Christchurch-based investment platform business, Consilium, could hit $3 billion under administration by the end of 2018, according to CEO, Scott Alman.
Alman said Consilium currently held about $2.65 billion on the FNZ-built platform compared to just $1.5 billion in February last year.
“We’re on track to hit $3 billion by the end of the year,” he said.
As well as general asset valuation growth, Consilium has seen underlying advisory firm client numbers jump to about 80 – up from 50 just over a year ago.
Over the last few months alone, the platform has signed on several new clients including the Trustees Executors advice business, the freshly-launched Pie Funds wealth arm and a handful of advisory firms previously using the ANZ-owned OneAnswer Portfolio Service (which also uses FNZ technology).
Other Consilium advisory firm clients include Polson Higgs, Private Wealth Advisers, TailoredNZ, Quartz Wealth, and Bloomsbury.
“We’re getting a steady flow of advisory firms coming across,” Alman said.
Consilium offers a range of services to financial advisory firms including compliance, asset allocation and investment advice (via mainly index-style funds offered by Dimensional Fund Advisors, BlackRock and others), practice management, as well as the Consilium Platform (CP).
While some clients used the platform only, he said many advisers accessed the Consilium model portfolios that leaned towards the DFA-type approach.
“There’s been strong surge of interest from NZ financial advisers in ‘smart passive’ investing,” Alman said.
The group also formed a joint-venture with the SBS-owned Funds Administration NZ (FANZ) in 2015 to launch Synergy, a discretionary investment management service (DIMS) platform, which boasts over $100 million under its aegis.
Alman said with both the Synergy and advisory services businesses growing well Consilium was reinvesting back into the platform to build new capabilities.
“We have a lot of enhancements planned over the next 18 months,” he said.
Independent financial advisory firms needed to streamline their “back and middle offices”, Alman said, as regulatory and consumer pressures come to bear – but most lacked the scale to build the technology in-house.
“We want to be the industry utility,” he said.
However, Consilium is vying for the techno soul of the industry with a number of other players including: the ASB-owned Aegis; NZX Wealth Technologies; and, the similarly DFA-influenced and FNZ-designed Boutique Advisers Association platform.