ASN bows out due to regulatory costs
By Craig Phillips
TRUSTEE group Australian Superannuation Nominees (ASN) is closing its business because of “continuing regulatory intervention” by the Australian Prudential RegulationAuthority (APRA) and has struck a deal to sell its ongoing interests to Tower Trust.
“Our goal has always been to provide clients with access to high quality professional service and we are disappointed that we cannot continue to do so in today’s regulatory environment,” ASN chairman Stephen de Belle says.
The group, which acts as trustee to over 200 small APRA funds and has over $130 million under trusteeship, says it will close its business and retire as trustee of these funds on June 23.
However, de Belle says he is confident ASN’s clients will be well served by Tower, which has provided trustee services in Australia for over 120 years and already acts as trustee to over 5,000 of its own small APRA funds.
As part of the transition, ASN executives Sonya Rawlinson and Brett Kretchmer will join Tower to ensure continuity for clients from an operational perspective, de Belle says.
“This difficult decision to sell ASN’s business has been made in light of the continued regulatory intervention by APRA,” de Belle says.
The group states that all existing fund structures will now be maintained by Tower, including the use of the fund member’s preferred external administrator.
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