Global multi-asset manager, PineBridge Investments, is aiming to promote its brand among the adviser channel and financial planners in Australia as the firm is pushing the strategy to reach out to more retail investors.
PineBridge, whose current investor base in Australia mostly comprised institutions, said it had spent the past few months building its more ‘retail kind of adviser channel’ to help market its fund, which was already available on platforms, towards financial planners.
According to PineBridge’s Hong Kong-based portfolio manager, global multi-asset, Sunny Ng, PineBridge did “tick all the boxes” for the institutions due to its combination of strong process, very good performance and reasonable price, but there was still a low recognition of its brand among the retail market.
“We have a stable governance process and that’s very good for institutions but in the retail market they don’t know who PineBridge is so that’s why we are trying to build that up,” he said.
“We met a lot of investors over the last two weeks and are getting pretty positive feedback but what we don’t have is a big brand.”
According to him, wholesale investors were also acting as gatekeepers because even though the fund was available on platforms and looked attractive from an investment perspective, it did not manage to generate enough attention from the adviser network due to its low brand recognition.
As far as the strategy was concerned, Ng admitted there was still some confusion in the market about what multi-asset really was and how to best use the strategy. However, he stressed that a lot of advisory firms were starting to blend different styles of multi-asset together, including growth and defensive styles, while advisers were picking up discussions with their clients on how this strategy could potentially fit into their portfolios.
“Everyone needs to get used to it,” he said.
“While the idea of the value manager or growth manager is now pretty much in the common vernacular that has not happened yet in the multi-asset. That’s coming but that’s the process.”
PineBridge is an intermediate-term investor which tends to hold assets for between one and three years.
“For us multi-asset is all about having wide asset class ranges,” Ng said.
“What we are doing is we are selecting assets, selecting essentially beta-returns or underlying asset classes, which we believe will outperform over time.”
At the moment, the company serves wholesale and institutional clients, including large superannuation schemes and professional advisers. In Australia, PineBridge is the investment manager of the PineBridge Global Dynamic Asset Allocation Fund.
Individual investors can invest in the fund through independent financial advisers and Perpetual Trust Services Limited is the Australian licensed Responsible Entity of the Fund.
