THE use of wrap services has grown rapidly over the past two years but there are no independent reports on the size of the market.
The main players are BT Portfolio Services and Macquarie Portfolio Services.
BT says it has about $4.2 billion under administration, mainly through 25 ‘badged’ wrap services. These include the Synergy Wrap (part owned by West Perth firm Gannon Growden Schonnel) which uses BT to provide transaction and administration systems, technology support and to act as custodian.
BT has recently launched a self-branded wrap, for smaller advisory firms that do not meet its criteria for establishing a badged service.
Macquarie’s strategy has been the opposite of BT’s. It has $2 billion under administration, mostly in its self-branded wrap, and has only recently started offering a badged service.
The funds administered by BT and Macquarie are small compared with the master funds, which administer $84 billion on behalf of 2.8 million investors, according to Rainmaker Information.
These figures include groups like Norwich Union Navigator, which started life as a master fund but now describes itself as an “investment portfolio service”.
Navigator, with more than $7 billion under administration, is also introducing a badging arrangement.