Fairfax/Mac online push

Fairfax’s Internet arm f2 is making an aggressive push for market share with the signing of a joint venture with Macquarie Bank.

Fairfax’s Internet arm f2 is making an aggressive push for market share with the signing of a joint venture with Macquarie Bank.

The publisher will use the content from the Australian Financial Review, Personal Investor and Shares among others to attract potential investors to a site which will offer online share trading, managed funds broking, wrap account and superannuation products amongst other services.

Both Macquarie and Fairfax will invest $20 million each over the next three years to develop the site which will also contain access to research and information provided by both partners.

A chief executive is being sought for the business, whose revenues will be generated through transaction fees, commission, advertising revenues and other value-added services.

Macquarie Bank will provide the research while editorial content will be provided by Fairfax.

Fairfax will take a cut of the trading fees and trailing commissions for managed funds products. It is a significant move on the financial services landscape where media companies look to grab market share from traditional distribution channels. It will also allow Fairfax to make some money from the 2.4 million site visits it records each week.

Macquarie Bank managing director Allan Moss says the group considers the joint venture with f2 a key move in its retail expansion strategy.

"Macquarie recently restructured its operations to focus on providing enhanced service to retail customers, through its new Financial Services Group (FSG) comprising around 900 of the bank's employees," he says.

"The effective use of on-line distribution of financial products will, over the next few years, be key in determining the success of Australia's retail financial institutions."

Macquarie Bank currently services more than 400,000 customers, has more than $10 billion in retail funds under management including $6.3 billion in Australia's largest cash management trust.