BT Investment Management (BTIM) is continuing to invest in its SMSF strategy via the private client and high net worth individual (HNWI) channels after experiencing early success.
“We look at all the industry data around SMSF fund flows and market size, but it’s still very disaggregated, so [our approach] is very much having the right product for that client base, who generally go direct, but they are also prepared to invest in other vehicles if there’s a value proposition there,” BTIM chief executive Emilio Gonzalez told selfmanagedsuper.
“An example of that is we’ve recognised the growing interest in income and attractive yields that are tax effective, so we developed our equity income product, knowing that it would appeal to SMSFs, and we’ve been able to successfully raise over $600 million in the space of two years through the private client and also going direct to market as well.
“A lot of that money is from individuals looking for a regular income, which is generally retirees and in many cases running SMSFs, so we’ve started that journey and we’ve had success early on and that’s given us encouragement to think of other things in that space.”
Gonzalez said BTIM had several ideas on the drawing board.
“Offshore, we have a number of launches already planned to go and domestically we have a few ideas that we’re working on that we hopefully look to hear more of in the coming 12 months,” he said.
The company was also looking at different ways to sell its offerings, he said.
“Once we have a product, there are different channels that we can sell it to – institutional, financial planners, platforms, private clients/HNWIs,” he said.
“Where we’ve traditionally been strong has been in institutional where we have strong relationships and obviously with BT’s history, we have strong relationships and branding in the financial planning/platform space as well.
“Where we haven’t been focused and serviced as strongly in the past has been the private client/HNWI area because we’ve had growth in other areas.”
However, the business was experiencing growth in the space as more and more people, through SMSFs, were looking for direct advice and direct investment into the market, he said.
“We are adding resources to make sure that we have appropriate relationships as well as relevant discussions,” he said.
“And now that we’ve established a product relations group, key to that [strategy] is also thinking about product that is tailored, given our manufacturing capabilities, to that channel as well.”
In June last year, Gonzalez revealed to selfmanagedsuper that the company would concentrate on product offerings specifically for the SMSF market.
