T. Rowe Price ramps up global equity distribution
Global investment company T. Rowe Price will boost its presence within the Australian market, focusing on providing global equity investments to retail platforms, independent financial advisers and institutional investors along with superannuation providers.
“Platinum previously had this market cornered, but many are now looking to reduce their reliance on them,” Murray Brewer, T. Rowe Price’s director Australia and New Zealand, said.
Having tentatively established a domestic presence in 2004 with the opening of a modest Sydney office, T. Rowe Price’s approach has been typically measured, or as Brewer explained it: “[as] thorough, alert and patient . . . T. Rowe Price is very methodical.”
Before venturing headlong into the Australian market, which was identified as a key area in 2001, it won its first local institutional client in 2003 and then established a Sydney office with one employee seconded from the United States in 2004.
The door to the greater global market had been closed by a long-running joint venture with Fleming from 1979, which only ended in 2000 when T. Rowe Price bought out the venture and established a dedicated marketing and service company, T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services.
Since then, it has grown the local business to over $1 billion in assets under management, spread across nine clients including three superannuation funds and a growing book of third-party institutional clients and platforms.
According to Brewer, “[it is] currently looking for long-term business relationships” by providing a single global equity product “to get traction among a number of dealer groups and institutions”.
“Once you broaden the product range, the cost of supporting them becomes expensive and you lose your focus,” he said.
In third-party distribution, largely via platform providers, he sees most opportunities within the top 10 dealer groups, particularly among selected boutiques, with a number already on T. Rowe Price’s books.
Within the institutional space, Brewer sees few opportunities outside the top 50 superannuation funds and top 30 fund-of-fund providers.
Speaking about the global equities market, he said: “there’s an incumbency that’s been there for quite some time. [Investors] are all having another look at [their managers] at the moment”.
He believes they now want managers without constraints on alpha-delivery, and that “going forward, volatility in global equities will remain at low levels” as stability has returned to the space over the past five years.
Recommended for you
Insignia Financial has issued a statement to the ASX regarding a potential bid from a third global private equity business to acquire the firm.
More than 30 advisers fell off the FAR during the Christmas and New Year period, according to Wealth Data, with half of these coming from licensee giant Entireti.
With next-generation heirs unlikely to retain their family’s financial advisers after receiving an inheritance, Capgemini has explored how firms can work with younger generations to maintain a relationship.
The use of technology and data analytics will be a way for advice firms to grow in 2025, according to Adviser Ratings, with those who are using it successfully reporting 10 per cent higher profit margins.
