This year’s top 10 stories included a peek into AustralianSuper’s international equities build out in London, AMP’s move to slash employee benefits, and plenty of hard-hitting analysis of the issues that matter in institutional investment. But the real story is how readers helped shape all of that coverage.
Orbis’ Stuart Place is riding from Melbourne to the Moon and Back to fund a treatment for the “monster of a disease” that his youngest son was born with. The investment industry is rallying behind him.
AWI cements new portal purchase
Australasian Wealth Investments has confirmed the purchase of a second managed funds purchase and advice portal, agreeing to pay up to $12.5 million for YourShare, a small business based in the NSW southern highlands.
The deal was foreshadowed in a presentation coinciding with AWI’s annual general meeting last month, at which was decided to turn the company from an LIC into a traditional listed stock with one board of governance. It follows the purchase of InvestSmart, from Fairfax for $7 million, a similar portal with a different demographic.
YourShare is based in Mittagong and has 14 staff. AWI intends to maintain that operation under its business model which allows for separate, either wholly or partially owned businesses, continuing with a certain level of operational independence. It has annual revenues of $5.2 million and funds under administration of $915 million.
In a statement last week, AWI said: “…”[AWI] now owns two of the largest online self-directed financial services portals in Australia, with combined FUA of $1.6 billion over 40,000 invested clients and more than 300,000 subscribers to its website, in addition to an undiluted 49.6 per cent share of van Eyk Research, which has $1.2 billion in FUM.”
The purchase price is made up of $10.5 million cash and another $2 million subject to a hurdle to do with YourShare’s NTA.
