Foreign investments from Asian countries into Australia are set to rise, according to Tyndall's new parent company Nikko Asset Management (Nikko AM).
"If you think you were attractive before, you should just see the amount of money waiting to come here," Nikko AM head of international and institutional businesses Charles Beazley said yesterday.
"Over $50 billion has come from Japan to Australia - we've brought some of it - and there is an awful lot more behind it," he said.
Beazley said that especially Japanese investors were interested in the Australian market, because they were looking for interest rates and safe returns as an increasingly larger part of the population entered the decumulation phase.
"You have an interest rate, which is hugely interesting to the Japanese investors who don't have things like that," he said.
"You have well-run companies, you have regulators that are well-respected and you have financial stability. This is going to be an interesting period, and my sense is that Australia as an investment destination is going to heat up quite a lot over the next few years," he said.
Beazley said that the Australian asset management market itself was also attractive, because of the mandated superannuation fund growth.
"Every one minute and 18 seconds there is a new Australian, who will do three things: they will get a job, they will pay taxes and they will have to contribute between 9 and 12 per cent to their superannuation scheme. We like those kinds of demographics," he said.
Nikko AM completed the takeover of Tyndall from Suncorp on 1 March this year, and the acquisition should be seen as part of the broader expansion strategy of Nikko to become a pre-eminent asset manager in Asia.
"As a result of this acquisition and another we are doing up in Singapore, where we are buying DBS Asset Management, we will have $150 billion assets under management," he said.
"Our aspiration is to be the world finest Asian asset management company, headquartered in Asia. We have no aspiration to be a third-tier global [firm]," he said.
"Australia is 25 per cent of the Asia ex-Japan MSCI; if you want to have an opinion on the Asian markets I really don't understand how you can do that without having a strong opinion on what is going on in the Australian market," he said.
Beazley said Nikko AM is in all of its acquisitions adamant about keeping local management and brand in place.
"We are doing it on a multi-local basis, which means we passionately belief that the people on the ground need to make the decisions," Beazley said. "We don't feel comfortable taking decisions in India, we think Indians should take those decisions," he said.
