(Pictured: David Adiseshan)

David Adiseshan’s Southern Cross Financial Advisers is co-hosting a symposium on the US Venture Capital market and its opportunities for Australian investors with the US Consulate General in Sydney and Melbourne, April 21 and 22. Invitees are mainly super funds and family offices.

Southern Cross is a division of the financial planning group Meridien Wealth, part of the Premium Wealth Management dealer group, which Adiseshan acquired in 2012 and has been subsequently rebuilding into a more diversified advisory business.

The symposium reflects the traditionally poor state of Australia’s own VC sector, whereby most institutional investors are forced to go offshore – mainly the US – to gain exposures to new technological investment opportunities.

As part of its remit, Southern Cross aims to introduce investors of all shapes and sizes to alternative investments and strategies not readily obtained in Australia.

A current example is an investment in an unlisted US small-cap company with a six-year lock-up but with potential ROI of more than 25 per cent. While it is “internally diversified”, it also has, Adiseshan admits, potential to lose all the investors’ capital. That’s the world of VC.

For info: interested super fund managers and family office advisors can contact the organiser at: david@instividual.com.au