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Discl: NWL Held IRL, HUB Not Held
CONTEXT
One of my to-do’s for NWL coming out of the reporting season was to do a quick high-level comparison with HUB24, NWL’s closest competitor. The objective of this exercise was to get a sense of where NWL was relative to HUB and confirm that staying invested in NWL continues to make sense.
Have kept the comparison at a superficial high-level based on info obtained from the ASX website + the FY reports from FY22 to FY25. While both are in the exact same FinTech Investment Platform space, they have different products, different metrics etc such that any attempt to compare at any lower level of detail than this is probably not going to provide any more insights.
Haven’t done a comparison like this before. Would really appreciate any feedback if the conclusions below are flawed ...
SUMMARY
Based on this simplistic view, it gives me good confidence that staying invested in NWL is absolutely the right thing to do.
The sharp PE difference HUB PE = 108x, NWL PE = 64x, is what throws me out a bit. Given the above, I expected the HUB PE to be lower, not sharply higher than NWL, which perhaps could be a sign that the market is more confident of HUB emerging as the eventual top dog? Not sure if I am interpreting this correctly.
CHARTS



Discl: Held IRL
Nice 1QFY2026 update from NWL today.



The commentary in the update is littered with the usual “record-this-and-that” which I find quite confusing as it is mostly against the prior corresponding period 1QFY2025. As NWL expects to grow each quarter, referencing and gloating about the pcp comparison seems quite pointless other than to generate the buoyant headlines. While there is some seasonality, I prefer to focus on the underlying QoQ trend instead.


FUNDS UNDER ADMINISTRATION

FUNDS UNDER MANAGEMENT
Sharp uptick in FUM Net Flows of $1.8b, up 63.3% QoQ - a (noticeable!) record as it towers over previous quarters FUM Net Flows.

Interesting to see if NWL ponies up and pays too - Macquarie to repay Shield investors after super platform failures - ABC News Not sure what their exposure was. Equity Trustees looks like they're going to court and not caving.
Was always a risk for NWL when they add almost every Fund. It is why a lot of advisers/ fund managers preferred them as they're easy to deal with compared to the legacy funds that were burnt in the Royal Commission.
Some insider buying on this name with Director Sarah Jane Brennan purchasing nearly $100k worth on market.
Chair and CEO say: FY25 was an exceptional year for Netwealth across all key operating and financial metrics. Our Funds Under Administration (FUA) grew by 28.2% or $24.8 billion to reach an all-time high of $112.8 billion, significantly outpacing the Australian wealth management platform market growth of 7.3%.





https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-2025-full-year-results-presentation.8722852/
Return (inc div) 1yr: 58.32% 3yr: 41.18% pa 5yr: 22.03% pa

https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-2025-full-year-annual-report-appendix-4e.8722825/
Message from the Chair: “Over nearly a decade as a Netwealth director and four years as Chair, I have had the privilege of witnessing extraordinary growth, from $7.0 billion in FUA and fewer than 200 staff to over $112.8 billion and a team exceeding 700 today. As I prepare to retire on 31 August 2025, I am confident in the leadership transition we have established. The Board welcome Michael Wachtel as our incoming Chair, whose extensive board and business experience will bring outstanding governance capabilities as we continue to scale. This transition, combined with our strong executive team, Board and robust governance frameworks, provides continuity and operational excellence.”

Just had a chance to review the NWL June 25 Trading Update released on 10 July.
SUMMARY
Discl: Held IRL


Nice above-trend increase in Total Accounts and Quarterly Increase in accounts


Funds Under Administration
On-trend Q-on-Q increase in FUA Net inflows - management commentary that “FUA outflows were at slightly elevated levels due to partial withdrawals from larger accounts following increased market volatility. These outflows were primarily from non-fee paying FUA, and as such the financial impact was modest”.
Good positive FUA market movement.

Funds Under Management
FUM net flows of $1.1b for the quarter, 16% higher than pcp, moving back to the long-term FUM Net Flows trendline
FUM Growth was concentrated in Managed Account products - 34% higher than pcp, and accounting for 96% of all FUM net flows.


