Our History

Dr Steven Vaughan & Associates key capabilities are investment consulting services to plan sponsors and specialist advisory services large asset pools, such as fund managers, master trusts, wrap account providers and other financial product vendors. We were established in 1998 to exploit synergies between these two key capabilities arising from the changing environment for plan sponsors and money managers in Australia and Japan. We believe that a specialist investment consultant combining superior research, client relationship skills and idea generation is best able to assist clients in these markets:

Australia

In Australia, with the sixth largest pension assets in the world, individual choice of investment strategy and retirement savings vehicle is changing sponsor attitudes to benefit provision in ways which challenge traditional investment consulting. For many sponsors and funds this will mean an investment management business model becomes the dominant paradigm. The rise of the fund member as retail investor presents new competitive challenges. In this environment, investment advisors will need to adapt in a variety of ways - from understanding the investment management business to assuming more delegated fiduciary responsibilities; to meeting employee education needs and bringing innovative packaged solutions for choice of fund.

Broader pressures in the financial services industry, including margin pressure and the search for distribution economies has led to increased focus on business positioning by managers. This has led to people economies and outsourcing of non-core functions. In this environment, funds managers are increasingly facing what we term the "competitive fix', particularly from large foreign players with access to greater resources and technologies. The drive for better investment performance and product differentiation has become more intensive.

Japan