ByPhilip Macalister
FUND managers in New Zealand are busily sniffing around financial planning firms looking to buy distribution for their products with AXA leading the moves, openly walking around the market with its chequebook open.
It has consummated two deals, one the A$201 million purchase of Sterling Grace, which owns Spicers Portfolio Management in New Zealand and Monitor Money in Australia. It also helped Wellington-based insurance firm Cameron Chote buy KPMG’s financial planning division.
However, AXA is not alone. Other managers, in New Zealand and Australia, are actively courting financial planning firms.
Rutherford Rede director Peter Christensen confirms that his company has been approached. While he won’t name names, the company was an Australian manager and it wasn’t AXA.
He says after the group was approached it went around the market and talked to other potential buyers. While no deal is being done, there were other potential buyers interested in doing a deal.
But the fund managers aren’t the only ones playing the game. Alongside them are the so-called consolidators, such as Harts, Stockford and Professional Investment Services, that are also trying to buy up financial planning and accounting firms.
While Harts has pulled back from the game and some of its earlier deals have come undone, the others are still active.
The trend for managers to buy up distribution is not unprecedented. The same thing happened in Australia several years ago and now nearly all the major financial planning firms across the Tasman are owned by managers.
