Harbour Asset Management and Trustees Executors (TE) have emerged as partners in a new venture spearheaded by Darren Howlin, founder of Australian firm Research IP.
Early in December, Howlin registered a new NZ company, Formosa Wealth, with both Harbour and TE as shareholders.
Both Harbour chief operating officer, Ruari McGregor, and TE chief, Ryan Bessemer, are Formosa directors, along with Howlin.
It is understood Formosa will be the holding company for a new fund distribution service to be launched next year.
Research IP, which opened a NZ fund research arm earlier this year, is also a partner in the Taiwan government-backed ‘FundRich’ – the largest online investment platform in the breakaway island state officially known as the Republic of China.
Derived from the Portuguese word meaning ‘beautiful island’, Formosa is an old name for Taiwan.
In other platform news last week, boutique financial planning firm, Saturn Advice, revealed it would shift from the now MMC-owned Aegis to NZX Wealth Technologies. Saturn represents the third new client for Wealth Technologies since NZX bought the platform, then known as Apteryx, off interests associated with NZAM in 2015 for $1.3 million. After a significant platform rebuild, Craigs Investment Partners shifted about $900 million to Wealth Technologies last year while Hobson Wealth confirmed this August it would transfer about $3 billion of assets (again from Aegis) to the NZX service next year.
Saturn will use the “full capability of the new platform” covering “custody and operational services”, the NZX says in a release. It is understood, Hobson will retain custody in-house following its administration transfer to Wealth Technologies in 2020.
In its 2019 half-year report, the NZX says Wealth Technologies funds under administration could hit $50 billion by 2023.