Insight Investment looks at retail investors

BNY Mellon’s asset manager, Insight Investment is reaching out to retail investors across Australia, with a focus on engagements with key dealer groups and a new media campaign launch.

The firm, which has been operating in Australia since 1996 and was previously known as Pareto Partners, is now approaching the local retail investor market with its two strategies which would include the Global Absolute Return Bond Fund, targeting over the medium to long terms a return before fees of three per cent in excess of the Bloomberg AusBond Bank Bill index, and its Diversified Inflation Plus Fund which would aim to deliver long-term returns of at least five per cent per annum in excess of inflation, over a rolling five-year period.

Recently, the company has also hired Rob Thompson, a senior adviser distribution professional, to help expand its distribution business and increase the engagement process with the key dealer groups.

Insight Investment’s director, Australia and New Zealand, Bruce Murphy, said there were three parts in terms of how the company was planning to handle it.

“There is three parts to the distribution equation. There are dealer groups and we will be certainly engaging with them and we are doing it in the most efficient way possible.

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“We basically have visitations by our portfolio managers on [a] regular basis and we are engaging with the dealer groups, including the dealer group researchers.

“Also, engaging with second part of the equation is the researchers which is basically Lonsec, Zenith and Morningstar.

“And the last part of the equation is with the platforms and all the key platforms and we’ve got the inclusion of our products already on netwealth and HUB24 for example and we are looking to extend that platform reach,” he said.

Murphy stressed that the firm’s key strategies had been already rated by Lonsec and Zenith which was expected to facilitate the dialogue with those advisers who were using these particular research agencies.

Additionally, the company said it had another rating process coming over the next few months which would help increase its product recognition.

Murphy said the brand’s recognition among this group of investors was “at its early stage”.

“In terms of trying to get our story out there and brand recognised we had started a campaign for the main trade print and online and we also started doing more work on the social media. And we are getting a really good pick and visitations and viewings.

“Australia is a very competitive market so you are breaking through a number of messages and a number of competitors. You’ve had to have unique positioning and the ability to get that message across in a simple way,” he added.

According to him, one of the key things was to build on “the most solid and important framework”. This would include Insight‘s “robust institutional quality products” which had delivered through the global financial crisis (GFC) and have been present on the Australian market for over a decade.

“Many fund managers were well-tested in the GFC and the fact that we had our product on the market then and they held up well and they performed both then and they continue to is a great endorsement for this measure capability and also our capability to cope with the volatility and uncertainty in market.”