Booster has opened up a new line of unlocked funds based on its KiwiSaver offering.
The just-released Wealth Series products offer investors access to five diversified strategies, straddling risk profiles from moderate to the high-risk geared growth fund.
Di Papadopoulos, appointed last week as Booster chief, said the Wellington-headquartered manager created the new fund range following feedback from advisers.
“We have the Focus Series, which is more of a passive style, and the Investment Series that has a higher active management approach but nothing in the middle,” Papadopoulos said.
“But there’s a growing group of investors who have built up a reasonable amount in KiwiSaver but want to invest more without being locked-in until 65.”
The Wealth Series funds, priced between 0.72 per cent to 1.34 per cent, also bake-in the Booster ‘socially responsible’ investment exclusions while including exposure to its private asset vehicles – the property and land, and innovation funds.
Papadopoulos said the new funds would be available both direct to investors via the Booster website and through advisers.
The manager currently runs about 80 products.
She formally replaced Booster founder, Allan Yeo, as chief this week after an eight-year career with the business spent, most recently, as chief customer officer.
“I was employee number 38,” Papadopoulos said. “Now we have about 180 staff.”
But she will continue to report to Yeo who remains in a broader strategic role as group managing director.
Originally known as Rutherford Investment Services at launch in 1998 before taking on the Grosvenor Financial Services brand soon after, Booster now has about $8 billion under management including $6 billion in KiwiSaver.
The business also branched out into a quasi-banking line late in 2023 with the release of Savvy – an interest-paying debit card backed by a portfolio investment entity cash fund.
Savvy now boasts more than 5,000 users while the underlying fund holds over $41 million, Papadopoulos said.
However, Booster has a legal challenge lying ahead after the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) filed civil proceedings last June alleging governance breaches in the manager’s directly held wine asset group.
It is understood the case will be heard in February 2027.