AWI making big moves in financial services space
An investment company which bought 49 per cent stake in van Eyk Research last year is planning to spend another $1 million on a financial services start-up.
Australasian Wealth Investments (AWI), an investment company headed by former UBS Asset Management head Ben Heap, is making a further push into the financial services space by launching its Ventures Accelerator Program.
AWI is currently looking for applications from entrepreneurial teams for up to $100,000 in investment funding to form ideas for financial services digital start-ups.
The firm is calling on a small number of teams with two-to-three entrepreneurs per team to join the program in each intake, with the first intake of start-ups set to be selected in April. They expect to invite at least 10 teams to take part over the next 12 months.
Heap said heavy regulation and big competitors in the complex market mean it is difficult for smaller companies and entrepreneurs to break into the Australian financial services sector
“I think there is some great stuff going on elsewhere in the technology sector, but within financial services we need a few venture capitalists, and then we need some good ideas and we need to try and get those good ideas coalescing,” he said.
AWI was first listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2005 as the Fat Prophets Australia Fund. At the time, the company invested passively in ASX300 stocks.
Five years later Fat Prophets changed its name to Merrick Special Opportunities Fund, with a slight change in strategy.
However, it was not until former Macquarie and Citibank executive Andrew Barnes was appointed chairman in April 2013 that the company started investing exclusively inside the wealth management sector.
Merrick then changed its name to Australasian Wealth Investments and took a 49 per cent stake in van Eyk Research - an investment research company headed by chief executive officer Mark Thomas.
The new strategy for AWI includes identifying and acquiring opportunities in the financial services sector.
“These opportunities are driven by regulatory changes in the industry, the ongoing trend towards self-directed investing, and the accelerating scale of intergenerational wealth transfer,” the company said on its website.
Apart from van Eyk, the company has so far invested in InvestSMART - a comparison website for managed funds, shares, property and cash products acquired by Fairfax Media in 2007 - as well as YourShare Financial Services, which provides self-directed investors with access to financial information and products.
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