Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, Inc, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), has announced a strategic investment in Raiz Invest Limited (ASX: RZI), a leading Australian fintech platform that helps customers grow their wealth by helping them to save and invest. The parties have entered into an equity investment agreement (the “Initial Share Purchase”) as part of a strategic relationship pursuant to which State Street Global Advisors will acquire approximately 5 percent of Raiz’s share capital through a placement.

In addition, the strategic relationship will see State Street Global Advisors’ trusted brand and deep knowledge of markets come together with Raiz’s mobile-first platform, which helps Australian retail investors with micro-investments primarily in exchange-traded funds (ETF) and model portfolios. Leveraging State Street Global Advisors’ international library of resources, insights and trends, Raiz customers will have access to a broader array of financial literacy content and investment education tools.

“We are excited to expand our relationship with Raiz, a proven fintech leader in bringing important tools and educational resources to investors across the region. This strategic investment reinforces our strategy to join forces with wealth firms who share our commitment to help investors globally manage their investments and savings for retirement,” said Yie-Hsin Hung, President and CEO for State Street Global Advisors.

State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR^® S&P/ASX 200 Fund (ASX: STW) is currently the largest single fund holding in the model investment portfolios provided by Raiz to its customers. The asset manager’s SPDR^® MSCI Australia Select High Dividend Yield Fund (ASX: SYI) and SPDR^® S&P^® Global Dividend Fund (ASX: WDIV) are also available on Raiz.

State Street Global Advisors Head of Intermediary Asia Pacific, Meaghan Victor, said deepening the existing relationship with Raiz reinforces State Street Global Advisors’ commitment to the Australian market. “This investment is a natural extension of the successful relationship we have enjoyed with Raiz since launch in 2016. Both of us share a passion for making financial tools and solutions accessible to all investors, and through this strategic arrangement we will leverage our respective capabilities to help Australian investors plan and save for retirement.”

 Raiz Managing Director and CEO, Brendan Malone, said the strategic relationship would see Raiz and State Street Global Advisors work more closely together to create innovative savings and investment insights and education for customers. “From learning about investments in ETFs through to more complex investment strategies such as superannuation retirement portfolios, we look forward to continuing our relationship with State Street Global Advisors on educational tools for all stages of a customer lifecycle.

“Raiz’s Australian customers, who range from beginners to experienced investors, will benefit significantly from the global resources that we can provide through this strategic arrangement. Between Raiz’s technology and State Street Global Advisors’ global investment capabilities and markets expertise, there are great opportunities for innovation in the Raiz product offering.” 

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Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) together with Investment Trends have issued a new report revealing financial planners are allocating more wealth into managed accounts than ever before, freeing them up to develop better client relationships and reduce administration time.

The latest SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends Managed Accounts Report shows how financial planners were better able to react to market movements to benefit their clients with managed accounts during the volatility brought on by the global spread of COVID-19 from February 2020.

The Report found 70 per cent of Australian financial planners, or up to 12,000 planners, are now using managed accounts or intend to, up from 44 per cent in 2012.

Managed accounts are investment structures that are continually managed by professional wealth managers. The wealth manager can manage the investment structure following set investment objectives and can modify and rebalance the portfolio in line with that goal.

Often these structures follow institutional style investment methods. The Report also found new client money is increasingly being allocated into managed accounts.

Prior to COVID-19, financial planners allocated 12 per cent of new client inflows into managed accounts, on average. One year on from the global onset of COVID-19, planners allocated 17 per cent of new client inflows, a 42 per cent increase. The vast majority (88 per cent) said managed accounts helped them save time during periods of market volatility brought on by COVID-19.

In Australia, managed accounts now represent around $95 billion of funds under management.

Looking ahead, financial planners expect to allocate close to a quarter, or 23 per cent of new client inflows into managed accounts by 2024, on average. In 2013, it was just four per cent. When looking at planners already using managed accounts, the number rises significantly. Current managed account users expect to allocate nearly half (49 per cent) of their new client inflows to managed accounts by 2024, on average, up from 41 per cent in 2021 and 27 per cent in 2018.

