AMP NZ has added four Milford Asset Management funds to its KiwiSaver and superannuation scheme menus just months after switching in-house products to BlackRock index strategies.
In new scheme documents released last week, AMP lists the Milford Aggressive, Active Growth, Balanced and Conservative funds as options for its KiwiSaver and NZ Retirement Trust (NZRT) investors.
Milford will join AMP Capital, ANZ, ASB, Mercer and Nikko as third-party managers on the core AMP investment vehicles in February next year.
Most of the AMP KiwiSaver and NZRT money is held in the group’s own diversified funds, now managed passively by BlackRock, but the firm has long offered third-party products, adding to the selection over the years.
In 2016, the AMP external investment panel only covered balanced funds from ANZ, Fisher Funds and Nikko but the group subsequently expanded the range of third-party products and managers. Mercer replaced Fisher on the AMP approved list in 2018.
During the September quarter, BlackRock picked up about $9.6 billion of the AMP NZ wealth money (totaling roughly $12 billion) previously managed by AMP Capital NZ. Technically still a related company, AMP Capital remains on the AMP KiwiSaver/NZRT menus for some specialist products.
Macquarie is slated to take over most of the AMP Capital NZ business by March next year after buying the global equities and fixed income business from the ASX-listed AMP entity.
Despite the huge tilt to in-house funds, the AMP KiwiSaver and NZRT can provide reasonable flows to the third-party managers: the ANZ Balanced Growth Fund, for example, reported more than $330 million sourced from the AMP KiwiSaver scheme as at the end of September.
It is understood Milford was also in demand from some NZRT underlying clients, notably the Air NZ scheme that ranks as the biggest single client on the AMP employer super master trust.
Meanwhile, Milford – along with Nikko, ANZ and Russell Investments – look set to lose their places at the Aon KiwiSaver and super master trust multi-manager tables some time next year as Fisher Funds asserts control.
As reported here, Fisher scooped up the Aon schemes in October with a formal takeover date of November 30.
In a post-sale note, the Takapuna-based manager told advisers who use the Aon schemes “it is likely that Fisher Funds will assume the fund management at some point in the future”.
“There is no date currently planned for this to happen,” the note says.
However, in an online presentation to advisers last week, Bruce McLachlan, Fisher chief, said the manager hoped to transition the Aon funds within the next 12 months.
Aon last reported about $1 billion under management in total including approximately $800 million in its KiwiSaver scheme: Russell manages over $500 million for Aon with Milford chipping in more than $200 million.