In a move which will deliver a product manufacturing capability in Australia, Mellon GlobalInvestments Australia Limitedand have extended their joint venture arrangement to cement Mellon as the distributor for all asset management products in Australia while WestLB focuses on manufacture.

The Australian operation of WestLB Mellon Asset Management is a specialist Australian equity manager.

The arrangement, announced to Super Review by Mellon’s Australian head, and WestLB Mellon Asset Management managing director, comes just over 12 months after the two companies announced their 50/50 global joint venture in April, last year.

As a result of the new arrangements, has been appointed as director of institutional business development for Mellon Global Investment in Australia.

Vaughan said the new structure was the sensible evolutionary next step from the initial joint venture arrangement.

“The new structure allows us to focus purely on investment management, while taking advantage of the significant new business development resources of Mellon Global Investments in Australia,” he said.

Gruver said the strategy was consistent with Mellon’s existing institutional investment subsidiaries and would fill something of a gap in Mellon’s manufacturing capabilities in Australia.

Vaughan and Gruver said that the net result of the new arrangement was that Mellon would be responsible for distributing the asset management products of both the joint venture and Mellon’s 12 specialist asset management firms.

Vaughan said that the arrangement made good sense given the relative capabilities of the two companies.

Vaughan and Gruver said they believed the initiative would be well-received by the market, as there was already a good understanding of the two companies both individually and via their joint venture arrangement.