At Bellmont, we are asset consulting and portfolio management specialists. We partner with advice businesses to create customised, cost effective, white-labelled managed account portfolio solutions that provide meaningful efficiency benefits for their business, as well as improved returns and a better user experience for their advisers and clients.

 

We specialise in custom portfolio construction services for advisers, exclusively leveraging managed accounts. 

Our bespoke asset consulting service provides genuinely tailored multi-asset, multi-manager model portfolios where advisers retain an active involvement in the investment process, strategy and asset selection. Working in partnership with advisers we design, build and manage custom built model portfolios, including choice of portfolio objective, structure, composition, platform, investment process, fee budget and branding.

Our multi-asset offering uniquely allows for the inclusion of direct ASX listed securities with the choice of passive and active options. All portfolios are supported by regular white-labelled written and video communication and a comprehensive compliance and governance framework - freeing advisers to spend more time on their core competency of clients and strategy.

The portfolios are managed by an experienced team of specialists with deep expertise in asset allocation, investment manager research selection & blending and Australian Equities. Our forward looking, patient, high conviction investment approach has seen our portfolios deliver consistently strong returns to clients, with each of our portfolio models ranking amongst the top performing investment options in their category since inception.

Complementing the portfolios is a comprehensive communications solution, with regular written and video content that ensures that clients are kept fully informed and engaged with their portfolios at all times. All content is stored in a custom-built, password protected communications portal, that enables advisers to efficiently search, consume, and disseminate relevant content to their clients.

With our experience operating managed accounts on multiple platforms over many years, we work with our clients to streamline the process of establishing, operating and maintaining investment models, on whichever platform they choose.

The result - a custom-built, fully white-labelled portfolio and communications solution that delivers outstanding investment outcomes for clients, while providing advice businesses the efficiency to focus on the areas where they add the most value.

 

Our Beliefs

 
Rational Investing

Investors are not perfectly rational, which means markets are not perfectly efficient. We believe in the ability of high quality managers, charging reasonable fees, to add value for investors over time, compared with purely passive strategies.

Alignment

Never underestimate the power of incentives. By ensuring strong alignment of interests between ourselves, our clients and the management teams of our portfolio holdings, we significantly improve the likelihood of long term success.

Diversification

All markets fluctuate, but different types of assets perform strongly in different economic conditions. By diversifying both within, and across asset classes we can reduce portfolio volatility, without a corresponding reduction in long term returns.

 
 
Low Cost

The impact of excessive fees on long term net returns can be enormous. As custodians of our clients’ wealth, we seek to pay a dollar of fees only when we are confident that doing so will deliver our clients more than a dollar in long term value.

Patience

Markets fluctuate on a daily basis, but quality assets, with growing earnings will move steadily higher over time. We seek to shut out the ‘noise’ of short-term market fluctuations, and focus on the long term trajectory of earnings of the high quality assets we hold.

 

Bellmont's Bespoke Portfolio Solutions provide a completely customised, outsourced investment solution for firms able to commit more than $100m in FUM. We can build portfolios to fit any fee budget, style or structure preferences, seeking to optimise the client outcome within the given constraints. Core elements of our investment process, implemented within the overall framework of our client's specific objectives are shown below:

Asset Allocation:

The foundation of our investment process is a Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA), with allocations to respective asset classes determined by expected asset class returns over the subsequent 7 to 10 years, which in turn are largely guided by historical asset class returns, volatility and correlations. Strategic tilts to the SAA may be implemented based on an assessment of valuation, macro and momentum factors, with excess risk adjusted returns expected to be harvestable over a period of at least 12 to 18 months. Shorter term tilts over 6 to 12 months may also be employed in rare cases where there are severe market dislocations. In general though, given the cost and complexity of implementing short term changes to portfolio positioning across an entire client base, a long term perspective is maintained.

