Sydney-based portfolio manager, Peak Investment Partners, today announced the launch of Peak Invest, its new online investment solution, to reach and serve a new generation of clients.
Peak Invest will initially offer access to its Australian Equities Growth Portfolio, which invests in the ASX-300 and targets a long-term gross total return of 7-8%. The minimum amount to get started is only $10,000. In Q4 this calendar year, Peak Invest will also offer its International Growth Portfolio, which invests in direct shares on the US and London exchanges.
Managing Director, Ian Wenham, said that the firm was launching Peak Invest to meet the growing demand for providing a professional investment service to a broader audience, particularly to those who were not yet able to access the firm’s traditional bespoke service for High-Net-Worth clients.
“The adult children of our clients are keen to learn and are actively looking for professional investing assistance in the early stage of their wealth-creation journey. Unfortunately, the initial upfront cost of personal advice makes this all but impossible for most of them. That’s why we have developed our online investing solution, Peak Invest – a cost-effective way for the next generation of clients to access our managed investment portfolios,” Wenham said.
Wenham added that with $3.5 trillion of wealth passing through the generations over the next two decades, progressive wealth management and advice firms were acting now to reach and help younger investors.
“We think it’s fanciful for firms to expect loyalty from the children of existing clients later in life if their message to them today is essentially: “Sorry, we can’t help you – come back when you’re wealthy”. The technology exists to reach and help them now, and we feel it’s part of our obligation to existing clients to have a solution for the broader family. And on the theme of the family, we’re particularly excited by the ability to publish financial wellbeing content to users of Peak Invest. Wenham said Peak was attracted to using a platform that enabled us to communicate to younger investors the rationale behind the investment decisions we’re making.
The Peak Invest solution is being delivered in collaboration with Melbourne-based investment platform, OpenInvest. The company’s head of distribution, Ravi Verma, said that the firm was proud to be partnering with such a highly regarded firm that saw the strategic logic in reaching a broader audience of aligned investors.
“We now have [33] firms signed up for whom we configure and underpin their own digital investing solution. What they all have in common is a recognition that beyond their existing aging client base, there’s a huge audience of ambitious and aspirational consumers out there, who are comfortable using technology to access and pay for professional expertise. These are not kids gravitating from their first foray using a cheap trading app, but come from all age demographics, with growing, and in many cases already sizable, levels of wealth”, Verma said.
Verma drew attention to a recent Australian Financial Review article highlighting that there are nearly two million Australians under the age of 45 with an average portfolio balance outside of Super of $700,000, who are looking for professional help.
Wenham noted that with the launch of Peak Invest the firm would never have to turn away a prospective client again.
“We now have a solution for everyone, which is what we’ve always wanted. It’s exciting – the wealth management industry has traditionally been slow to adopt and leverage new technologies – but we now feel energized to be able to grow our business into market segments that have been closed to us until now. We are working on several strategic initiatives for different ways we can deploy Peak Invest – watch this space”, Wenham concluded.