Looking across the spectrum of investor age and wealth, financial planners most often consider managed accounts suitable for their accumulator clients between the age of 35 to 49 (37 per cent cite this) and those with $250k to $1m in investable assets (63 per cent). One quarter of managed account users prefer using these structures for lower balance clients (<$100k) while 22 per cent say they are appropriate for millennials (aged under 35) or self-managed super funds (SMSFs), respectively.

Reflective of broader investor preferences, financial planners are also using managed accounts to implement environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes across their clients’ investments.

State Street Global Advisors Head of SPDR ETF Asia Pacific Distribution Meaghan Victor said greater awareness of ESG was reflected in take-up of managed accounts.

“The volatility of the last 12 months has prompted people to think differently about their investments and better align them with their values. In particular, younger investors, are asking their planners how they can better incorporate responsible investing principles into their portfolios,” Ms Victor said.

“While the benefits of ESG investing may be clear, the best path for individual investors to take isn’t as obvious. Some may want to dip a toe into ESG investing; others may want to commit a significant part of their portfolio.

“With 72 per cent of financial planners preferring to implement responsible investing themes via a managed account, these structures will play an increasingly important role in helping investors action their responsible investing goals.”

Investment Trends Chief Executive Officer Sarah Brennan emphasised the potential for managed accounts to receive greater new inflows in the next three years, given the strong appetite shown by financial planners in this year’s Report.

“Financial planners tell us that managed accounts are not just for their wealthy clients – they are suitable for wealth accumulators, millennials, and SMSFs, alike. These solutions sit at the heart of democratising investing, and many planners find it easier to demonstrate client best interest obligations with managed accounts,” explained Brennan.

“During recent market volatility, most managed account users acknowledged that these solutions gave them more time, helped them to execute trades more quickly and helped them to reduce operational risk.”

State Street Global Advisors launched its ETF Model Portfolio offering to the Australian market in 2019. It now ranks among the top 20 most used investment managers by planners who currently use managed accounts.

The 12th edition of the Report was conducted by Investment Trends via an online quantitative survey for 905 Australian financial planners. It took place between December 2020 and February 2021.

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Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), has announced it has partnered with leading Managed Accounts platform Praemium to offer a suite of new exchange-traded fund (ETF) Model Portfolios.

The ETF Model Portfolios available on the Praemium platform include a range of riskbased ETF Model Portfolios – moderate, balanced and growth – aimed at pursuing optimal capital efficiency over a long-term horizon, and an objective-based model portfolio, which will provide investors with an income-focused solution.

Praemium’s Managed Accounts platform will be the first platform offering the new suite of State Street’s ETF Model Portfolios.

“We are excited that our new ETF Model Portfolios are now available and accessible to advisers through Praemium’s market-leading Managed Account Platform,” said Meaghan Victor, Head of SPDR ETFs, Australia and Singapore.

Praemium’s Head of Product and Marketing, Mat Walker, said: “We welcome the addition of the State Street’s ETF Model Portfolios onto our platform. We are focused on providing our advisers and their clients with access to the greatest choice of quality investment portfolios and broadest range of assets from high-calibre, reputable investment managers.

“With no investment manager fee on their Separately Managed Accounts (SMA) models, the State Street portfolios not only provide a breadth of choice for our advisers but offer a cost-efficient solution that is becoming increasingly important in the current environment for both advisers and their clients,” Walker added.

The ETF Model Portfolios available on Praemium have been established with an open architecture investment structure. This means that investors are offered a portfolio of ETFs from a range of sectors, asset classes and product issuers.

“Our partnership with Praemium opens up our ability to bring institutional quality and professional funds management to more investors. The combination of ETFs and no investment manager fees on our model portfolios means that we can provide costconscious solutions,” said Victor.