Investment Manager Selection:

Central to our investment process is the identification of outstanding investment managers, that we believe have the ability to generate consistent alpha after all fees. Unlike many, our process is heavily focused on qualitative (forward looking) factors, rather than excessively reliant on quantitative (backward looking) analysis. This sees us undertake over 500 fund manager meetings each year, in an effort to assess the capability of a manager's team, determine whether their success is repeatable, whether the market environment now and in to the medium term is conducive to their particular style of investing, and whether the team dynamic and key staff will remain with the organisation into the future. When we find a manager that meets our exacting standards, we invest with conviction, preferring to focus our investments in a few outstanding managers, than dilute the benefits of our rigorous research through excessive diversification. We then maintain an extremely high level of engagement with our chosen managers, including ’service level agreements’ with regards to portfolio transparency and news flow, to ensure that we’re aware of any significant events that might impact on their ability to achieve the expected outcomes.

Australian Equities:

We design, build and manage Australian Equities portfolios with the flexibility and choice of listed, unlisted, active and passive management options.

Our service also uniquely allows for the inclusion of direct ASX listed securities. Our optional in-house direct Australian Equities portfolio has a dual ‘Quality’ and ‘Value’ focus, with the portfolio strategy comprised of two approximately equal weight, separate and complementary components:

Satellite

Approximately 8 to 12 high quality, founder-led companies selected from the 300 largest companies on the ASX. This section of the portfolio aims to identify and invest in outstanding businesses, run by quality (usually founder- led) management teams, where we can be virtually certain that earnings will be materially higher in five and ten years time. We aim to buy these outstanding businesses when they are out of favour with the rest of the market, then hold them for the long term.

Core

Approximately 15 companies from the 100 largest companies on the ASX, selected through a rigorous multi-step systematic process designed to identify the highest quality value stocks on the market. Our analysis involves evaluation of cash flows vs reported profits, earnings based value measures, and multiple quality metrics. This section of the portfolio is rebalanced annually to ensure the optimal mix of quality and value.

Effective communication is an essential, yet under-appreciated element of any investment offering. Our Bespoke Portfolio Solutions offering includes a fully white-labelled communications program, that builds your brand, not ours. Providing regular engaging, accessible and understandable written and video content, it keeps your clients informed about the market and their portfolio, while also giving them a deeper connection to, and understanding of, their portfolio and its holdings - all housed in your very own custom built, password protected, searchable communications portal - Adviser Connect. Our investment team are also experienced presenters, and available for both in-person and online events, providing personalised engagement opportunities for your client base.

Easy to use, password protected communications portal ensures that any communications content is quick to find, and share with your clients

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Attractive, concise, understandable quarterly report covering market and economic updates and an overview of the portfolios in the period

Professional, engaging and understandable video summary of the market, economy and portfolio in the previous quarter

In-depth profile of one of the businesses in our equities portfolio - explaining the ‘why’, behind ‘what’ you own (great fodder for BBQ conversations!) Sample - click here

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A simple, plain text weekly market report that can be used as an additional regular touchpoint with your clients, keeping them both informed and engaged

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Special market reports put out during times of extreme market volatility - aimed at answering your clients questions before they ask them

 

Michael Block - Chief Investment Officer

Michael has been involved in the financial services sector in Australia for over 40 years. He has held a diverse range of positions in stockbroking, investment banking, government and funds management. Michael is an Adjunct Industry Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney.
and most recently was a Strategy and Governance Consultant at Mine Super.

From 2014 to 2022 Michael was the Chief Investment Officer of Australian Catholic Super and before that Chief Investment Officer of Nambawan Super in Papua New Guinea. Michael has undergraduate qualifications in law, accounting, financial planning, finance and philosophy and postgraduate qualifications in law, applied finance, economic history and economics. Michael was born in South Africa, is married with three daughters and two grandchildren all of whom are Roosters fans.

Peter Bell - Australian Equities (Value Investing)Peter is a co-founder and director of Bellmont Securities. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics & Finance) from the University of Wollongong, graduating with Distinction.A passionate value …

Peter Bell - Australian Equities (Value Investing)

Peter is a co-founder and director of Bellmont Securities. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics & Finance) from the University of Wollongong, graduating with Distinction.

A passionate value investor, Peter is responsible for Bellmont’s Buffett- style value investing portfolio - the Bellmont Classic Value Portfolio, as well as the ‘satellite’ portion of the Bellmont Consolidated Equities Portfolio. He also consults to a number of high net worth, sophisticated investors, and helps run Australia’s largest high net worth value investors network, with over 400 members around the country that collectively control well in excess of $1b in Australian equities. Peter is an experienced presenter who has spoken at a number of industry events, as well as contributing content for industry publications.

