Did you know…What's a master trust?
What’s in a master trust? Quite a bit, if you believe most of the hype written about them.
What’s in a master trust? Quite a bit, if you believe most of the hype written about them.
Yet many in the industry are still at a loss to explain just what these investment ve-hicles are. Definitions of master trusts vary from research house to research house, as the September quarter figures from research houses Assirt and Plan For Life il-lustrate.
According to Assirt, the biggest discretionary master trust in the country last Sep-tember was Asgard, with just under $6.2 billion under management. In fact, Asgard enjoyed a market share of just under a fifth of the entire master fund market.
Plan For Life begs to differ. Asgard was ranked the third largest master fund for the same quarter, even though the two research houses estimate its funds under management as roughly the same.
According to Plan For Life, AMP Life took the largest master fund honours in September, with more than $9.9 billion under management. This is more than dou-ble the figure quoted in Assirts research (just under $4.3 billion).
Second largest was MLC, with Plan For Life listing their funds under management at over $9.3 billion. Yet Assirt only ranks one MLC-owned master trust, FlexiPlan, as having about $1.9 billion under management.
While the industry works on a standard definition of master trusts (Morningstar and Plan For Life have been talking on this for some months), it seems the research data published is increasingly running the risk of becoming confusing, or perhaps even meaningless, to investors.
Top 5 Master Trusts ($ billion) Sept 1999
Plan For Life Assirt
1. AMP Life 9.91 1. Asgard 6.19
2. MLC 9.30 2. AMP Life 4.26
3. Asgard 6.19 3. Navigator 4.25
4. Westpac Life 4.31 4. Westpac 3.57
5. Norwich 4.25 5. Colonial 2.89
Recommended for you
The top five licensees are demonstrating a “strong recovery” from losses in the first half of the year, and the gap is narrowing between their respective adviser numbers.
With many advisers preparing to retire or sell up, business advisory firm Business Health believes advisers need to take a proactive approach to informing their clients of succession plans.
Retirement commentators have flagged that almost a third of Australians over 50 are unprepared for the longevity of retirement and are falling behind APAC peers in their preparations and advice engagement.
As private markets continue to garner investor interest, Netwealth’s series of private market reports have revealed how much advisers and wealth managers are allocating, as well as a growing attraction to evergreen funds.