Walker added: “Praemium’s next-generation integrated Managed Account platform offers advisers the ultimate flexibility to tailor solutions to their entire client base on a single platform. The breadth of our investment choice and access to globally recognised expert managers is a key part of our market-leading offering and the continued growth of our SMA.”

State Street Global Advisors’ suite of risk-based ETF Model Portfolios were constructed based on risk tolerance in order to achieve market exposure across equities, including multi-factor smart beta, and fixed income markets.

The objective-based ETF Model Portfolio, now available through Praemium’s SMA platform, focuses on multi-asset class allocation to diversify across income sources, meaning that in a low growth, low interest rate environment, investors can still generate income in a simple and cost-effective way.

Each of the portfolios have been designed, constructed and will be managed by State Street Global Advisors’ Investment Solutions Group, a team established over thirty years ago and with more than US$286 billion in assets under management and assets under advisory/consulting. ^{[1], [2]}

The State Street ETF Model Portfolios are available through Praemium from today.

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Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) has announced the launch of a new suite of Model Portfolios powered by exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Australian investors.

The ETF Models, managed by State Street Global Advisors Investment Solutions Group, will be made available to financial and dealer groups via a number of platform providers in 2019.

“Our new suite of ETF Model Portfolios will provide financial advisers with convenient, cost effective access to State Street’s institutional asset management expertise.” said Meaghan Victor, head of SPDR ETFs, Australia and Singapore.

“And in today’s environment, we believe the transparent and open architecture nature of our models, will further support advisers to achieve the best outcomes for their clients.”

State Street’s ETF Model Portfolios are built on a disciplined risk-focused quantitative process that incorporates our asset class, risk and correlation forecasts.

The new suite of ETF Model Portfolios are founded with an open architecture investment structure, meaning that ETFs from all providers have been considered and selected to ensure portfolio investment selection is not limited by sector, asset class or product issuer.

The new models, investing in both State Street’s SPDR and third-party exchange traded funds, include:

• State Street Risk-Based ETF Model Portfolios: consists of three risk-based ETF model portfolios (moderate, balanced and growth) aimed at pursuing optimal capital efficiency over the long-term by investing in multiple ETFs representing asset classes such as equities, including multi-factor smart beta exposures, and investment grade debt securities.
• State Street Income ETF Model Portfolio: seeks to provide exposure to income and yield-generating investments by investing in multiple ETFs across asset classes, such as high dividend domestic and international equities, investment grade and high yield debt securities.

The ETF Model Portfolios are designed, built and managed by State Street Global Advisors’ Investment Solutions Group, a team established over thirty years ago and with more than US$266.93 billion in assets under management and assets under advisory/consulting.^[1][2]

“Our ETF Model Portfolios will take advantage of a wide range of underlying asset classes to provide broadly diversified, global portfolios with a time tested, asset allocation process,” said Dan Farley, chief investment officer for State Street Global Advisors Investment Solutions Group.

“In today’s low yield and competitive investment environment, we look forward to helping financial advisers in Australia benefit from State Street’s insights with this new suite of ETF Model Portfolios.”

State Street manages more than US$620 billion in SPDR ETF assets worldwide and is one of the largest ETF providers globally.^[3]

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[1] As of December 31, 2018. Total ISG AUM of US$245.71B excludes Execution Only LDI. Derivatives based exposure management AUM represents the notional value of exposure managed.
[2] As of December 31, 2018. Assets Under Advisory/Consulting of US$21.22B includes mandates for which the firm provides advisory or consulting services supporting an investment management process that does not include the responsibility to arrange or effect the purchase or sale of securities and/or funds. In 2015, ISG revised the AUM and AUAC calculation methodology and account categorisation process.
[3] State Street Global Advisors, Morningstar, as of 31 December 2018.

