Former BankWest and Perpetual executive, Robert Marie, has teamed up with Sydney-based fund managers Brian Eley (formerly of Patersons Securities) and Ben Griffiths to carve an unusual niche in the financial services industry.
Former BankWest and Perpetual executive, Robert Marie, has teamed up with Sydney-based fund managers Brian Eley (formerly of Patersons Securities) and Ben Griffiths to carve an unusual niche in the financial services industry.
Former BankWest and Perpetual executive, Robert Marie, has teamed up with Sydney-based fund managers Brian Eley (formerly of Patersons Securities) and Ben Griffiths to carve an unusual niche in the financial services industry.
Messrs Marie, Eley and Griffiths combined last year to buy Valuestream Asset Management, which provides two services – an equity investment fund and provision of outsourced services to other fund managers.
Valuestream has an interesting history. Previously known as Theta Asset Management, it was established in 2001 to run the Theta Enhanced Leaders Fund.
At its peak, the Theta fund had nearly $54 million in assets under management, with most of the money contributed by a small group of Perth investors.
The death of one of the investors led to the winding up of the fund and its investment manager, John Pickering, moving to Goldman Sachs JBWere.
The Theta fund changed its name to the Valuestream Australian Equities Fund last year, when it effectively started again from scratch.
The fund currently has $2.2 million under management and achieved gross returns (after expenses) of 32.2 per cent in the past year.
Most of the money is placed in a Macquarie Bank index fund, which is designed track the ASX/S&P300 Index. The balance is in small company funds run by Macquarie and Eley Griffiths Group.
As well as running the Australian Equities Fund, Valuestream Asset Management is a ‘responsible entity’; that is, it is licensed to issue managed investment schemes, which can allow boutique fund managers to access the wider retail market.
Its first external client is Cottesloe-based Meme Asset Management, which launched an Australian equities fund in April this year.
Meme is run by former engineer and IBM systems analyst Greg Jude, who developed a trends-based technical trading system.
West Perth-based advisory firm Kingston Capital provided $7 million of seed capital, and Meme plans to seek additional funds from retail and wholesale investors once it has established a track record.
Mr Marie said Valuestream provided multiple services to Meme, including fund accounting, registry, compliance, custodians and Product Disclosure Statement production.
It also coordinates legal, audit and insurance services.
“Typically, the cost of getting these services separately stops many managers starting up unless they are able to get to an economic size very quickly,” Mr Marie said.