I am in the midst of (finally) taking stock of my NWL position. I blindly followed MF Pro’s direction to open the position back in 2018, understood the thesis, sort of understood what it was about, but never deep dived until now. It is now my 2nd largest IRL position at 10%+ and 2nd largest winner - living proof that the coffee can investment approach does work, particularly if the company was picked by the great MF Pro combo of Joe & Matt.
After deep diving the financials, I struggled to clearly understand the products. So I signed up for a product demo last week through the NWL website to better understand the Personal Investor products, as I did also want to explore what was available (and at what cost) vs my current eSuperfund SMSF setup. Here are my notes, of both the SMSF-related products, as well as my takeaways from a “better understand NWL” perspective. A lot of the points should be intuitive, but having the conversation and the ability to ask questions made a huge difference to the understanding.
What I understood, the chart of the key NWL platform metrics at the end of this post and what I thought was an excellent article by A Rich Life’s Patrick Poke sums up why the MF Pro pick of NWL was an outstanding one and why I should absolutely stay invested with a high portfolio allocation.
OVERVIEW OF THE PERSONAL INVESTOR PRODUCTS

THE SALES ENGAGEMENT PROCESS
FINANCIAL ADVISOR FOCUS
FEE/COST STRUCTURE
The explanation of the cost structure and the mechanism in which it is calculated (daily snapshot, averaged then x days in month) helped bring to life how the Funds Under Administration Market Movement metric, what broadly makes up the various NWL revenue lines - Administration Fees, Ancillary Feels, Transaction Fees, Management Fees, and how both these numbers will rise and fall based on how the market moves.
It also provides clues as to where and why NWL still requires a reasonable labour force.
WHAT ATTRACTS NEW CLIENTS INTO NWL
The Sales Rep commented that what attracts new clients into NWL:
HOW DOES IT COMPARE WITH ESUPERFUND
It will cost me at least 3x the eSuperfund annual fee to get:
A non-starter if you are able/willing to invest time in managing the SMSF admin on a day-to-day basis.
NWL PLATFORM GROWTH SINCE FY2021

Discl: Held IRL
Netwealth (NWL) reported 1H FY25 results this morning. From their presentation:


Hard to fault these results. Continued increase in FUM, EBITDA and NPAT. Margins also increased showing its operating leverage.
The structural shift away from the legacy platforms continues:

