In the wake of yesterday's transitional financial results, Perpetual chief executive and managing director Geoff Lloyd has said he is determined to focus on growing the business rather than just cost cutting.
Lloyd said he was pleased with how quickly the company's transformation office had been able to move from design to delivery of measures relating to the Transformation 2015 initiative, announced in June this year.
This included the selling of the Smartsuper self-managed super fund administration business, the sale of Perpetual Lenders Mortgage Service, the closure of the Dublin-based international equities capability and a reduction in the size of the leadership team.
As part of the transformation program, Perpetual also announced an information technology (IT) outsourcing contract entered into with Fujitsu.
Under the deal, Fujitsu will be providing IT infrastructure and application support services, with the services to be transitioned to Fujitsu in tranches over the next 18 months. About 100 staff would be affected, Lloyd said.
Lloyd said the focus had not just been on reducing costs but also on growing the business.
He pointed to strong inflows into Perpetual Investments, the launch of Perpetual's Australian Share Fund and Diversified Income Fund on Colonial First State's FirstChoice platform, a positive rating for a new absolute return strategy, and the relationship with Wellington Management to outsource international equities and global fixed income.
New life risk business for Perpetual Private more than doubled in the 2012 financial year, Alliance Partner new leads were up 83 per cent for the year and fees from advice increased 17 per cent for the year, Perpetual stated.
The group was also pursuing native title trust mandates through Perpetual Private, while Perpetual's Corporate Trust was pursuing growth by extending existing services and had also been mandated as responsible entity, trustee or custodian on 13 new managed funds, Perpetual stated.
