Tyndall Investment Management will consider creating its own distribution network after the completion of a strategy early next year according to Tyndall superannuation and retail chief executive officer Dennis Fox.
Tyndall Investment Management will consider creating its own distribution network after the completion of a strategy early next year according to Tyndall superannuation and retail chief executive officer Dennis Fox.
Fox says Tyndall has taken some equity positions in a number of planning groups and have so far sought those who have a business model with planners as employees.
“The equity taken is a minor position, about 30 per cent, and usually in up market planning groups. So far we have not looked at franchise groups but do hope to do that,” Fox says.
“We are working up a strategy which will consider both styles and as that is completed we plan to roll out products and services to meet the needs of the strategy by the March quarter of next year.”
Since merging with Royal & SunAlliance (RSA), Tyndall has picked up all the group’s fee for service business while its own risk business has gone across to RSA.
As a result the group had a number of products which were part of a review completed early this month.
According to marketing distribution superannuation and retail general manager Ken Brewer about 16 to 20 products lines were rolled into others, most of them no longer viable under the Managed Investment Act.
“The decision to do this was approved by about 95 per cent unitholders and they are now more representative of our style and have reached a critical mass. This means MERs have dropped as fees have been restructured as well,” Brewer says.
In the same review Tyndall’s comparative value analysis (CVA) investment process was also examined with Fox the first to admit the group had underperformed late last year.
“We did have a terrible period and asked why we underpeformed badly and felt we needed to hire more experienced analysts,” Fox says.
“The people we have are very skillful but are young and have less experience with some of the history needed to understand the turn against value managers.”
To this end experienced analyst Bob Munster has joined as head of research but Fox says the general environment was still tough.
“Value as very much out of favour and value managers globally all took hits. However we are still reasonably rated by the research houses as we have always remained true to style,” Fox says.
Value has also started to come back according to Fox who says it is well understood by most people because it is the way most people shop and buy.
“There will be a return to value for many in the end as everyone buys on a value basis and for us that is our natural style,” Fox says.
“The only thing that surprised us was the length of the downturn with value.”