Maybe just keep an eye on the amount of market share HUB is now taking although I don't think this will be a winner takes all market. Both NWL and HUB should continue to benefit from this shift well into the future.
Happy to continue to hold this but the eye watering valuation makes it hard to add anymore. Currently my biggest holding IRL.
Disc: Held IRL, not held on Strawman.
After HUB's update yesterday, reporting $5.5 b net funds inflow for the December quarter, Netwealth has reported $4.5 b net funds inflow. This is the second quarter in a row that HUB have outgrown Netwealth, but I'm not overly concerned. It is a huge market where the 'legacy' incumbents - the adviser networks tied to the banks - still have 56% market share, all of which is up for grabs. And the the market is still growing, with total FUA for the platform industry up 16.8% to $1.2 t in the 12 months to end of September 2024.
Netwealth grew their market share by 1% to 8.2% in the same period, whilst HUB is nipping ever closer at their heels with a 7.9% share.
I'm still a very happy holder of NWL in my RL portfolio, it is exceptionally well managed and has plenty of room to keep growing. The December quarter saw growth in FUM of 70% over PCP, for goodness sake!
I also noted that Praemium had net fund outflows (i.e. negative inflows) in the 12 months to the end of September 2024, the only platform providers growing their FUM being HUB ($17b), Netwealth ($12.8b), Macquarie ($2.5b) and DASH ($0.8b). I have a finger in the DASH pie via my holding in Bailador, so I think I have more than enough exposure to the wealth management industry.
I have a totally embarassing question to ask help on. Can anyone point me to a writeup or diagram which succintly describes what exactly the NWL platform does/manages/provides??
I have poked around Google, the NWL site, went through the Annual Report, looked at the marketing videos, read some of the PDS' but I am still struggling to clearly understand the products and services that are offered on the NWL platform. While some of the content talks about the capability and scope of the product, there is a lot of sales-y speak overlayed and a lot of ghee whizz "IT platform/reporting/data benefits" but I am still struggling to clearly understand what each product actually does for a customer or an wealth advisor. The products I have understood thus far, which is half-coherent:
I am actually thinking of ringing NWL tomm and booking a demo and asking them to help me understand the platform.
For context, NWL has been a complete coffee-can investment for me. I bought the position based on the MFPro 1 recommendation back in 2018 and other than happily collecting dividends, have done absolutely nothing on NWL. That blind faith in old Joe and Matt was not misplaced, as by then, they were a proven winning team, and I had no doubt that they had done the detailed research to come up with a long-term winner.
NWL has now become my 2nd largest position (after the ALU sale, AD8 crash etc), returning 182%, proving that there absolutely IS merit in the coffee-can approach and that the less one tinkers with a position, the better the outcome.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Disc: Held IRL with total ignorance ...
A good result was reported today for FY24, but the market reaction was strangely negative, with the share price down nearly 6%.
Funds Under Administration (FUA) of $88.0 billion, up 25.2% year on year - compared to growth in prior years of 26% (2023), 18% (2022) and 30% (2021). So still a pretty healthy growth trajectory.
Funds Under Management (FUM) of $20.5 billion, up 28% year on year - compared to growth in prior years of 22% (2023), 12% (2022) and 60% (2021).
Market share has increased to 7.7% (up 0.9% from prior year).
Possibly the muted reaction is due to the evidence that HUB24 is starting to catch up with Netweatlh. This is the first time in my memory that Netwealth did not achieve the number 1 spot for largest net funds flow during the year. They achieved $10.4 billion compared to HUB24 with $12.9 billion. And although HUB24's market share at 7.3% is still slightly less than Netwealth's, it increased by 1.2% this year. This shows Netwealth is not gaining market share as quickly as HUB24.
However my high conviction in Netwealth remains unshaken - they have an excellent track record of innovation, they understand their market intimately and the transition of leadership from Michael Heine to his son Matt, after several years as joint CEOs, has been faultless.
I might have considered an each way bet by investing in HUB24, but I note that another of my RL portfolio companies Bailador has recently invested in Dash, yet another company with a wealth management platform targeted at financial advisers, so I think 2 fingers in the wealth management pie is enough for me.
Very strong results from Netwealth for the H1 to Dec 31st 2023 showing the fly wheel effect with an acceleration of revenue and most importantly widening margins as they reap the benefits of growing portfolios as markets finished 2023 on a high.
Key take outs
Priced to perfection at 50x forward earnings so one to watch as movements in SP present opportunity to enter or top up on existing holdings.
Disc - Held in RL, not on SM.



Netwealth reported 1H FY24 results this morning. From their presentation:

Personally, I thought this was a great result for Netwealth. Operating leverage really starting to come through. It seems the increased investment in their platform that occurred in FY22 and FY23 is starting to show through now.
Still plenty of growth potential as shown by this graph from their presentation:

When will the growth start to taper off? Hard to say at the moment but until then I think the thesis remains intact.
Will update my valuation later.
Full presentation here
Disc: Held IRL and on Strawman.
Netwealth released their FY23 results yesterday. From their presentation:

I thought this was a pretty solid result with a return to bottom line growth of over 20%. They are taking advantage of a structural shift away from the legacy funds management platforms. Still only a 6.7% market share currently.

Disc: Held IRL. Not held on Strawman.
Market didn't like the quarterly update released today.
While FUA increased 14% to 8.2B, growth is slowing. This is now the second quarter in a row of shrinking net inflows (and down 37% on PCP).
Next comp NWL may fare better as market movement hadn't yet bottomed in the Mar-22 quarter (and hopefully outflows peaked in Dec and continue to reduce from here).
Disc. held IRL.
Nice half year results for Netwealth
Revenue 102.8 million up 18.9%
EBITDA 46.2 million up 10%, margins 44.9% (down on 2021 48.6% due to investing within)
NPAT 30.6million up 11.4%
EPS 12.4c up 11.7%
DPS 11c up 10%
Cash on hand 98.8million up 15.2% . No debt.
High insider ownership and high conviction in the strategy
With the theme of the current reporting season across the globe being on cost control and in United States job losses Netwealth is definately bucking the trend and investing in more people whom drive technology improvements to the business to enable them to maintain their growth and innovation as an organisation.
These investments can be seen in the staff headcount and costs which grew to 542 up 27 in the half and up to $38.1million or 22.8%. The heads that were added 19 were technology orientated. Add to this the spend in IT which grew by 97% to 6.7million on the half as Netwealth moved to migrate to cloud, upgrade workflow and enhance security.
Free cash flow grew by 9.4% to 47.66 million for the half.
Although expensive when measuring on traditional means ie PE at over 50 there's alot to like.
Happy holder in RL not on SM
Netwealth (NWL) released their results for 1H 2023 this morning. From their presentation:

