Sealcorp has rounded out itsAsgardplatform offering with the addition of superannuation and pensions to its wrap account to sit alongside the investment options introduced mid last year.
Sealcorp chief executive Ian Knox claims the additions make Asgard the only platform offering wrap, master trust and seperately managed accounts across investments, superannuation and pensions.
“No one product services the whole needs of the market which means there needs to be scalable products and services and we feel the whole Asgard platform offers that,” Knox says.
The additions to the wrap will be available to planners making use of the group’s adviserNET desktop platform and have been rounded out with the addition of a cash management account.
As part of the additions Asgard has also added a cash management account through its parent group St George with advisers receiving a 25 basis points commission for investments into the account.
Knox says this is the only commission the Asgard group offers on products but says adviser still have the choice of using mutually agreed entry and dial up commissions with the platform itself.
Other additions will also include direct shares from July this year with a single broker offering access to 300 shares from a flat $20 brokerage fee. Asgard has signed on Bourse Data, once owned by Sealcorp, to provide the equities research for the service.
The shift to expand the wrap offering has been driving by increasing growth in the wrap market according to Knox with Asgard increasing its badged businesses in the wrap account area with the group negotiating with two parties to badge the service. So far financial planning group Prosperity and West Australian group Home Building Society have already badged the wrap.
Asgard will also expand the underlying managers within its managed accounts with Sealcorp head of distribution Dan Powell stating the group would release the product in April after increasing the manager numbers from 5 to 12.
At present the managed accounts product has only attracted about $10m but Powell says the group aims to have $50m by the end of July this year.
Knox says the new managers would be small to medium size after the original managed accounts launch focussed mainly on growth managers.
Sealcorp says these changes to the wrap would generate about $250 million in funds over the 12 months to March 2004 while the managed accounts would attract $100 million, another $400 million from badging and around $450 million from superannuation flows.
