Vanguard will no longer offer customized solutions or segregated accounts to institutional clients in Australia and New Zealand.
Instead, the money management firm will focus on individual investors, a statement said Thursday. The firm, which runs a total $6.2 trillion in assets under management, has been managing money in Australia for more than 20 years, with the firm's strategy focus increasingly "on improving outcomes for individual investors either directly or through the financial intermediaries that serve them," the statement said.
Continued development of the retail business "requires us to focus our long-term efforts on opportunities that enable us to better serve direct investors and their advisers. As a result, Vanguard has taken the business decision to no longer offer segregated mandate accounts (run for one client rather than pooled assets) or customized solutions as an investment vehicle to institutional investors in Australia and New Zealand," the statement added.
Institutional clients in the countries will still be offered Vanguard's pooled strategies. The firm will work with existing institutional segregated clients "to ensure a smooth transition program is put in place and find the best possible solution to their existing mandates."
Vanguard's Australia and New Zealand assets under management and its institutional AUM could not be learned. A spokesman said the transition is expected to take 12 to 24 months.
Earlier this year, Vanguard said it would shut its Hong Kong office and its sales and client service office in Tokyo, which primarily serviced institutional clients.