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Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corporation yesterday launched a new SPDR ETFs/Investment Trends report revealing that, while the number of financial planners who recommended managed accounts has almost doubled in the last five years^[1] , more than 80 percent of potential users say they have basic or no understanding of the solution. ^[2]

According to the study, the rapid uptake of managed accounts in the previous five years is set to continue. Together with the 35 percent of participants who recommended managed accounts – up from 30 percent in 2018 – 31 percent of planners intend to introduce managed accounts in the near future. However, 40 percent of these potential users note that client education is one of the main barriers to entry.

“The number of planners recommending managed accounts reached the highest level ever in 2019 and there remains many more who are interested in the solution,” said Meaghan Victor, head of SPDR ETFs, Australia and Singapore. “These potential users have strong appetite to build their understanding further as they want to tap into the tangible benefits reported by current users. These include improved investment performance, transparency, enhanced client engagement, cost effectiveness and less administration.”

Michael Blomfield, Chief Executive Officer of Investment Trends Australia, said, “Those who use managed accounts recognise a wide range of client benefits. More than half believe transparency is the key attraction for clients3 and 30 percent report that following the implementation of managed accounts, investment returns achieved by their clients has increased.^[4] This is accompanied by 44 percent of users saying client engagement has increased.”

The survey also showed that 49 percent of financial planners using managed accounts reported a reduction in time spent on administration and compliance.^[5]

Victor added, “Compliance continues to play a central role in planners’ choice of managed accounts structure. The changes currently experienced by the industry, including regulatory changes, support the widespread adoption of Separately Managed Accounts (SMA) by planners. With 51 percent of financial planners saying they chose to employ SMAs because of the lower perceived compliance requirements^[6].”

For financial planners, the managed accounts ecosystem offers a suite of product selections to ensure each managed account aligns with the individual financial planner’s business challenges and goals. The research found that SMAs are favoured by the local planner community, with 68 percent of financial planners currently utilising SMAs on platform to implement managed accounts^[7] .

In addition, 76 percent of financial planners using an in-house Managed Discretionary Account (MDA), an alternate structure to SMAs, chose this structure because of the associated flexibility and control it could offer, further demonstrating that managed accounts offer benefits to both financial planners and their clients.

“Managed accounts are fast becoming recognised as a valuable tool; with 80 percent of planners who use managed accounts directing new business to these products in the last year. 8 Those who recommend managed accounts say 31 percent of their funds under advice (FUA) are currently in this product, on average, and expect this to grow to 52 percent by 2022.” Victor said.

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[1] Page 11, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[2] Page 18, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[3] Page 47, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[4] Page 52, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[5] Page 53, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[6] Page 76, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[7] Page 73, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report
[8] Page 40, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends 2019 Managed Accounts Report

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Meaghan Victor brings more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, including senior leadership roles in asset management and Australian distribution. She will be based in Sydney and will report to Rory Tobin, global co-head of SPDR ETFs for SSGA.

Tobin said, “Appointing Meaghan to lead our Australian ETF business advances our goals of having a strong global leadership team in place that is committed to serving our clients. The depth of experience Meaghan brings to this role will allow SSGA to build on the continued success of the SPDR ETF business in Australia and reinforces our commitment to providing investors with a comprehensive suite of investment solutions.”

Victor joins SSGA from BT Financial Group where she was National Partnership Manager. Previously, she held roles in sales management, strategy and product development at KBC Asset Management and Fidelity International.

In her role at SSGA, Victor will be responsible for leading, managing and growing the SPDR ETF business, building new solutions across sales, marketing, capital markets, products and infrastructure.

Lochiel Crafter, head of Asia Pacific for SSGA said, “Our Australian SPDR ETF business is strengthened with Meaghan’s appointment and allows us to further develop solutions for our clients to meet their needs for simple, transparent and cost-efficient investments, managed by an organization they can trust.”
SSGA, one of the world’s biggest ETF providers, has sixteen SPDR ETFs in Australia, including Australia’s largest and most liquid ETF, the SPDR S&P®/ASX 200 ETF1.

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