Assirt joins Bourse Data in post-wrap age

Australian managed funds research pioneer Assirt is set to change ownership under a proposed deal between parent company St George Bank and Bourse Data.

Australian managed funds research pioneer Assirt is set to change ownership under a proposed deal between parent company St George Bank and Bourse Data.

Under the terms of the deal, Assirt and discount share broking group Quicktrade will be housed next to Bourse Data services and will develop what the group calls the in-dustry’s first “post wrap” service. In return, St George has invested $10.1 million to take a 13 per cent interest in Bourse with the option of moving to 70 per cent owner-ship in December, 2002. A price for Assirt and Quicktrade is still under negotiation.

St George group executive Richard Cawsey says the group decided to spin off the re-search and share trading groups to quickly develop a complete desktop package for financial planners and investors.

“Bourse is a hot-house environment which can develop this technology faster,” he says.

Cawsey says the bank needed to spin off its technology businesses because their price earnings valuation was about three times as high as the rest of the bank.

Assirt was one of the first businesses set up by Sealcorp in Perth in the late 1980s. It preceded the Asgard master trust which now sits at the heart of the Sealcorp business. Assirt provides quantitative and qualitative data on managed funds and sells a desktop software package to advisers. It also recently acquired a 50 per cent share in a shares research group.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, Assirt will maintain its research role in the As-gard master trust and continue to provide data to the adviserNet service which will remain within the Sealcorp group. Assirt will provide its services on a wholesale basis to Sealcorp on a preferred supplier basis.

Alongside the Bourse Data business, Assirt will play a key role in the development of what Cawsey calls the first “post wrap” service.

“Unlike current services that are wedded to administration systems, this service will look after the customer’s total financial affairs,” Cawsey says.

The system under development will house retail funds, master trusts, life insurance, general insurance, banking, mortgage finance and frequent flyer points. It will provide research on life insurance, managed funds and shares and will provide tools for finan-cial and clients to transact on the basis of the information.

“This system will bring online systems to life. The current portals provide information but you can’t do anything with it. The fulfilment part of this system will be unique,” Cawsey says.

The system will also provide compliance, training, research and administration serv-ices for financial planners using existing Assirt systems. A number of other financial services players in the market are following a similar strategy including InvestorWeb in the local market and Charles Schwab and Morningstar in the US.

Assirt managing director director Brett Sanders says the system will also use screen scraping technology alongside existing systems. Screen scraping technology allows a Web site to take customer specific information from a number of other sites and con-solidate it in a single report.

On top of the screen scraping and current Assirt technology, the new service will feature content and tools from Bourse strategic partners Mortgage Choice and Hot-Copper. Bourse won approval for a 10 per cent stake in mortgage brokers Mortgage

Choice late last month and purchased 100 per cent of investment forum Web site HotCopper in January this year. HotCopper currently has a customer base of about 40,000 retail investors.

Bourse also recently purchased Melbourne-based stock brokers Falkiners Stock-broking which has 30,000 clients. Chairman Gil Hoskings has made it clear the group intends to continue to acquire stock broking firms.

A price for the Assirt business is yet to be finalised but it is likely to be released to the market in about a month. Cawsey says St George wanted to let the market it was in serious discussion with Bourse Data before negotiating all the details to put a stop to speculation.

“This industry has a very strong propensity for rumour. We didn’t want to play that game,” he says.

Details on the exact management structure of Bourse Data are not yet available, how-ever it is understood Sanders will continue to run the Assirt operations and the Assirt brand will remain in the marketplace.

Bourse Data will change its name and expects to announce the new name in the near future.