Staples Rodway has exited the funds management game, winding up its two portfolio investment entity (PIE) products.
Wayne Powell, Staples Rodway senior investment adviser, said investors in the PIEs – launched in May 2013 under the SRIM label – would be transitioned into similar “non discretionary portfolios” administered by FNZ.
“We wanted to utilise the benefits of using the FNZ platform,” Powell said.
The SRIM balanced and conservative PIEs invested into a range of underlying funds offered by managers including AMP Capital, BlackRock, Devon, Harbour, Magellan Nikko and Russell.
Powell said clients wouldn’t lose any tax benefits following the transition as the portfolio remained invested in underlying PIEs.
In September, Guy Holroyd, who was involved in setting up one of the underlying SRIM funds – Gottex Staples Rodway, announced plans to roll out a series of products under the GSR label. Staples Rodway has a 33 per cent share of GSR with Holroyd owning the remainder.
BlackRock replaced Swiss-headquartered hedge fund operation Gottex as underlying manager in the GSR product this March.
“Gottex have withdrawn from the New Zealand market and the new fund invests directly into the BlackRock Multi Opportunity Fund,” the June 2015 SRIM fund update says.
The GSR fund has about $17 million under management.
Collectively, the two SRIM PIEs had raised about $26 million since inception, Powell said, split roughly equally between the products.
“We just wanted to streamline what we’re doing,” he said. “We decided we don’t want to be fund managers any more; we want to focus on our core competency as investment advisers.”
It is understood the $57 million Staples Rodway KiwiSaver product would also close soon, pending a merger with the SBS Lifestages scheme. SBS, via its wealth management subsidiary Funds Administration NZ (FANZ), took over management of the Staples Rodway scheme in April this year. Under the deal, FANZ took a 50 per cent stake in the accounting group’s wealth management arm, Staples Rodway Asset Management.