Fisher Funds has dumped Public Trust as trustee from a range of funds inherited as part of its 2013 purchase of Tower Investments.
In a December 2015 prospectus for the four funds, marketed collectively as the Fisher Funds Investment Series Unit Trusts, the manager named its back-office provider of choice, Trustee Executors (TE), as replacement for Public Trust.
The Investment Series range – comprising the Trans-Tasman Equity Trust, Multi-Sector Fund, BondPlus Fund, and Global Fund – represent just $280 million of Fisher’s more than $6.6 billion funds under management.
However, the move is consistent with Fisher’s recent back-office rationalisation that has seen TE also pick up the role as sole registrar for the group’s funds, beating Mercer in a two-horse race last month.
Mercer supplied registry services to a number of former Tower funds, including the $1.4 billion Fisher Two KiwiSaver scheme and the $430 million old-school super Lifesaver Plan.
Glenn Ashwell, Fisher Funds general manager, told Investment New NZ (IN NZ) last year the firm would focus first on consolidating its unit registry before consider other back-office services such as custody, unit pricing and fund accounting.
“We will probably think about rationalising [other back-office services] at some point,” Ashwell told IN NZ last September. “But as these are not client-facing services there’s no urgency to do that.”