Editor's note: On 22 August 1988, an accountant named Chris Cuffe joined First State Fund Managers (FSFM) at the age of 28, shortly after it had commenced managing $300 million of internal State Bank deposit funds and staff super. He was CEO within 18 months and by the time he left 14 years later, it had become Colonial First State and it was managing over $70 billion. This week marks the 30 year anniversary of that joining date. After Chris left in 2002, Colonial First State was split into its funds management side and platform/retail distribution side. Going full circle, the Commonwealth Bank plans to put these businesses back together in the float of Colonial First State next year.
In this article I provide some personal reflections on my time working for one of Australia's funds management success stories.
Over 20 years ago, I became Head of Fixed Interest at a small investment firm that many people thought was about to be gobbled up by another. The FSFM business had been assigned zero value in the acquisition of the State Bank of NSW by the Colonial Mutual Group a couple of years earlier. Colonial at the time expected that all funds management activities would be taken up by its Melbourne-based Colonial Investment Management.
Was I crazy to join this tiny business?
Nevertheless, I left a senior role at the firm that was at the time widely regarded as the best fixed income house in Australia to join this little business that had about $1 billion in cash and $28 million (sic - million, not billion) in its bond fund. While some in the industry who knew FSFM well were encouraging about my move, many thought I was crazy.
FSFM had commenced in 1988 as mostly a cash and fixed income investor, to manage the approved deposit funds of employees and ex-employees of the State Bank of NSW. With interest rates well into double digits at the time, the vast majority was in cash.
However, FSFM’s equity business grew rapidly with Greg Perry at the helm. With all due respect to the many other fine equity managers I've worked or invested with since, Greg is the best stock picker I've known. Through the mid-1990s his ability was widely recognised by the independent financial planning community. By the time I joined at the start of 1997, the equity funds had become the growth engine of the business, which had just surpassed a total of $3 billion under management [Managing Editor's note: I remember the $1 billion party in 1991, when I was Deputy Treasurer at State Bank of NSW and FSFM was an almost inconsequential section in Treasury].
Growth had been so rapid that a large proportion of the staff were contractors, brought in to manage investor applications. Strategic discussions at the time had a base case that the coming year would be "a year of consolidation". However, that year didn't come. The business kept growing – rapidly.
Fixed income was part of that, with our funds under management reaching $60 billion around 10 years later. The Colonial Melbourne business that had been expected to take over FSFM was itself taken over in May 1998 and the name of Colonial's funds management arm instead became Colonial First State (CFS).
What were the reasons for CFS's success? Certainly, we benefitted from the fortuitous timing of being set up just as the rapid growth in Australia's superannuation industry was getting underway, but there was a lot more to it than that.
Strategic team building
By 1996, Chris Cuffe knew that, if FSFM was to enjoy sustainable success, it needed to have more than a great equities team. Balanced funds were still popular in superannuation at the time. These funds invest across asset classes with the same manager. So Chris began hiring managers to head up other asset classes. Sandy Calder was hired for listed property, Dave Whitten for global resources and I was brought in to the fixed income piece of the equation. There were some setbacks, especially in global shares, where the guy that had been hired to establish those funds went back to his previous employer the day they were due to launch, just before Christmas in 1996. But overall, the team Chris put together was effective and coherent, embracing complementary investment styles that could be blended well.
Strong performance
We delivered strong fund performance, which has to be a key plank for any business. Greg and his team delivered superb results in the equity funds from around 1994 onwards, in both large and small cap portfolios. Other asset classes then kicked in. In my first year heading up the fixed income team (1997) we had the best performing Australian Bond Fund, and listed property and global resources also did well.
End-to-end business
The industry was changing rapidly in the later years of the 20th century and CFS was able to change with it thanks to the leadership team having control of all aspects of the business. This included IT, which was a flexible and creative team led by a business-savvy guru, Derek Ngoh, who kept us ahead of the game. One of the drawbacks of becoming owned by the CBA a few years later was the loss of this end-to-end capability and the enforcement of ‘shared services’ on many parts of the business.
An excellent culture
At CFS we lived and breathed a positive, high performance culture. This came from the top, with the way Chris dealt with his team, modelling how all leaders within the firm were to deal with theirs. Good cultures empower their staff and equip them to do their jobs to the best of their ability. I have not personally felt as empowered to run the funds and make decisions as I was during the earlier years at CFS.
Focussed customer base and quality service
During its rapid growth period, CFS focussed exclusively on servicing independent financial planners. We had no ambition to deal directly with retail investors or to have in-house advisers, seeing the independent planners as the experts in looking after the end-investor’s needs. To this target market we provided high quality, personalised service. I fondly remember walk-throughs, when Rob Adams or one of his team would bring around a group of advisers to show them the investment teams at work.
What they saw was the culture being lived out. They picked up a positive vibe from all of the teams, often remarking that they could see people working at CFS who were energised and clearly enjoying one another’s company.
As a result of all of these factors, the CFS brand became very strong. Also, by early 1998 Colonial’s CEO Peter Smedley became convinced that Chris knew how to run a business and deliver results. So Smedley ditched the plans for the Melbourne funds management business to be the driver of a combined entity and instead the First State team dominated the in-house merger.
CFS then took over the Australian operations of Legal and General (June 1998) and Prudential (August 1998) in quick succession as Smedley (nicknamed 'Pac Man' at this time) built Colonial into a diversified financial services company. That in turn made the business a takeover prospect, an opportunity the CBA grabbed in 2000, in what was then the largest corporate takeover in Australian history.
That created another situation where the CFS team was in competition with the new owner’s in-house fund manager. That turned out quite differently. Suffice to say for now that my team merged with the Commonwealth Investment Management fixed income and credit team in 2003, and we enjoyed some great success over the next few years with Tony Fitzgerald's team.
I’ve been gone from CFS for five years. I often think back on those exciting times when I joined Chris and Greg and the rest of the team with a dream of becoming the biggest and the best. Some dreams do come true.
Warren Bird is Executive Director of Uniting Financial Services, a division of the Uniting Church (NSW & ACT). He has 30 years’ experience in fixed income investing. He also serves as an Independent Member of the GESB Investment Committee.