Ben Davis
Zenith Associate Director and Manager of Zenith’s Retirement Portfolio Solutions, Ben Davis has announced the release of a range of six investment solutions designed to maximise income and age pension entitlements, protect capital and reduce investment risk to meet the lifelong income needs of retirees.
Davis confirmed that Retirement Portfolios had been developed in response to the growth in the Australian retiree sector and subsequent demand for dedicated portfolios for those people in retirement and builds on Zenith’s acknowledged model portfolios development strengths and expertise.
The population ‘bulge’ of the Baby Boomer / retirement age group is here and represents an unprecedented advice and business opportunity for financial advisers. In addition, age based defaults in corporate superannuation funds are growing quickly.
Commenting further Davis said, “Zenith’s Retirement Portfolio Solutions provides advisers the ability to construct dedicated and personalised retirement portfolios within existing compliance and Professional Indemnity insurance frameworks”.
“Within the six implementable Retirement Models, retirees will be provided with options to address the requirements of high net worth investors as well as age pension eligible investors. In addition, the portfolios are offered with or without the inclusion of an Annuity product option, which, in turn, can potentially further enhance pension benefits”.
Zenith’s six Portfolio options provide the following solutions for high net worth investor retirees through to age pension eligible investors:
- Retirement Defensive
- Retirement Core
- Retirement Growth
- Annuities + Retirement Defensive
- Annuities + Retirement Core
- Annuities + Retirement Growth
The Zenith models provide a retiree the potential to optimise pension benefits and achieve greater capital stability/security, income certainty, liquidity while at the same time reducing costs.
Furthermore, the portfolio solutions address key retiree considerations:
- For most retirees, the interaction of their portfolio with the aged pension is critical
- Retirees strongly dislike drawing down on capital and prefer the portfolio to generate income they can live off
- Retirees have an asymmetric return profile and are hyper sensitive to losses and may give up some upside for security
Davis believes that “Zenith’s continuing commitment to delivering high quality models, and transparent ‘look through’ portfolio holdings and characteristics reporting to the adviser market” makes the delivery of a specific set of Retirement Models the next logical progression in an ever growing market section – the Australian retiree market. A solution that we believe has not been adequately provided for in the past, and once again, signifies a continuing commitment by Zenith to provide new portfolio solutions when we see a need.