Frontier Advisors lands major mandate from asset management giant

Frontier Advisors has won a mandate from Japan's $350 billion Nissay Asset Management, which is part of the Nippon Life Insurance Group. The mandate will allow Nissay to tap into Frontier's institutional intelligence to support its pension clients.

Frontier chief executive Andrew Polson said establishing a foothold in the Japanese market, with an institution of Nissay's calibre, is a landmark achievement for the asset consultant.

Polson added that the value of high-quality insights and advice, free from product conflicts, is more relevant than ever, and applies to asset owners globally, not just in Australia.

Nissay managing director Yuichi Tanaka said its NAVIS platform, which offers pension clients access to a suite of market data, tools, and resources for asset allocation planning, represents an industry first in the Japanese corporate pensions market.

"[It offers] plan sponsors timely information, advanced analytics and active, informed dialogue with advisers on asset allocation. Frontier's insights and intelligence perfectly complement what we aim to deliver through NAVIS," Tanaka said.

Tanaka said Nissay's goal is to be a "successful partner" with its clients, and that the partnership with Frontier "will help us achieve that vision" and could potentially lead to the co-development of new services.

Frontier has observed a growing demand from asset owners for advice in the real assets sector, an area where it has long provided guidance.

The asset consultant noted its "pivotal role" in advising superannuation funds to invest in property and infrastructure early on, which it said has contributed to the strong returns of industry funds over the many decades since.

"This expertise has driven Frontier's decision to establish a foothold in Tokyo and hire a seasoned local operative in Yuichi Alex Takayama, its head of Japan," Frontier said.

Takayama said the Japanese institutional investor market is large, but complicated, and it's been tough to find the right way to deliver what Frontier has accumulated in Australia to Japanese institutional investors. However, having worked with Nissay over many months, he said the two firms have "developed a unique approach together."

This partnership, he added, "will be a great support to our broader Japanese venture."

Frontier officially launched its Tokyo office in 2022 after years of assessing the Japanese market and building relationships across the local institutional investment sector.

This move coincided with regulatory efforts of the Japanese government to lift standards in asset management, including the introduction of "Asset Owner Principles" - a set of guidelines encouraging asset owners to take greater responsibility for their investment outcomes and to engage with external experts, such as asset consultants.

"Frontier has seized the opportunity to bring its model of independent and unconflicted advice to the broader Japanese market, where investors have previously relied largely on fund managers for insights and advice," the asset consultant said.

Frontier believes it might have picked its moment well, with Japanese investment into Australia on the rise.

According to recent MSCI data, Japanese investors have deployed more than $5 billion into Australian commercial property in the last two years, more than double the total from the previous 23 years.