Home / Ausbil recruits former custodian to sort fee mess

(Pictured: Stephen Maloney)

Ausbil Dexia has recruited its former asset servicing client servicing manager, Stephen Maloney, to sort out a technical problem to do with the fees charged on one of its funds.

Maloney was made redundant, along with about a dozen others, by NAB Asset Servicing last year. He had worked with Ausbil Investment Management previously, and on the Ausbil account at NAB, and is clearly trusted by the equities manager.

His new role involves a contract of about six months. It came about because of a problem for Ausbil with the fee charged for its ‘Emerging Leaders Fund’. Client AMP Capital discovered the mistake, which followed a change in fee several years ago, and informed Ausbil earlier this month.

The timing of the gaffe and its discovery could not be worse. Executives from the company’s new owner, New York Life, were scheduled to arrive in Sydney last week for further discussions following finalization of the transaction on February 4.

Mark Knight, Ausbil’s head of retail distribution, sent a note to clients about the error earlier this month. Ausbil also reported the breach to ASIC about the same time. It is understood that the manager inadvertently overcharged clients by as much as 30bps a year for up to 10 years.

The mistake occurred after the management fee, including a performance fee, and RE fee, were consolidated several years ago without an appropriate adjustment to the fund’s constitution. The PDS, however, did reflect the new fee structure.

Maloney came to NAB in 2003 after the takeover of Commonwealth bank’s super asset servicing business, which had been acquired by Westpac that year.