Boutique fund-of-funds to list by 2004

TreasuryGrouphas revealed its soon to list fund-of-funds company — Premium Investors — will be an absolute return offering investing predominantly in boutique Australian equities firms.

Executives of Treasury Group met with brokers, planners and fund managers last week to brief them on the details of the new entity, which has a preliminary schedule to list on theAustralian Stock Exchange(ASX) in late November.

Meanwhile, Treasury Group, which unveiled its plans to launch Premium in early October, has also appointedRBC Global Servicesmanaging director Graham Putt as chief operating officer.

Putt was previously group executive of Perpetual Funds Services prior to its sale to RBC back in 2001.

As for Premium, its investments will be managed by Treasury Group Investment Services (TIS), which in turn has appointedInvestors Mutual,Orion Asset Management, Confluence Asset Management and Armytage Private Limited to manage the funds. Treasury Group holds varying stakes in each of these underlying managers.

The group says the fund-of-funds approach is to enable investors to take advantage of the “burgeoning boutique sector of the Australian funds management industry”.

Last week Treasury Group lodged a prospectus with theAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) detailing its plans to raise $100 million through the issue of 100,000 shares at $1 each.

As part of the offer Treasury Group shareholders and employees of the firm and its related entities have priority in buying up shares in Premium.