Invescohas reiterated its commitment to its Australian operations despite a global downturn in financial services, and will seek to grow the business rather than seek further acquisitions, according to Invesco global chief executive John Rogers.
“When we identified the markets we wanted to be in, Australia was in the top 10 and the Australian market was seen as being totally deregulated with high levels of service and that made it attractive,” he says.
“Entry into the Australian market was achieved through acquiring LGT, which gave us a small presence. However, the real opportunity came with the acquisition of County Investment Management.”
Rogers says the Australian operation is given a lot of support by its US parent and the information flow is two-way.
“We always learn from countries we operate in, but we have found Australia has a unique solution to investor needs and our success here has been finding local people to run the operation, supported with the global resources,” he says.
“I don’t think we could have brought international people in to run the Australian operation.”
Some Invesco global products are available in Australia, but Rogers says locally developed products will still be created to meet the demand of Australian investors.
The company is also sticking to its global model of not selling direct and will continue to support sales through advisers.
“Our market is retail through advisers. Our duty is to help advisers to create solutions for their clients rather than just sell products.”
The Australian financial adviser network is very different to operations in other countries where Invesco operates, however, there has been some swapping of ideas with the Canadian office.
“Advisers in Canada have some similarities to Australian advisers and there has been some exchanges on creating value in a practice and how to charge a fee for service,” Rogers says.
