Zenith goes back to back
Zenith Investment Partners has claimed the coveted title of Money Management Ratings House of the Year for the second year in succession.
Having edged closer and closer to the title over the last number of years, the Melbourne-based research house finally took the top spot last year, and held firm in 2015 to win the title again.
The research house topped the dealer group part of the Money Management Rate the Raters survey, leading the way across six categories, having ended the fund manager survey neck and neck with Lonsec.
Zenith director, David Wright, attributed the firm's success to the low rate of turnover among staff.
"It's great to go back-to-back," he said. "We've been fortunate enough to have virtually no staff turnover in the investment analyst team, which is quite a challenge, because research can tend to be a bit of a training ground for careers in other parts of the industry.
"It is very important to retain people — experienced people — and build up the level of intellectual property (IP) that you have by reviewing managers from year to year.
"If you have staff turnover, a lot of that IP can walk out the door, so I think that's augured pretty well for us with the fund managers."
Wright added that the continuity of staff in the company also provided benefits to dealer groups, when it comes to providing investment committee services.
"It's not a role you can allocate to a junior analyst," he said.
"But the hand holding aspect of providing portfolio and investment committee services to clients, I feel, helps us rate pretty well on client feedback, because they see us on a face-to-face basis, they have greater clarity on what we're doing."
AUTHOR
Nicholas O'Donoghue
Recommended for you
The regulator has convened multiple sitting panels of the FSCP regarding AFSL breach reports which have identified poor superannuation advice from financial advisers.
One licensee has lost 27 advisers in the past week, now sitting at zero, according to the latest Wealth Data figures.
AFCA remains firm on its stance that industry failures occurring in the financial advice sector are fundamentally an advice issue, rather than a product issue.
A Sydney financial adviser has been permanently banned from providing any financial services, with the regulator deriding his “lack of integrity, trustworthiness and professionalism”.
