Kanish Chugh

A recent discussion on the likely local impact of the US election between three leading investment experts from ETF Securities (Kanish Chugh, Head of Distribution), Pitcher Partners (David Lane, Director and Senior Adviser) and Evans and Partners (Timothy Rocks, CIO) concluded with a consensus advice for Australian investors to maintain their long-term strategy, have an allocation for defensive assets such as cash and gold, and look to for buying opportunities in drawdowns bought on by any post-election induced volatility.

US-based Healthcare stocks and companies based in Asia, where the virus has been better handled than in the west, are opportunities on the radar for most of these investors.

The consensus expectation was a Biden victory which may have a short-term downward effect on markets but with the Covid situation, and its management, including progress on vaccines, will likely to have a bigger impact on general market direction than the actual election outcome, notes these experts.

Also, increased stimulus spending resulting from a Democrat in the White House and a ‘blue wave’ delivering both Houses to the Biden forces countering the impacts of likely higher corporate taxes under a Biden administration was flagged as a possibility.

“When you historically look at markets reacting to U.S. elections, in most periods you actually find that the volatility of markets increases for the three months prior to the election. That hasn’t actually been the case this year. We had so much volatility earlier in the year that last few months have been relatively modest in terms of volatility,” noted David Lane Director and Senior Adviser for Pitcher Partners.

“Now is the time to be defensive in our portfolios. We feel uncertain about the 3-5-year story for markets than we’ve ever been. Now is the time for investors to maintain healthy levels of defensive assets, including cash and gold,” says Mr Rocks.

From a tactical perspective, both advisory firms see healthcare as potentially benefitting from a Democrat victory.

“Healthcare is that one sector that will probably have the biggest impact. It is a sector that strangely enough has probably underperformed over the last six months in spite of everything that’s been going on around the world, and the general increase in government spending towards healthcare. We still see overall the sector as being good value, but there’s the potential of a short-term impact,” says Mr Lane.

Mr Lane also noted that, “one of the geographies that we’re looking at from an investment perspective is Asia on the basis that the Asian economies have come out of COVID quite well, compared to the rest of the world. And potentially if we do have a Biden victory, they may well be, or he may well be more amenable to negotiating a trade with China and the rest of Asia. So, we could see a bit of a positive skew towards Asia into the future.”

Focusing on the defensive theme of the discussion Kanish Chugh noted that for Australian investors one of the simplest, if not the simplest pure play gold avenues for Australian investors is ETF Securities Physical Gold ETF (ASX code: GOLD).

“GOLD offers low-cost access to physical gold via the stock exchange and avoids the need for investors to personally store their own bullion,” he said.

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David Lane

Praemium is pleased to announce that it has entered into a partnership with Pitcher Partners Wealth Management Brisbane to utilise Praemium’s integrated Managed Account platform for Pitcher Partners’ Customised Portfolio Solution.

This partnership provides the ultimate flexibility to create custodial and non-custodial managed account solutions for many of the firm’s current and future clients.

David Lane of Pitcher Partners Wealth Management said “We are excited to launch the Pitcher Partners Customised Portfolios SMA and to be able to offer our clients a wide choice of portfolio solutions with the ability to customise to their unique requirements.

The sophistication of Praemium’s managed account technology and the flexibility that their integrated Managed Account platform offers to deliver these tailored solutions made Praemium a natural choice for our SMA partnership

Martin Morris, Praemium’s Head of Distribution commented “We are delighted to have Pitcher Partners Brisbane as a new Managed Accounts partner.

We pride ourselves on offering solutions that meet the demands of wealth management firms and their clients and our market-leading integrated Managed Accounts platform continues to attract strong demand from the adviser community.

Customised portfolios are becoming increasingly important as clients demand a more tailored investment experience and the Praemium platforms allows significant levels of customisation not only in portfolio management but online investor reporting to allow our Managed Accounts partners to deliver a unique value proposition. “

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Ms Gillespie joins from Lonsec where she has been Group CEO for more than three years and will be responsible for Perpetual Investments’ business strategy, managing strategic initiatives and business priorities, and leading the Client Solutions and Strategy team.

