Skandia sets sail for distant FUM horizon
Skandia has reported a strong rise in funds flowing through its platform, Skandia One, and is aiming to maintain this growth to push it beyond $5 billion by 2006, chief executive Ross Laidlaw said yesterday.
Laidlaw, speaking at a briefing for fund managers in Melbourne, said funds under management (FUM) with the platform now stood at $2.3 billion and by 2009, he hoped it would reach $9.5 billion.
He said these ambitious plans were based on a strong performance in 2004.
“In 2004 we will write $1.3 billion in sales, which is a 60 per cent increase over last year’s $800 million,” he said. Our revenue growth is up by 270 per cent while expenses only rose 5 per cent,” Laidlaw said.
The bulk of inflows continue to be generated from Victoria and New South Wales, with the states also accounting for a third of inflows into multi-manager products.
Skandia has also reported a 32 per cent growth in the number of dealer groups using its platform, with Laidlaw stating there were 439 dealer groups using the platform and 2,163 advisers.
Among the dealer groups using the platform are Professional Investment Services, Count, Aon, Capstone, Lonsdale and ABN Amro.
“We are now attracting larger dealer groups to using the platform, which we are told is down to service and business development support.
“But it is easy to go off the boil and lose business, so we have to work harder to keep growing,” he said.
As part of this move to remain on a growth curve, Skandia is working to improve the quality of its reports to clients and is boosting its research capabilities through a dedicated website for key advisers.
“We have been offering straight-through processing for a while, but there is little use by advisers. We will now work with planners to increase the take-up of the process,” Laidlaw said.
Other initiatives for 2005 include strengthening the relationships with fund managers and starting an adviser board.
Two planners from each state will sit on a board that will meet in Sydney and tell Skandia what the issues are with the platform and its service.
Laidlaw again ruled out buying distribution as he wanted no conflict of interest with the business, taking a swipe at many of Skandia’s competitors which own dealer groups.
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