WAM Capital, which is a listed investment company, believes that before FOFA they had been at a competitive disadvantage to those managing commission-based funds.
“If they [advisers] recommend a listed investment company like WAM Capital, they would not receive any commission for that,” WAM Capital’s chief investment officer Chris Stott told InvestorDaily.
“With the FOFA service model, we effectively see the listed companies space, and companies like WAM capital being on a level playing field with the managed funds.”
The company has made a strategic decision to target the adviser market.
“There was an incentive internally to grow the size of the company and to be relevant to the financial planner space, and we have seen a great deal of interest in our particular products compared to where we were teo or three years ago,” Mr Stott stated.
In addition to the strong interest from financial planners, the company has grown through other methods.
“We had a big year. We did a placement ... where we raised $38 million,” he said.
The group also completed the acquisition of another listed investment company in Premium Investors Limited, which added another $60 million, he added.
“And we have an option issue outstanding at the moment, which has managed to see inflows of around $200 million to date,” Mr Stott said.
All this, coupled with their investment portfolio being up almost 23 per cent on the year, has led to WAM capital more than doubling its funds under management to around $500 million.
