The best funds for accessing wealth management exposure


Only five funds have exposure to wealth management firms, despite firms like Centrepoint Alliance returning 230%.
Last week, Money Management wrote that Centrepoint Alliance had returned 230% over the last 12 months thanks to its transformation strategy, which made it the best-performing wealth management.
Fiducian returned 58%, CountPlus returned 32%, IOOF returned 1.4% while AMP Ltd lost 11%.
According to FE Analytics, there were no funds in the Australian Core Strategies universe which held Centrepoint Alliance or Fiducian in their top 10 holdings.
However, there were three funds which had exposure to IOOF and two which had exposure to AMP.
These were Lazard Defensive Australian Equity, OC Premium Small Companies, VanEck Small Cap Dividend Payers holding IOOF. Meanwhile, Allan Gray Australia Stable and Lazard Select Australian Equity held exposure to AMP.
In an update, the Lazard management confirmed AMP had detracted from its recent performance and that they had encouraged the board to complete the sale of its private markets business.
“AMP’s share price declined over April 2021, as AMP broke off negotiations with Ares Funds Management regarding the sale of AMP Capital’s private markets business, after the two parties could not agree on the offer price.
“We, as well as other shareholders, had encouraged them to complete these negotiations one way or another in a timely manner, with an emphasis on long term value, rather than short-term share price effect. With the spin-out of AMPC Private Markets now about 12 months away, the possibility of an immediate catalyst that focusses on the value of the group receded to that timeframe, leading to the stock price decline.”
The best-performing of these funds over one year to 31 March, 2021, was OC Premium Small Companies which had returned 65.1% followed by the VanEck fund which returned 44%.
These two funds were also the best performers over three years with returns of 29.4% and 17.3% respectively.
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