Fairfax aims to grow funds management strategy
Major publishing group Fairfax media has revealed that its funds management play, InvestSmart, now has $850 million in funds under management and that it is continuing to leverage of the company’s media assets.
In an investor briefing issued to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) today, Fairfax described InvestSmart as Australia’s largest online discount fund broker with 40,000 customers and 160,000 e-mail subscribers.
It said the business was offering trailing commission rebates to customers and would be expanding revenue lines into display advertising and investment research.
The investor briefing said the business leveraged Fairfax Media’s network of papers, radio stations and websites.
Fairfax media has been criticised by some planning groups for the perception of conflicts of interest with respect to its ownership of InvestSmart and critical coverage of the financial planning industry in some of its newspapers and magazines.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
Recommended for you
The “experiment” away from vertical integration has been a mistake, according to Clime’s Michael Baragwanath, and Clime is positioning to benefit via advice and fund manager acquisitions.
JP Morgan Asset Management has identified Australia as an “emerging growth market” as it seeks to double its assets under management in the Asia-Pacific region in the next five years.
Australian Ethical funds under management were $14.3 billion at the end of September, with its investment division seeing inflows return after outflows in the previous quarter.
Record flows into iShares ETFs helped BlackRock’s assets under management reach US$13.5 trillion in the third quarter, but it reported outflows from the APAC region.
