Morningstar lukewarm on AXA
Research house Morningstar today released a Business and Management Strength (BMS) rating on AXA Australia, scoring the group with a mark of three representing a place in the middle 35 per cent of fund managers.
According to Morningstar, AXA has a strong group structure and made a successful initiative to outsource its funds management activities to joint venture partner Alliance Capital Management in February 2001.
“This has bolstered AXA’s global investment capabilities and consequently, its product offerings to the retail market,” the report says.
Profitability of the business has also been given a positive outlook, despite funds management contributions to operating earnings in percentage terms falling from 37 per cent in 2000 to 27 per cent in 2001. Actual operating earning from funds management increased by more than 40 per cent.
AXA Australia’s compliance regime and administration and client service were given an average to weak rating and deemed to have a neutral outlook. Morningstar believe the group’s daily compliance report system is below industry best practice, but says the separate portfolio implementation team which reviews trades prior to be sent to the dealer minimises the possibility of breaches on daily compliance reports.
The research house also says AXA Australia’s website functionality is below industry best practice.
“Processing times for applications and redemptions can be improved. There is also a lack of double entry and checking of transactions. Processing of distributions is well below industry best practice, limited by systems capability.”
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