Perpetual says no more

Perpetual Investments will not take on any more institutional clients for at least 12 months but rather concentrate on servicing those already with the group, according to head of institutional business David Cooper.

Perpetual currently has 16 clients, worth about $3.9 billion in total, up from one four years ago worth $120 million.

Cooper says this represents solid growth for the business with blue chip clients wholly invested in Australian equities

"The growth rate in the last two years has been very good and we think it's a good time for us to show a firm commitment to those clients and to the performance of their money," Cooper says.

"We have the luxury to provide solid service and at the end of the day it is all about performance. We have received board support to head down this path."

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Perpetual will still take further investments and organic growth from existing clients. Cooper says the closing of mandates will not affect investment style.

"We believe the way we have done things so far is the best way to go ahead and it has been the favoured style over the last 12 months," Cooper says.

"Clients want to see us manage the business not the business manage the way work and we owe it to those people to deliver what we promised."

However even if they lost one of those 16 mandates, each worth an average of more than $200 million, Perpetual says it is not likely to seek new clients.

"The only negatives of this move is that we may forego tenders that could have been good. But we maintain that if an important part of the market came to us and said we want to appoint you for a new mandate, we would now say no," Cooper says.