By Kanika Sood
Source: Financial Standard

Marty Switzer’s Associate Global Partners has won a mandate from a financial advice dealer group.

Lifespan Financial Planning made a $20 million inaugural allocation to a global large cap strategy managed by WCM Investment Management.

WCM is headquartered in California’s Laguna Beach and distributed here by Contango.

The mandate will sit in Lifespan’s $400 million managed discretionary accounts (MDA), which uses about 20 external managers to create funds with five risk profiles for its advice clients.

The external managers are decided upon by Lifespan’s investment committee of four people, which includes the chief executive Eugene Ardino, a former managing director, a current employee, an a research manager.

Lifespan’s investment committee also uses Mercer as a consultant.

The new WCM allocation stems from a rebalance between its manager allocations.

Lifespan said it chose WCM for its team and focus on culture, in addition to the performance.

Associate Global Partners took on WCM’s distribution business in Australia in June 2017 and has since raised $330 million in retail FUM for WCM.

It started with a listed investment company (WQG) in 2017 and an ASX-traded managed fund (WCMQ) launched last year.

More recently, Contango launched an unlisted managed fund, WCM Quality Global Growth Managed Fund (WCMM), which won the Lifespan mandate.