Direct shares added to Navigator investment menu

Investors in Navigator’s personal investment plan will now be able to purchase shares directly, as well as access research through Aegis Independent Equities Research and Aspect Huntley, following changes to the platform announced today.

Navigator general manager, products Tim Cobb said a selection from the top 500 Australian Stock Exchange-listed equities were now available to investors in the plan through the n-link adviser desktop, which has online links to Etrade and allows advisers to trade shares in a similar way to switching managed funds.

Cobb said the top 200 shares had been offered directly in this way through the company’s retirement plan since November 2004 and that offering had been well received, although the take up had been small so far.

“Having had that going for a number of months on the super side, we’ve taken the opportunity to add it on the investment side as well and also broaden the shares out on the investment side from 200 to approximately 500,” he said.

Cobb said most advisers traded online, with purchases being completed in seconds. The system also had facilities to set price limits to sell above or buy below specified levels.

Cobb expected the offering to be popular on the personal investment plan because around $1 billion of its assets were from trustees of self-managed super funds, who favoured direct shares ownership.

The company has outsourced share research to Aegis and Aspect Huntley because its in-house research focused on managed funds rather than direct equities.

“We thought rather than trying to extend what we do to cover direct equities we’d link into some of the other research providers that are renown in the market currently and allow advisers choice of which of those they use,” Cobb said.