Darren Howlin
Brisbane-based qualitative manager research firm mfund Research is expanding into New Zealand. It has partnered with the NZX-owned FundSource and has completed reviews of about half-a-dozen managers.
According to Darren Howlin, head of mfund Research (known as Research IP in New Zealand) the firm has embarked on a busy schedule of NZ manager reviews with a handful – including Salt Funds Management, Devon Funds Management, and Pathfinder – already finalised.
He said Research IP had also lined up meetings with a raft of managers this side of Christmas such as BT NZ, ASB, Mint Asset Management, Kingtide, ANZ and Quaystreet.
“We should have [qualitative reports] on 25 to 30 managers eventually,” Howlin said.
FundSource inked a deal with Research IP this October, months after the NZX-owned researcher abandoned its in-house qualitative local retail fund reporting function in favour of quant-only joint venture with the UK-headquarter FE (Financial Express).
Howlin said the Research IP reports would “engage with the market in a very different way” than traditional qualitative fund research documents.
He said the reports would follow a question-and-answer format, showing both the manager response and the Research IP evaluation (that may be further broken down to reveal individual input from the three underlying analysts).
“By posing questions as part of the report framework we tease out some pretty important information,” Howlin said. “Underpinning this approach is our aim to be clear, concise, efficient and objective.”
He said New Zealand fund managers have welcomed the arrival of Research IP in the country following the exit of a number of providers in recent years including van Eyk Research and Lonsec. At the same time, the remaining retail fund house, Morningstar, has scaled back its presence in New Zealand.
Prior to launching mfund Research in mid-2014, Howlin was a general manager of Lonsec Fiscal.
– David Chaplin, Investment News NZ