Fisher Funds will transfer administration for the former Tower assets from Mercer to Trustees Executors (TE) before the end of the year, newly-released documents show.
According to the Fisher Funds Two KiwiSaver prospectus amendment published last week, “a decision had been made to transfer the administrative functions of the scheme from Mercer (NZ Limited to Trustees Executors Limited”.
“The transfer of the functions is expected to take place by the end of 2016 and is expected to improve administration services to members,” the Fisher Two document says.
The former Tower KiwiSaver fund, Fisher Two, is the largest of the group’s twinset of schemes boasting about $1.4 billion under management as at March 31 last year. Fisher inherited Mercer as administrator when it purchased the Tower Investment assets in 2013 while maintaining TE in the role for most of its other funds (including the $1.2 billion original Fisher KiwiSaver scheme).
However, as Investment News NZ (IN NZ) reported last year Fisher sought to unify back-office functions across all its funds by asking both Mercer and TE to pitch for the business, with the latter winning out late in 2015.
The back-office amalgamation primarily affects registry services but Glenn Ashwell told IN NZ last September the fund manager may rationalise other admin duties across its products at a later date.
In total, Fisher Funds manages about $6.7 billion.
The funds group was also in line to earn its managed investment scheme (MIS) licence, the Fisher Two prospectus says.
“Effective 4 April 2016, Fisher Funds Management Limited has been granted a license under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 to act as a manager of registered schemes,” the March-dated Fisher prospectus says.
Furthermore, the Fisher Two prospectus reveals a change of director at the funds management group with Australian financial services veteran, David Clarke, replacing TSB managing director, Kevin Murphy, on the board.
Clarke was most recently head of Investec Bank (Australia). Prior to joining Investec in 2009, Clarke was head of the now-defunct Australian investment group, Allco. He also held various roles during a five-year career with Westpac, including head of wealth management for its subsidiary, BT Financial.
TSB Bank owns almost half of Fisher via its recently-created offshoot TSB Group Investments. Margaret Blackburn, TSB Group Investments director, remains on the Fisher board.