Fisher Funds moves to woo advisers back

Fisher Funds is making a serious play to win back financial advisers after years of looking the other way. Speaking to GRTV, GM growth David Buell acknowledged that there has been a “lack of engagement” with the IFA space over the last few years, and Fisher Funds is planning to change that.

Fisher Funds has been on a long acquisition journey, having brought up Kiwi Wealth in 2022 and Aon NZ’s superannuation business in 2021. Buell says the company is now at the tail end of that, and advisers are going to be a key part of its focus on growth over the coming years.

“The message was received loud and clear - for the last few years, there has been a lack of engagement [with advisers],” Buell said. “It’s been great to be able to come in and start to turn that perception around.”

As part of this, Fisher Funds has built a new growth and distribution team, and has added BDMs in Christchurch and Auckland. It also attended this year’s Financial Advice NZ conference for the first time, which Buell said was a great first step in re-building trust with the adviser industry.

It is also consolidating its product suite to make it simpler - most notably, its KiwiSaver schemes.

“We had a product suite that definitely got quite fragmented,” Buell explained. “We had multiple KiwiSaver schemes and managed fund schemes. What is pleasing now is that we’ve got to a point now where we have one KiwiSaver scheme, and that instantly makes things a lot easier for advisers.”

“We’re taking steps in the right direction to make it incrementally easier to work with Fisher Funds and to understand our product and service offering.”

Fisher Funds has not been active in the adviser space until recently, and Buell admitted that this may have cost them clients.

“The Fisher Funds brand is so strong, and so you definitely have people engaging with external advisers,” he said. “It’s meant that possibly advisers have looked to go elsewhere, and that’s something we’ve very committed to turning around rapidly.”

For more insights, watch the full interview with David Buell on GRTV.