Research houses support JBWere following merger

ResearchhousesLonsdale Securities(Lonsec),Morningstarand InvestorWeb have maintained their support forJBWere, following its merger with Goldman Sachs, which was formally announced at the end of March.

InvestorWeb has retained its ‘exceptional buy’ rating for the new entity, Goldman Sachs JBWere, forseeing little impact on JBWere’s current investment management operations. Morningstar has also confirmed JBWere’s existing four star rating on the basis that the merger should strengthen and grow its investment manufacturing and distribution business.

And while retaining its ‘highly recommended’ rating for the JBWere International Fund, Lonsec is more cautious on the outlook for JBWere’s partnership with international equities fund manager, Wellington Management Company.

Lonsec head of managed funds research Grant Kennaway says, “I think there would be a fair bit of pressure on JBWeres to start distributing Goldman Sachs products.”

“There may be room in the market to distribute both international products, and there have been examples of companies doing both, but it’s early days in the relationship and we haven’t got sufficient information to tell what will happen.”

But JBWere head of sales and marketing Jim McKay says the relationship with Wellington for international equities is very settled and will not change.