Trio give IMA market a boost

A soon-to-launch individually managed account (IMA) firm is aiming to give the IMA market a much needed shot in the arm by offering wrap platforms and other providers access to the services required to be active in the sector.

SMA International will be established as the holding company for four subsidiary companies — OzPortfolio, SMA Funds Management, SMA Solutions and Direct Portfolio Services (DPS).

The SMA suite of businesses have been created by DPS directors Paul Bray, Tony Tighe and John Aldersley in a bid to both capture a larger share of the IMA market and also promote growth in the industry more broadly.

The move will see the group’s underlying software OzPort, offered through OzPortfolio, being externally licensed to other groups, both nationally and overseas.

To date, the IMA market in Australia has failed to reach its potential with Bray attributing this partly to a lack of software.

“IMAs have tended to be a cottage industry to date and the technology has only allowed clients to go online in recent months.

“So we’ve deliberately packaged our offering to enable the market to grow and fulfil the expectations it had a few years ago,” Bray says.

The SMA services to be offered externally range from providing compliance, software and funds management services, as well as acting as the responsible entity.

“Our software allows a wrap account already active in the managed funds market the ability to get involved in the management of separately managed accounts,” Bray says.

SMA Solutions will package all the services on offer from the group’s underlying companies with a view to offering these bundled products to external clients, with SMA Funds Management handling the underlying investments and DPS acting as the administrator.

See IMA feature p12 ´