investors should be prepared that returns going forward would be more subdued.
“I think when it comes to executing on this investment strategy the central theme is to do that in a low-cost way and from the investment management perspective we always think about losses and the impact on the clients.”
Finalist BetaShares said it aimed to be a one-stop-shop for investors and advisers who were looking for ETFs as a cost-effective, easy-to-access, transparent solution for investing.
The firm’s head of strategy, Ilan Israelstam said: “The way we view our business is a place for advisers to have a whole lot of intelligent investment solutions they can use for their clients and that ranges from Australian equities, international equities, fixed-income products, cash products all the way through to alternatives such as commodities and currencies.”
“I think our performance as a business – it kind of speaks for itself in a way – we are competing with some very large and established competitors but we’re continuing to grow market share very fast and we continue to perform very well in terms of our net inflows.”
BlackRock’s head of wealth, iShares Australia, Alex Zaika, stressed that while the firm aimed to enhance the client experience through innovation and strong investment performance, it was people that remained key to the success of the company.
He commented: “We realise that advisers are different and no one solution or product works in every portfolio. As the world’s largest issuer of ETFs we are trusted and expected to deliver high quality funds suitable for retail and institutional investors alike.”
