The Australian regulator divides investors into two groups:  retail clients; or, non-retail clients (also known as sophisticated investors or wholesale clients).

Unfortunately, if you are a retail client, TSA cannot provide services for regulatory, and business, reasons.

TSA requires non-retail clients to provide a certificate issued by a qualified accountant that they are sophisticated investors or wholesale clients (see this tool before you ask your accountant).   If you are a non-retail client, then we can manage your money at less than half the cost of virtually all the other active investment managers and still try to generate 2nd quartile performance over the long time (note: trying to be a top-quartile performer has resulted in almost every investment manager blowing up their clients because they take too much risk.

Also, TSA is adopting best practice with respect to security and account management, so we don’t want to be able to put money into your account, or take money out of your account.  In fact, we don’t want to provide you an individually managed account (“IMA”) at all; just an investment management service (“IMS”) on an account you have or will open with another licensed provider.

The Dobrijevic family uses Interactive Brokers Australia Pty Ltd, which holds Australian Financial Services License 453554 (“IBKR”) to provide its with account services.  Why IBKR?

IBKR allows it to keep full ownership of your assets, and TSA only makes the buy and sell decisions on the client’s behalf.  How this works will be in our Investment Manager Services (“IMS”) agreement with you.  At any time, a client can tell IBKR directly you don’t want TSA to manage its money.

The benefits of this system are:

  • IBKR are licensed in most markets, including Australia, the US, Germany and the UK.
  • IBKR offer a diverse range of stocks, derivatives and cash option.
  • IBKR are the cheapest broker we have come across.
  • IBKR manages custody on your behalf.
  • IBRK was founded in 1978 and has been publicly listed since 2007 : NASDAQ:IBKR
  • All the assets in the account are in your name.
  • You directly control funds going in (this is not such a big deal).
  • You directly control funds going out of your account (this is a huge positive).
  • You can get reporting in real time for accounting and tax purposes.
  • You can agree to the the fees being charged by TSA before you let us manage your money.
  • There is no lock-in period for you as a client of IBKR, or having TSA as your investment manager.

Next steps for clients without an IBKR account now

  • call us (+61 2 8937 4647) to discuss what your objectives are and which of our products you are interested in;
  • email the  certificate issued by a qualified accountant to us;
  • TSA will send you an invite to open a IBKR account;
  • complete the IBKR account opening forms
    • warning – these folks are pedantic about documentation to ensure they comply with all foreign, Australian laws and their own risk management processes
    • this process will take about an hour, and probably require you to submit additional documents two or three times
    • worth persevering with the process as IBKR’s fees are very low, and you get TSA to manage your money for cost/effective fee;
  • TSA will send you an IMS agreement; and, finally,
  • hit the button(s) on you IBKR to start TSA managing you money.

Next steps for clients already with an IBKR account

  • call us (+61 2 8937 4647) to discuss what your objectives are and which of our products you are interested in;
  • mail the  certificate issued by a qualified accountant to us;
  • TSA will send you an IMA agreement;
  • make TSA your advisor by following the guide here;
  • TSA’s advisor “account ID” and “account title” are: F11706456 and Turner Street Advisors Proprietary Limited; and, finally,
  • hit the button(s) on you IBKR to start TSA managing your money.

Please subscribe to our weekly newsletter to keep up to date with developments.