Commenting on Ms Gillespie’s appointment to the newly created role, Group Executive for Perpetual Investments David Lane said, “This role will enable us to have a sharp focus on meeting the changing needs of our clients, and further exploring growth opportunities for the business.

“Amanda’s leadership strength, investment background and deep sector knowledge are the right fit for this role.

“We are delighted to have someone with Amanda’s depth and breadth of experience joining the Perpetual Investments team.”

Ms Gillespie said, “I am excited to be joining Perpetual at this important time for the business.

“I have always had enormous respect for the Perpetual brand and the calibre of the team, and I am looking forward to working with the business to identify and seize fresh opportunities.”

Ms Gillespie has more than 20 years of investment experience and during her time at Lonsec played a key role in building out Lonsec’s research and consulting capabilities.

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With an extensive career in asset management, wealth management and investment banking, Mr Lane has a deep understanding of the local and global financial services landscape. Mr Lane will join Perpetual from Count Financial, which he joined as CEO in 2011. Count is Australia’s largest network of accountant-based financial advisers, with more than 300 member firms nationwide.

Prior to joining Count, Mr Lane was CBA’s General Manager of Strategic Development in the Wealth Management Division which included CBA’s asset management, platform, advice and insurance businesses. He was a member of CBA’s Wealth Management Leadership Team. Previously he was Chief Operating Officer of Neuberger Berman’s Hedge Fund Business. His asset management and investment banking experience extends to Aetos Capital, a New York-based alternative asset manager, as well as positions in New York, London and Sydney with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.

Commenting on this appointment, Perpetual CEO and Managing Director Geoff Lloyd said, “David has an impressive depth and breadth of leadership experience across asset management, investment banking and all aspects of wealth management on a global and local level.

“He has a proven history of articulating clear business strategy and motivating people to deliver great client and business outcomes. His client-first approach will resonate within our business, and he is well placed to continue to drive Perpetual Investments forward,” Mr Lloyd said.

Perpetual Investments covers investment management, distribution, product manufacturing and operations. Perpetual Investments has $31.9 billion funds under management as at 31 December 2016.

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FSC Annual Conference begins July 31 in Brisbane.

The Advice stream at this year’s FSC Annual Conference in Brisbane is stacking up as one of the strongest ever with as speaking lineup including industry experts and academics.

The Financial Services Council’s Senior Policy Manager Advice Cecilia Storniolo said the program covered considerable ground from a discussion on the emerging competition in the advice industry to overviews of emerging world first research into the value of advice being conducted by Australian Universities.

Full detail of the Advice sessions are as follows:

Advice – Clash of the Civilisations – the emerging competition in the advice industry

Paul Barrett, Managing Director, Global Advice and Distribution – ANZ Wealth

Rod Bristow, CEO – Infocus

Bill Danaher, CEO, Industry Funds Services

For all the pervasive changes created by FoFA and MySuper emerges a new world order in advice. Has competition changed? What are the new advice models? Has FoFA created a level playing field for advice? What is the new world advice order?

Advice – Value of advice: Does the consumer value advice?

Professor Natalie Gallery, School of Accountancy – Queensland University of Technology

Professor David Michayluk, University of Technology, Sydney

Mark Spiers, General Manager Advice – BT Financial Group

In 2011/2012 Queensland University of Technology# and a consortium of universities led by Adelaide University were successfully awarded government funding to progress two world leading and distinct research projects into the Value of Advice in partnership with the FSC. What are the two projects researching? What stages are these projects at? How can the industry help? What are the results saying about the value of advice?

Advice – Are we there yet?

David Lane, CEO – Count Financial Limited

Michael Vrisakis, Partner – Herbert Smith Freehills

John de Zwart, Managing Director – Centrepoint Alliance

Geoff Lloyd, CEO and Managing Director – Perpetual

Jeroen Buwalda – Partner, Ernest and Young

A Q&A session – The Advice industry has been under significant reform and other significant changes including FoFA, TASA, Competency changes, APES230, Codes of Conduct – which largely culminated in 2013. What are the priority issues to be resolved by government or industry response ?  What are the practical implementation challenges and opportunities afforded by the changing landscape of advice?

The conference runs from July 31 to August 2 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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