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THE MARKET
Colonial First State has been helping investors –
retail, wholesale and institutional – with their
investment needs since 1988. In that time, Colonial
First State has become one of Australia’s leading
wealth management brands, managing and
administeringmore thanA$120 billion on behalf of
over 700,000 investors inAustralia and globally.
At the retail investor level, Colonial First State
gains the majority of its business through financial
advisers. They go through a financial needs
analysis process with their clients and may
recommend Colonial First State’s products and
services. With institutional clients, Colonial First
State deals with Industry and Corporate super
funds, insurance companies, governments,
charities and foundations, schools and universities.
Over the past twenty years, the managed fund
industry has grown astronomically from less than
A$140 billion to over A$1 trillion. In the last ten
years or so, superannuation has become the primary
means of providing for retirement, andAustralians
have sought to increase their wealth through the
professional management, diversification and cost
effectiveness that managed funds can provide.
Up until relatively recently, investors seeking
diversification had to invest with several different
investment managers. To overcome this
administrative difficulty, ‘investment platforms’
evolved. These platforms provide a choice of
managed funds fromdifferent investmentmanagers
plus consolidated trading and reporting. These
were complex in structure at the beginning. To
address this, Colonial First State launched
‘FirstChoice’ in 2002, a ‘category killer’
portfolio management service which
revolutionised the platform
industry.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Colonial First State has been a highly recognised
investment manager from its early operations in
1988. After receiving several awards for its
Australian share investment management, it
became Money Management’s Fund Manager of
the Year in 1996, and has won a major ‘Fund
Manager of the Year’ award five times – Money
Management 1996, 1998, 1999, and Personal
Investor 2002 and 2005.
The breadth of Colonial First State’s investment
management expertise can be seen in the number
of individual awards the company has collected
over the years. Colonial First State is one of
Australia’s most consistently awarded investment
managers, winning 30major fundmanager awards
over the last 5 years to 2007.
Inmore recent times, investors and their financial
advisers have been placing increased importance
on efficient administration, reporting and online
functionality. Colonial First State’s FirstChoice
platformleads themarket in efficient administration,
which is one of the reasons why the ASSIRT/
Wealth Insights Adviser Market Trends Report
(2006) found that half of those financial advisers
surveyed used FirstChoice to meet the
investment needs of their clients.
HISTORY
In 1993, you could have
bought State Bank’s
funds management
business, First
State, for a
fewmillion dollars. In 1994, it was sold cheaply by
the NSW Government owner. Yet almost by
accident, in a few short years after it was acquired
by Colonial, it became the Australian financial
markets success story of the 1990s. By the dawn of
the new century, the funds manager was the focal
point of the Commonwealth Bank’s successful bid
for Colonial.
In the following years it was renamed Colonial
First State Investment Managers (Colonial First
State) and came to be regarded as being without
peer among Australian share fund managers.
In more recent times, two businesses have been
behind the Colonial First State brand. The new
investment management division, Colonial First
State Global Asset Management is pursuing a
global growth strategy, and Colonial First State
Investments focuses on theAustralian retail market.
THE PRODUCT
Colonial First State’s product range spans
investments, superannuation, retirement and
margin lending. Its broad investment management
expertise extends across Australian and global
shares, cash, fixed interest and credit, property
securities, hedge funds, direct property, private
equity, global resources and infrastructure.
With its investment management capabilities,
Colonial First State Global Asset Management
employs more than 190 investment professionals
located in Sydney, London, Auckland, Edinburgh,
NewYork, Singapore, Hong Kong and Jakarta. It’s
also represented in Beijing and Shenzen through
the First State Cinda joint venture.
FirstChoice, Colonial First State’s portfolio
management service, is available in four categories
– investments, personal super, employer super and
pensions. The key tenets behind the success of
FirstChoice – growing to over $40 billion in funds
under administration in only 5 years – are great
value for money, exceptional customer service and
relevant investment choice of both well-known
investment brands and specialist boutiques. In the
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