Institutional investors have gotten more sophisticated, and so have the asset consultants they look to for advice. But as those consultants push deeper into the lucrative wealth and family office segments, can they keep product conflicts from getting in the way?
While there’s a perception that defined benefit funds have mostly vanished from the earth, they still manage a hefty chunk of Australia’s pension savings and DC funds can learn a lot from them in their efforts to solve the retirement problem for their members
JANA wins more in wealth
JANA will provide asset allocation, manager research and portfolio construction advice to Alteris Financial Group, which has around $1.8 billion of funds under advice and offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Rockhampton and Gladstone.
“After an extensive and thorough review process across many high calibre asset consultants, we are excited to be working with JANA,” said Alteris CEO Keith Jones. “We believe JANA’s strength of research capabilities and resources, successful track record in the asset consultant space, and alignment in philosophy will enhance our client outcomes and experience.”
JANA now advises more than $10 billion on behalf of private wealth and advice clients, with total funds under advice now more than $1.3 trillion with clients across the industry fund space, not-for-profits, family offices and endowments and private wealth firms.
“We are extremely pleased to have been appointed as the consultant for Alteris and look forward to a long and positive relationship over coming years,” said JANA head of wealth Michael Karagianis. “… JANA now advises in excess of $10bn on behalf of private wealth and advice practices in Australia including managed account services.“
“We understand the diversity of the wealth sector and the unique requirements of private wealth and advisory practices. We are seeing more practices leverage JANA’s institutional quality advice and scale to find best in class investment opportunities for their retail and wholesale clients.”
JANA also announced last week that it had been contracted to provide portfolio construction, manager research and ESG advice to Uniting Financial Services, which provides lending and investment services to the Uniting Church Synod of NSW and ACT.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for JANA to support more not-for-profit organisations, such as for-purpose organisations, foundations and universities, who can benefit from having an independent, institutional investment consultant,” said Michael Maher, senior consultant and head of not-for-profits.
