ANZ to report flat wealth management growth

ANZ Banking Groupis expected to reveal the flat performance of its wealth management joint venture withINGwhen it releases its half-yearly profit result tomorrow.

UBS Warburg banking analyst Jeff Emmanuel says ANZ's joint venture is only expected to deliver a slightly higher profit than it did in the previous half to September 2002.

He says the joint venture with ING has to date been the victim of the poor performance in equity markets, and the effects of these conditions would be felt across the entire sector.

“I think the sector more broadly is looking at a very subdued set of results this year,” he says.

The ANZ joint venture has done well to hedge out investment market risk, according to Emmanuel, and though this has had a positive influence he says the results will still only reveal modest growth.

Emmanuel says falling markets have impacted on the sector’s funds under management, which in turn have effected retail fund inflows, which he says were down 60 per cent in the December quarter.

ANZ says that it is unable to comment on its wealth management results until they are released to the market tomorrow.

The alliance with ING was formed in April last year and provides funds management and insurance products to ANZ's businesses under its own brand and to ING’s financial advisers under the ING brand.