Van Eyk transforms consulting focus

By Craig Phillips

VanEyk Research will wind back its traditional asset consulting focus in light of a strategic review, as well as the $4 billion industry superannuation fund Sunsuper — its largest consulting client — excluding it from a recent consulting tender.

The change in focus has resulted in the departure of van Eyk asset consulting head John Peterson, who joined the group in early 2003 and was previously chief executive officer of Commonwealth Investment Management.

Van Eyk managing director Stephen van Eyk says as the firm has been experiencing strong business activity away from the traditional asset consulting area, it will now scale back its focus in this area.

“I guess with Sunsuper’s decision we won’t be going out and actively trying to get clients in the traditional large asset consulting space. Sunsuper has been top quartile over the past five years, but it would be fair to say that we are getting more clients and more growth from clients in the master fund and wrap space.

“We still have lots of smaller clients in that space and are working on increasing this further, so we’re still very active in the asset consulting space, just not in the traditional sense,” van Eyk says.

Van Eyk director Mark Thomas says the business strategies of some of the main asset consultants, namely in the area of pricing, have made competing in the traditional consulting arena difficult to justify.

The strategic review outlined the company’s growth strategies for the next three to five years in terms of the group’s three core businesses — investment research, asset consulting and investment products.

In the consulting area, van Eyk will now focus on fund-of-funds and master trusts, institutions that manufacture their own products, and providing implemented solutions to the superannuation market segment through its Blueprint Series, which has $370 million in funds under management.