OneVue to select Madison bidder by this week

OneVue's sale of the Madison Group is due to be completed in May with receivers expecting a preferred bidder will be selected by the end of this week.

In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), OneVue said final bids were received last week.

“At the Sargon subsidiaries level, we understand that the voluntary administrators, Stuart McCallum and Adam Nikitins of EY, have made progress with the sale of Sargon’s operating businesses and OneVue expects the sale to be finalised imminently,” the announcement said.

“OneVue is also actively assessing its options for the recovery of the balance of the receivable form the Sargon Group parent company, Sargon Capital, which may include lodging claims against its current and former directors and officers arising in connection with the sale of the Diversa and CCSL Trustee businesses.”

The firm noted that since OneVue announced it had written down the carry value of the Sargon receivable in February, it had realised $4.38 million from the sale of its secured interest in shares in Sequoia Financial Group.

OneVue also announced its funds under administration (FUA) decreased by $500 million (9%) during the first quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter due to negative market movements of $700 million.

In its quarterly report to the ASX, OneVue said its FUA closed at $5.5 billion, up 16% on the prior corresponding period (PCP).

However, despite the share market falling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, grow inflows for Q1 was up 22% to $325 million on PCP, and up 4% quarter on quarter.

The firm had quarterly net inflows of $143 million, up 7% on PCP, and annual net inflows of $1.2 billion, up 135% on PCP.

Platform services were up 22% on PCP with gross inflows of $352 million.

On its superannuation member administration business, during Q1 1,766 members were added to total 145,849, up from 144,083 in the previous quarter.

FUA at the end of the quarter was at $5.13 billion, an increase of 5% PCP, and down 9% quarter-on-quarter. The decrease, it said, was due to negative market movements and revenues were largely driven by member numbers and not by market movements.

“Less than 37% of OneVue’s revenues are affected by market movements and the fact OneVue has experience growth across all business lines despite the negative market conditions is a testament to the strategy,” it said.