David Montuoro - Australian Equities (Systematic / Smart Beta)David is a co-founder and director of Bellmont Securities. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Economics & Computer Science) and a Masters of Finance (Market Microstructure) from the Un…

David Montuoro - Systems Development

David is a co-founder and director of Bellmont Securities. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Economics & Computer Science) and a Masters of Finance (Market Microstructure) from the University of Sydney.

David previously worked at a Sydney based broking firm, operating in both an advisory and trading / market making capacity. David is passionate about the intersection of funds management and computer science and has developed a number of proprietary software systems, which sit at the heart of Bellmont’s operations. Today, David heads up Bellmont’s systematic Australian equities portfolio management service, including the ‘core’ portion of the Bellmont Consolidated Equities Portfolio.

Daniel Deverich, CFA - Portfolio Manager

Daniel joined the Bellmont team in December 2021 as a Senior Investment Analyst to help manage Bellmont's equities portfolios. Daniel is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and holds a Bachelor of Resource Economics (Economics & Econometrics) from the University of Sydney. 

Prior to Joining Bellmont, Daniel was the Chief Investment Officer for a Sydney based Family Office where he was responsible for the asset allocation and portfolio management of the family funds. This involved a wide variety of investments from direct domestic and global equities, private equity funds and co-investments and property. Daniel possesses over a decade of experience in the funds management industry having worked in the institutional, private wealth and family office sectors investing on the buy-side of the market.

In his spare time, Daniel loves his sports, and is a through and through Roosters supporter. He golfs on a regular basis and is known for watching way too much golf in the middle of the night.

We aspire to build long term business partnerships, that benefit every participant in the value chain. Accordingly, we offer a cost-effective fee structure that provides value both now, and into the future as your firm grows - removing the need to restructure again at a later date. Our fees are all-inclusive (ex GST), with no up-front or hidden costs.

 

  • Model portfolio construction and management: by negotiation subject to client requirements

  • Australian Equities - 0.35% pa plus 20% of the outperformance of the ASX200 TR Index

Managed Account Specialists

With over 10 years experience operating managed accounts through SMA, MDA and IMA structures, we are truly managed account specialists. Our extensive experience and strong relationships with most major managed account platforms make us ideally suited to assist firms making the transition to the ’new world’ of managed accounts.

Direct Equities Expertise

Our extensive direct equities expertise enables us to offer more than just another ‘manage the manager’ solution. With strong capabilities in both systematic / smart beta strategies and traditional ‘Buffett style’ value investing, our clients benefit from an optional transparent, actively managed and extremely cost effective direct Australian share portfolio.

Built with Adviser Experience

Our team includes an experienced former financial adviser who has been through the journey of building an advice practice from the ground up and understands the current challenges that advisers face. Our portfolios draw upon his experience, giving Bellmont a clear understanding of the considerations that practices face when they contemplate a change to their investment offering.

 

“Over the last two and a half years we have engaged the services of Bellmont to provide our investment solution.

In 2017 we conducted a full review of our previous offering which highlighted a number of issues, including our ability to construct and review our model portfolios and the time involved. Although we had been happy with the performance we felt like there needed to be a more rigorous process associated with the decision making.

We were also spending a large amount of time making these decisions, time that could be better used engaging with our clients.

We went through an exhaustive selection process, ultimately settling with Bellmont to be our investment partners.

We made this decision based on a number of factors, primarily the strength of the team. Over a number of years Peter and David have shown that they are excellent portfolio managers and the methodologies they use resonates with our philosophies.

The rigour around their selection process is particularly impressive, Chris, the company’s asset consultant has a deep understanding of investment markets, managers and economic factors. He conducts over 500 face to face manager meetings a year and this alone highlights the inadequacy of us trying to run the investment side ourselves.

In addition, Bellmont provides detailed market and economic updates, this provides our clients with a clear understanding of the market and economic events that are affecting the performance of their investments.

The final significant benefit is the level of communication, this has allowed us to provide our clients with a consistent stream of well written and informative correspondence, helping them to understand not only their investments but also the macro events that are impacting their portfolios.

We would have no hesitancy in recommending the Bellmont solution to other advice firms.”
— Tim Luxton - Managing Director of Financial Framework