Victorian advisory firm partners with OpenInvest on online solution

hmh Advisory has announced the launch of its new online wealth management solution that aims to assist business owners and the next generation of investors in their wealth-building journey. 

hmh onlineinvest holds four diversified portfolios across high growth, ethical focus, growth and balanced. 

Each requires a minimum investment of $5,000 and will be managed by the investment committee of the firm. 

According to hmh (formerly Haines Muir Hill), the “efficient, affordable and dynamic direct platform” has been built to meet the needs of accounting clients who are not yet ready or not requiring full personal finance advice services, and the children and grandchildren of the firm’s clients. 

It added that hmh onlineinvest is consistent with the firm’s mission of serving the holistic needs of the busy small-to-medium business owners who make up the majority of its clients.

VIEW ALL

View all

“Since our founding over 45 years ago, hmh Advisory has sought to help our clients to successfully manage their businesses and feel confident about their financial future. That includes helping business owners invest their hard-earned money to provide for themselves and their family’s future,” said managing director, Kristian Lunardello.

“However, not every client wants or needs our traditional personal advice experience. 

“Our new online solution means we can give our clients a choice in how they wish to access our wealth management expertise.”

Eli Staub, director and investment committee member for the solution, highlighted that personal financial advice is often beyond the reach of many young adults.

“We can now let the children and other relations of our clients know that they have a simple and lower-cost avenue to access our wealth management expertise, to help them invest in a sensible way. There’s a right way and a wrong way to invest, and if more young people can learn about the benefits of investing via professionally managed, diverse portfolios – rather than trading – the better,” Staub said.

According to the latest ASX investor study, the 25–49-year-old cohort makes up almost half (49 per cent) of the Australian investor population. The 18–24-year-old cohort comprises just shy of 10 per cent. 

The hmh onlineinvest solution joins a number of such collaborations by OpenInvest, such as Peak Invest, Spark Invest and Pascoe Partners Invest, to serve a broader number of clients.

Ravi Verma, head of distribution at OpenInvest, explained: “The dramatic loss of advisers across the industry in recent years and the work required to service a client under the traditional personal advice model means that wealth management firms wanting to reach and help a broader audience must leverage innovative technology.

“We are in the earliest stages of the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history, with $3.5 trillion of wealth passing through the generations over the next two decades, strategic wealth management firms are reaching out to young people now, and not waiting until they meet their criteria for serving HNW clients via personal advice.”

He added: “I’m fond of framing this opportunity/threat equation in pretty stark terms. If firms aren’t trying to help young adults now, then how can they expect them to come to you when they have grown their wealth, including via inheritance? This cohort will have every right to respond by saying, ‘Where were you when I needed you, before I became wealthy?’”