IOOF is poised to increase its marketing thrust into the corporate superannuation market following its takeover of AM Corp and the launch of its Portfolio Services (IPS) platform.
Grant Wilson, head of corporate super at IOOF, says an enormous amount of work has been done since IOOF took over AM Corp. There was, he says, some overlap between the two groups’ now discontinued MAX and LifeTrack master trust brands and these were closely examined.
“We picked the eyes out of the two groups and have come up with something new and better”, he adds.
According to Wilson, IOOF’s advantages were its administration platform and on the investment side, its stake in Perennial Investment Partners. AM Corp brought its multi-manager line-up and of course, its scale in the corporate super arena.
Following the take-over, IOOF now has assets of $1.3 billion in its corporate super business. Of this, $1.2 billion came from AM which boasted corporate fund outsourcing wins like Flight Centre and the Optus Superannuation Plan. With assets of $300 million and 9000 members, Optus is now IOOF’s biggest corporate super client.
Wilson says: “Scale helps a lot when you are dealing with investment managers and in reducing administration costs. It also helped us on insurance. Our insurance was re-quoted when we put the two groups together and we got a better deal.”
But, he adds, it’s not the numbers that really matter when it comes to scale. What’s more important is profitability and using scale to enhance efficiencies.
IOOF’s new offering is designed for small to medium sized companies with two to 50 employees, and assets anywhere up to $50 million. And despite some large names, Wilson says the bulk of the funds in the offering are from small companies. Most of the business is brought in by advisers associated with accountants.
According to Wilson, IOOF got a good deal out of AM Corp and is on the look out for the next lucrative purchase.
