TSB mum on talk of Fisher Funds interest

Investing

TSB Bank boss says looking at opportunities to enter the KiwiSaver market but won't comment on report of interest in Fisher Funds

25th Jan 13, 9:20am by Gareth Vaughan

TSB Bank managing director Kevin Murphy is declining to comment on a report the New Plymouth-based bank is looking to buy into Auckland-based KiwiSaver provider Fisher Funds Management.

The NZ Herald's Stock Takes column reported that, with Fisher having expanded in recent years by buying other KiwiSaver providers including Huljich Wealth Management, the reason for building scale could be to sell with "speculation centring around TSB Bank buying in."

Asked by interest.co.nz whether TSB was looking at Carmel Fisher's Fisher Funds, Murphy said: "I'm unable to comment."

TSB's not a direct KiwiSaver provider currently but has an association with SuperLife. According to Morningstar, Fisher had NZ$660 million of KiwiSaver funds under management, as of December, making it the eighth biggest KiwiSaver provider.

"All financial institutions are looking at opportunities in the KiwiSaver market," Murphy added.

However, he wouldn't comment on whether TSB had, or was, looking to buy into existing providers.

"We continue to look at opportunities," Murphy said.

Carmel Fisher hasn't returned calls seeking comment.

News of TSB's ambitions to step up its involvement in KiwiSaver comes as another bank, BNZ, registers its own KiwiSaver scheme.

Founded in 1998 by managing director Carmel Fisher and her husband Hugh, Fisher Funds' website says it now has more than NZ$1 billion under management on behalf of about 130,000 investors. According to Companies Office records, the businesses major shareholders are Carmel and Hugh Fisher with 47.1%, and Woodward Funds Management with 26%. Woodward is associated with the interests of the late Lloyd Morrison and owned by Morrison Nominees Ltd.

Companies Office records also show Fisher Funds produced profit after tax of NZ$1.765 million in the year to March 2012, down from NZ$4.3 million the previous year. Annual net income was NZ$13.5 million, of which NZ413.4 million stemmed from fees. As of last March, the business had assets of NZ$24.6 million and liabilities of NZ$19.4 million. Included in the liabilities was NZ$17.2 million of bank debt with ANZ. Notes to the financial statements say an ANZ loan matures in May 2014 and that Fisher Funds had paid an average interest rate of 6.7% on its bank debt in the year to March 2012.

Fisher Funds got Financial Markets Authority approval last April to transfer over about 3,700 Credit Union KiwiSaver scheme members with a net value of NZ$30 million. Separately, Fisher Funds paid NZ$20.9 million for Huljich Wealth Management's KiwiSaver business in 2011.

Of its existing KiwiSaver relationship with SuperLife TSB says: "As part of our promise to bring real service to banking, TSB Bank is committed to being involved in KiwiSaver. It is with this in mind that we have carefully chosen a KiwiSaver provider to ensure your retirement savings will be working for you. SuperLife Limited is 100% New Zealand owned and a KiwiSaver scheme provider. TSB Bank's KiwiSaver solution is provided through SuperLife Limited's KiwiSaver scheme and offers employers, employees, non-employees and children, low cost professionally managed retirement savings funds."

(Update adds further detail on Fisher Funds).

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10 Comments

by moa man | 25th Jan 13, 5:10pm 1359087034

Wake up Kiwi Savers , or should I say KiwiSuckers.

You are being bled dry, slowly but surely.

"All financial institutions are looking at opportunities in the KiwiSaver market," Murphy added.

Ask yourself why all financial institutions are interested in your hard earned money.

That thing you do, from 9 to 5, how does it feel to have a portion drained away every day, by default?

by moa man | 25th Jan 13, 5:47pm 1359089223

Hey, look at that flash car on the fisherfunds website, and all those white teeth as well.

Must have cost a fortune.

http://www.fisherfunds.co.nz

Where is your money going, KiwiSavers?

Got a car like that have you? Or did you just pay for it, for them, via fees.

by MortgageBelt | 25th Jan 13, 10:12pm 1359105146

Moa man _ we'll let you know when my wife & i turn 65 & cash up 265000+ with minimal pay deductions .....
If it disappears well not much of personal savings anyhow.

by Austin Fisher | 26th Jan 13, 1:29pm 1359160150

I know that they always say "don't feed the trolls", but...moa man...

