Bell Financial nabs Clime IM CIO

Bell Financial Group has appointed a chief investment officer (CIO) who joins the firm from Clime Investment Management. 

Will Riggall will lead Bell’s investment strategy and philosophy across asset classes and will continue to develop investment solutions for its clients.

He joins from Clime Investment Management where he worked as CIO since January 2022 and had been appointed to the Clime board in October 2024 as a non-executive director. However, he resigned in June and has been on gardening leave.

Bell Financial Group co-chief executive, Arnie Selvarajah said: “Will’s extensive experience overseeing portfolio construction and management across multiple asset classes will be of significant benefit to our private wealth clients as we move towards more holistic porfolio advice.

“The creation of this role is another important piece in our strategy to provide investment advice and services to a broad range of Australian investors. As a diversified wealth management business, it reflects our desire to become the wealth manager of choice for Australians seeking trusted advice that supports them at every stage of their investment lifecycle.”

Riggall said: “I’m excited to join Bells at such an important moment in its long and rich history. The firm’s unique combination of flexible advice models, proprietary technology and breadth of investment choice means we can offer holistic and flexible wealth solutions to our clients.”

Money Management previously spoke with Selvarajah after the firm’s full-year financial results where he detailed the firm’s planned two-year transformation into a diverse wealth manager. He is hopeful this progression will make Bell more visible in the future as a source of building and managing wealth beyond its reputation as a stockbroking business which it began as in 1970.

As part of this transformation, Bell entered into a strategic partnership with Praemium to broaden its advice capabilities to a wider range of asset classes. Bell Potter will now use Praemium’s Scope+ administration solution to administer over 2,200 client portfolios, bringing in $6 billion in funds under administration.

“We have had our own internal platform but it wasn’t scalable so this Praemium deal will give us a huge uplift in scalability and the ability to advise, service, and monitor access to other assets where we aren’t so strong today, such as unlisted managed funds, listed and unlisted fixed income, and alternatives,” he told Money Management.

This is the second major CIO appointment this week after Challenger appointed former Aware Super chief investment officer Damian Graham as its new group  CIO.