Treasury Group seeks stake in boutiques

The Melbourne-based Treasury Group has announced its intention to acquire a stake in a series of small fund managers as part of an ambitious bid to become an umbrella group for boutique investment managers.

The group, which bought a 50 per cent stake in specialist Australian equities boutique Investor’s Mutual late last year, has set itself to take an equally significant stake in up to four other boutique managers.

The group completed the first stage of its plan last week when it hired the former head of institutional business at Perpetual Investments, David Cooper, as its new manager of strategic investments.

Treasury Group managing director Rodney Green, a managing director of Perpetual Investments for four years before departing in a business restructure last year, says Cooper would focus almost exclusively on identifying boutique managers to join Treasury.

“David’s role will be to assist us to target and develop opportunities, like Investors Mutual,” he says.

The Treasury Group acquired its 50 per cent stake in Investor’s Mutual late last year after the fund manager, headed by Anton Tagliaferro, separated from its then part owner IWL.

While not commenting on specific boutique managers Treasury is trying to bring into the fold, the group will target both existing businesses and start-up operations, according to Green.

Green says Treasury’s ultimate goal was to have under its umbrella a total funds management portfolio equal in size to that of some of the major investment management groups, but spread across different boutique managers to avoid the performance difficulties often associated with managers that grow too large.

“The bigger players will struggle. They might give you confidence and a brand name and might be an easier sell for advisers, but in the long run they will not be able to deliver [investment performance] results because of their size,” he says.