Boutique investment bank Fortrend Securities has hired former Morgan Wealth Management Group financial adviser Joel Hewish to create and lead its wealth management business.
The division targets high net worth clients with a minimum $500,000 to invest and provides them with strategic and investment advice.
“I have worked with Fortrend Securities chief executive Joe Forster about building a business plan for the division for three months and we really have built it from the ground up,” Hewish said.
“We are really targeting high to ultra high net worth clients and the focus initially tends to be really around the strategy, so getting the tax structuring, tax planning, estate planning and insurance right.
“From that point it comes down to the investment advice and that’s primarily focused on setting and managing asset allocation and direct equities portfolios.”
He said the division had one other authorised representative, former Tolhurst adviser Mary Bourne, who has 30 years of industry experience.
“In terms of investments, we are looking at direct equities, direct fixed income securities and we can do a number of things here most private clients won’t be able to do, such as advise clients on derivatives and hedging strategies,” he said.
“And when it comes to setting allocation I work fairly closely with the international guys who are a separate division under Fortrend. We work to design a global direct equities portfolio.
“So when a client comes into the wealth management division we run our own model portfolios here and we use an exchange-traded fund portfolio or a relative value model portfolio and we put that in as a part of their broader asset allocation strategy.”
Fortrend Wealth Management had one office in Melbourne and hoped to expand as funds under management (FUM) grew, he said.
“We think there is a huge opportunity for advice to be provided to the baby boomers who are looking to transition into retirement, in particular small to medium enterprises, so we are doing a lot of strategy work with those guys,” he said.
