The super funds’ collective willingness to pay inflated prices for bank shares is starting to make them look like outliers. With about 30 per cent collective ownership of the banks, APRA sees “stability risk” as a salient concern for all stakeholders that can’t be ignored.
The inertia that rules the retirement system means bigger ideas are needed if members are going to get the best outcome in retirement. And with millions set to retire in the next few years, time is of the essence.
Building a ‘formidable’ advice business the real test for this former cricket star
Pairing the lessons learnt across sport, business and life is a well-trod path, but it’s too much the pachyderm in the room to be ignored if you’re writing about financial adviser Peter Nevill. At the age of 29, Nevill achieved what every Australian who has ever played the game of cricket would agree is the ultimate experience: a Test debut against England, at the game’s greatest shrine, Lord’s in London, in the 2015 Ashes series.
“That was an absolutely surreal experience, one of the most special memories I’ll carry with me,” says Nevill (pictured). “Anyone who has grown up loving Test cricket and the history and the tradition of it, all of that is personified by Lord’s. As a batter, you walk out of the changing room, down the stairs, through the Long Room and out on to that ground, and you just look around you. It was just an amazing time. My wife and my father were there – he was in Perth for work when he found out I was playing, he dashed back to Melbourne to get his passport, jumped on a flight, and made it to Lord’s just in time for the cap presentation on the ground. It was surreal, and most importantly, we won the game.”
Nevill played 17 Test matches for Australia as wicket-keeper, in a 13-year career at the game’s highest two levels, and captained New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield.
But Nevill is not greatly interested in talking about his cricket career: he is far more talkative and animated about the future, and the firm where we works, Viola Private Wealth.
In September, the Viola Private Wealth team – led by its well-known head, Charlie Viola – completed a management buy-out of Pitcher Partners’ high-net-worth wealth management businesses, migrating their existing clients across in an amicable arrangement that saw about 200 clients and 450 portfolios move to the new entity, enabling Viola Private Wealth to start independent life with $2.4 billion in funds under advice.
That’s what gets Peter Nevill pumped; but he will, under sufferance, compare it to cricket, in the sense of being part of a team, and particularly, captaining a team.
“Look, it’s not something I typically look to draw parallels between, because it can come off as awfully cheesy, but I suppose there are clear parallels with things like preparation, discipline and the ability to deal with pressure, they’re probably the key things that translate across,” he says. “Cricket is a team sport, and you’re dealing with a range of different characters who’re all trying to achieve the same goal, and while you may be closer to some than others, you can happily coexist because you are seeking the same goal and enjoying it in each other’s company.”
Wearing the iconic baggy green cap in the Mt. Everest-level environment of the Australian Test team might be the peak of Nevill’s cricket career, but it was as captain of New South Wales where he honed most of his people management skills.
“Being in any leadership position, you’re seeking to get the best out of people, and learning how to how to best manage different personalities. You’re learning how individuals respond to certain stimulus and really, understanding how you can provide an environment such that they get the best out of themselves,” he says. “Everyone is different, but that team dynamic is something that does translate, learning how to deal with different people, and especially, managing any conflict between them.”
That is the link to Viola Private Wealth. “With any group of people, you know, having that shared purpose and common direction and wanting to go on a journey and achieve something together, I think that’s something that’s really going to translate well into Viola Private Wealth,” he says. “There’s a real opportunity for us to build a really formidable high-net-wealth investment advisory business, and we want to create the team environment such that the best advisers in Australia want to come and build their careers within that.”
At university, Nevill completed a Bachelor of Management, with a double major in marketing and commercial law major. “It was deliberately broad because I wanted to get a bit of exposure to a lot of different areas, but I didn’t have anything specific in mind at that point. All the time I played cricket, I always used the downtime to get out of that bubble and try a few different things,” he says.
“The most valuable thing I did was an internship at Commonwealth Bank, because I had always been pretty interested in investing, since I was young. I kept coming back to the things that I really enjoyed in life, which were playing cricket, playing guitar, and investing; clearly, cricket would eventually end, and I was never a very good guitar player, although I used to play a few Metallica tunes with Usman Khawaja when we were in the Australian team. I was thinking about how to make investing my career after cricket.”
In 2013, serendipity brought him together with Viola. “I did an appearance at a lunch that was held in the Sydney Cricket Ground changing rooms, and I met Charlie. He was just a lovely, interesting guy, we had a great chat, and we stayed in touch. I mentioned to him what I’d been doing in terms of study and work, and we talked about me being an adviser. I studied the Master of Financial Planning and started working with Charlie at Pitcher Partners while I was still playing cricket.”
And now here they are, in Viola Private Wealth, with an ambitious vision. “We want to focus on managing wealth for high-net-worth individuals and families, by providing bespoke solutions that simplify complex financial needs, because those people are usually very unique situations. We want to be known as the best firm in Australia to do that, and in doing so, be known as the place where advisers who specialise in that end of the market aspire to work. It’s pretty simple,” he says.
About as simple as a cricket-loving boy aspiring to rise through the sport’s levels, and represent the country in The Ashes, at Lord’s.