My current KiwiSaver balance is about 2.5 x my own contributions after 5 years. I think that's terrific. I will keep an eye on the fees - absolutely - but for now, they seem to be at a reasonable level.

So why am I a sucker?

(btw I am not related to the Fisher Funds people that you're having a go at)

by Stephen Hulme | 26th Jan 13, 3:31pm 1359167471

So why am I a sucker?

No, you are just one of the greedy entitled, the rest of us are the suckers.

Expenditure on NZ GDP in current prices over the past five years rose 17.87% or ~3.57% per annum.

Bill Gross of Pimco fame noted in a recent Investment Outlook:

Th(e)is long-term history of inflation adjusted returns from stocks shows a persistent but recently fading 6.6% real return (known as the Siegel constant) since 1912 that Generations X and Y perhaps should study more closely. Had they been alive in 1912 and lived to the ripe old age of 100, they would have turned what on the graph appears to be a $1 investment into more than $500 (inflation adjusted) over the interim. No wonder today’s Boomers became Siegel disciples. Letting money do the hard work instead of working hard for the money was an historical inevitability it seemed.

Yet the 6.6% real return belied a commonsensical flaw much like that of a chain letter or yes – a Ponzi scheme. If wealth or real GDP was only being created at an annual rate of 3.5% over the same period of time, then somehow stockholders must be skimming 3% off the top each and every year. If an economy’s GDP could only provide 3.5% more goods and services per year, then how could one segment (stockholders) so consistently profit at the expense of the others (lenders, laborers and government)?

You and your KiwiSaver scheme seem to skimming from the rest of us more than most.

by moa man | 26th Jan 13, 7:12pm 1359180746

You are a sucker because you have forfeited control of your own money, to those who couldn't give a crap about you.

Go down to your KiwiSaver provider on Tuesday and try to withdraw your 2.5 x contributions.

Let me know how you get on, then tell me who lives under a bridge. Because i can assure you, it's not me.

by Austin Fisher | 27th Jan 13, 10:24am 1359235484

Excellent ! I'm a sucker for cynically skimming off the back of productive industry and I am also a sucker for not investing in FX, the worlds least useful and productive way to make money.

I know the deal with KiwiSaver, if I go to my provider on Tuesday, they will say that I am not entitled to a withdrawal yet. I joined KiwiSaver knowing that. If I died on Tuesday, my family would get the money. All of it, no tax, no fees.

if KiwiSaver was accessible at any time, I would have spent it all on lollies and comics.

My employer wouldn't have paid me extra anyway if I hadn't joined. Member tax credits are not small and payouts are not taxed. My fund has grown in excess of inflation, net of fees and tax.

Generational re-calibrations of earning expectations from equities is all very interesting (I guess...) but that talk doesn't guide me into whether I should be in KiwiSaver or not.

Employees in KiwiSaver are building up accounts through productive tax-paying work. It's the only investment that has such a wholesome relationship with productivity.

If you don't invest in KiwiSaver, I am sure you have your reasons. I won't call you a sucker.

I find the tribalism and the aggression over something so pedestrian as long term investment planning quite amusing.

by KH | 28th Jan 13, 10:20am 1359321635

Go Austin. Good to see some sense.

by moa man | 28th Jan 13, 6:06pm 1359349563

Such a shame you couldn't withdraw your 2.5 x contributions this Tuesday. Because now ..

Default provider AMP wants the Government to review the first-home scheme, saying homebuyers should only be able to withdraw any savings they have made above the minimum 2 per cent of salary. Government contributions, the minimum employee savings and employer contributions would remain locked away.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8215646/AMP-urges-dropping-of-Kiw….

Ofcourse not all KiwiSavers entered the scheme to save for a first home loan.

But then again, most Kiwi Savers are low to average income earners, who when told it's the default option, just go along with it. Which was the point of making it an opt-out system, rather than an opt-in.

Kiwi Savers funds have been captured, and now the captors are lobbying to change the rules, already. What a surprise.

by Austin Fisher | 28th Jan 13, 7:08pm 1359353284

If it was a press release from AMP, I would agree. Boringly, it was just part of AMP's contribution to the recent Govt Consultation paper. There is another 28 of them.

The full list is here http://www.med.govt.nz/business/business-law/current-business-law-work/… .