Investment Services Group (ISG) subsidiary, JMI Wealth, has hired two senior advisers from the ANZ private bank bringing the group’s total advisory force to almost 20.
In a release last week, JMI Wealth named Neville Giles and Bruce Ross as new recruits, adding to the 15 advisers currently listed under the firm’s financial advice provider licence.
“Neville has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry in New Zealand and is well respected within the industry, while Bruce has a wealth of experience from South Africa, the UK and New Zealand,” JMI Wealth says in the statement. “Since coming to New Zealand, Bruce has been working with large scale investment clients within the private bank market. Both Neville and Bruce were most recently part of the Private Bank team at ANZ.”
The advisory group has more than $2.5 billion under management sourced from a variety of clients including high net worth individuals, charities, family offices, super funds and iwi.
JMI Wealth was known until 2018 as JMIS soon after the long-established Auckland investment consulting group joined the ISG family, which includes Devon Funds, Clarity Funds and Select Wealth Management.
Veteran Craigs Investment Partners head of client services, Stephen Jonas, will shift to the NZX-owned platform, Wealth Technologies as chief operating officer.
Jonas has been with the Tauranga-based wealth management and broking firm for 16 years with duties involving a raft of products and services including the Craigs KiwiSaver, other funds and investment administration.
Craigs was the first client to switch to the new Wealth Technologies platform in 2018 and is expected to move more assets there over time.
Also last week a few big name investment firms on both sides of the Tasman reported high-level staff changes including Fiona Mackenzie winning the managing director role at the $35 billion ANZ Funds Management group in NZ.
Mackenzie will take up the ANZ job next January – pending a “non objection” from the Reserve Bank on New Zealand – after completing her tour at Jarden as head of direct wealth. She joined Jarden (then known as FNZC) early in 2018 to revamp the wealth manager’s retail product offering following a six-year stint at the NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) that ended in October 2017.
Prior to NZS, Mackenzie spent two years as head of markets and strategy at the NZX as well as a decade offshore with US investment banks.
She replaces Craig Mulholland who resigned as ANZ Funds managing director in April with the bank’s chief financial officer, Stewart Taylor, assuming the job in a caretaker capacity from June.
ANZ manages over $35 billion with about half sourced from its three KiwiSaver schemes. In May ANZ lost a bid for reappointment as a default KiwiSaver provider with up to 60,000 members potentially set to be redistributed among the six winning schemes come December 1 this year.
ANZ chief, Antonia Watson, said in a statement: “Unlike ‘passive’ providers that follow indices, ANZ is an ‘active’ manager that participates in local and offshore markets on behalf of investors. That has resulted in strong short and long term after fee returns on various ANZ funds and why the team has won multiple awards over the years.”
Meanwhile, pioneering index fund manager, Vanguard, has named Daniel Shrimski to replace Frank Kolimago as managing director of its Australian business.
Shrimski returns from the US to Australia where he began his Vanguard career as chief financial officer in 2011, later filling the same role for the manager’s international business.
Kolimago heads home to the US as Vanguard global head of talent management.
Shrimski said in the statement: “Vanguard has a long history in Australia and the support we have received from the financial advisory industry is testament to the value we aim to provide to investors through our low cost, diversified and long-term investment philosophy. It is humbling to see the growth in our ETF business in the four years since I left Australia and the trust that investors are placing in Vanguard.”
The passive fund manager also has substantial support in NZ from retail and wholesale investors including allocations from several KiwiSaver providers, most notably Simplicity.
Last year Vanguard announced plans to abandon its institutional mandate business in Australia and NZ in a move that has seen ANZ, ASB and BNZ shift up to $10 billion between them to other passive managers.
Elsewhere, the Westpac Australia-owned BT Financial Group last week appointed Matthew Rady in the newly created chief executive officer role.
Rady, previously chief of retirement income specialist Allianz Retire+, will take charge of the BT platform, corporate superannuation and investments businesses that have been flagged for sale.
Westpac hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to prepare its remaining wealth assets for sale after a series of divestments in recent years including the final exit from holdings in BT Investment Management – the iconic fund manager group listed in 2015 and now known as Pendal.
It is understood the latest Westpac wealth downgrade could see the BT NZ group, including the KiwiSaver scheme, bundled up in any sale.
Jason Yetton, Westpac Group chief executive specialist business and group strategy, said in the release that Rady would “focus on driving positive customer and member outcomes under the umbrella of one BT Financial Group business and would also seek to enhance the performance of the business”.
“I am pleased that someone of Matt’s calibre will join us to ensure the business enters its next phase in a strong position,” Yetton said.