AXA extends property portfolio

AXA is preparing to boost the property related products it has on offer for advisers with both a domestic and international property fund in the pipeline at the group.

The local product will be a revamped version of a 10-year-old National Mutual hybrid vehicle that invests in both direct property and listed trusts, says AXA head of investment Elizabeth Foley.

Currently it has 70 per cent in direct property managed by Deutsche and the remainder in listed property trusts managed by Alliance Capital.

Part of the move to update the product will see redemption times, currently set at three and six-month intervals, changed to make it more suitable for platforms.

“We think the market still wants property investments so, in the first quarter of next year, we will launch the Australian property trust,” Foley says.

“We are also looking at global REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and we have the capacity to manage them within the Alliance group.”

Currently, AXA is looking at the mixture of property developers and managers in these types of trusts that it could bring in to form a global property trust.

Foley says the Australian investment portfolio could also be expanded to include other international AXA managers.

“We are looking at Rosenberg Investment Management’s equity alpha products for the Australian market,” she says.

The moves come as AXA celebrates the first anniversary of creating its wealth management division under Steve Burgess.

In its first year of operation, funds under management and administration have reached $50 billion.

That figure received a boost in September when AXA sold more than $100 million of annuities, Burgess says, compared to a normal month’s sales of about $15 million.

AXA’s risk business operates as a separate division and he says there are no plans to merge it into the wealth management unit.

“AXA sees risk as an equal force with wealth management, so there are no plans to put the two together,” Burgess says.