AXA offers best of both styles
AXAwill offer both growth and value based funds into the retail market after kicking off a value style based Australian equity fund through Bernstein Investment Research and Management.
The Bernstein value funds will sit alongside AXA’s international and Australian equities growth funds and international value fund which are offered through Alliance Capital Management Australia (ACMA) and Bernstein respectively.
ACMA is a joint venture with Alliance Capital US which in turn owns Bernstein, with all of the groups owned by AXA SA in France. ACMA also provides investments in Australian and global fixed interest, property securities and cash.
AXA in Australia also uses a number of other managers for investments with Deutsche Bank covering direct property,Ipacand AXA covering multi-manager funds and AXA covering hedge funds and mortgages.
Bernstein Australian value equities chief investment officer Stuart Rae says the move to offer a value fund focusing on Australian equities was a natural progression and complement to the international and growth funds.
AXA chief investment officer Mick O’Brien says the addition of the fund did not impose large costs on the group and allowed advisers to access funds of both styles from the one group through its own investment platform.
The fund will be available to advisers in AXA’s planning networks through the Summit investment platform and will also be available through the BT Wrap.
Stocks in the fund will be based around the ASX300 benchmark and minimum retail investments will be $2000 while the minimum for wholesale investments will be $100,000. Retail fees will be 1.9 per cent while wholesale fees will be 0.75 per cent at $100,000.
As part of the fund’s rollout Bernstein has opened an Australian office in Sydney staffed with a team of four, headed by Rae and with two company analysts and one sector analyst to research investments in local companies.
Rae says the team will focus on those stocks between the ASX 100 and 300 and will typically hold around 40 stocks with an expected turnover of about one stock per month.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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