Good to see them back on the growth trajectory after several years of investment into their platform.
Management have stated that they believe the investment phase is over and they should start to see some operating leverage kick in.
First time that they have hit over $100m in revenue in a half. Benefitted from increasing interest rates.

From a market share perspective, they are at about 6.3% of the total market share with plenty still to be gained from the top 4 large institutions.
Full presentation here
Half year report here
Disc: Held IRL, not held on Strawman.
Article on FUM flows - Super industry flows: AustralianSuper, HUB24 lead the way - Professional Planner
Netwealth released Dec 2022 quarter inflows and fair to say a mixed bag.
Short term there are some points to keep an eye on in terms of growth of inflows.
Long term the move to recruit and attract key personnel in IT / communication services and Sales and Marketing is contrary to industry trends but clearly earmarked to maintain the advantage NWL have in the industry. This also reflects the financial strength the business upholds and confidence in the future.
Netwealth is aiming for inflows to financial year 2023 to be 11billion and is optimistic on new licenses which are set to convert in the current half.
Additionally the piloting of multi asset portfolio service as well as Xeppo (mobile integration) will further assist.
Overall Netwealth is a long term hold for me for the following reasons:
Along with HUB24 was able to purchase stock at single figures in real life pre 2020 and look forward to standing aside and allow compounding to do its thing .....
NWL December-2022-Quarterly-Business-Update.pdf
Netwealth is still sitting on a hefty PE of over 50 but their growth trajectory is still heading in the right direction. There were Funds under management net inflows of $2.9B for the September quarter which I think is strong given current market volatility. Total FUA is now at $58.1B. Their mobile integration with Xeppo is due to be launched in Q2 of 2023 which will hopefully provide a kick along to grabbing further market share from the big boys.

Netwealth continues to grow funds under administration at the fastest rate in Australia. Feel like this stock deserves its premium (although I note it’s PE of 59 according to yahoo finance). Other thoughts?
I had this company on my watchlist for well over a year before I pulled the trigger when their share price was punished after their results announcement back in February. Give next month they will unveil their latest quarterly update, today I purchased my full allocation of shares IRL. Netwealth's market share sits at roughly 5-6% but their inflows sit comfortably higher than their current market share. There appears to be heavy investment back into the business (which I like for the long term) specifically around their launch of their app and once rolled out has a strong potential to supercharge growth.
I still am a little perplexed by the large pullback they suffered but if the next quarterly update surprised to the upside, which management have a history of doing, I don't believe the share price will be seeing these levels for quite some time. No debt, growing and a healthy little div of roughly 1.3% this is a business I'm comfortable having in my portfolio for some time.
Number of Shares on issue = 245m
Insider ownership roughly 50% ( Founder family operates the business )
Revenue = 124m ( FY20), 144.8 (FY21) 84.7m ( 1H FY22)
Expense = 61.2m (FY20), 67.6m (FY21), 44.9m (1H FY22)
EBIT = 62.7m (FY20) , 77.2 (FY21), 39.8m (1HFY22)
I thought 1H FY22 results were good and management flagged that they are investing in Technology, People and Infrastructure to support the growth they are getting and scale the business for future growth.
They are expensing all of this investment and hence profit is subdue for the half. The following graphs from the presentation show their investment in last year.


Buy investing in their technology and people they are making their product number 1 recently from number 2

and because of award-winning products and services they are disrupting the Top 4 institutions and also no.1 providers for net funds flows

The following chart shows the growth and market share

Netwealth announced their results for the first half of FY22 yesterday. The company continues to demonstrate very satisfactory profitable growth.
Revenue increased 17% over pcp to $84.7m, operating net cash flow of $45.7m was up 11%, but 'underlying' NPAT was marginally down (-0.5%) at $27.5m . This seems to be due mainly to investment in increased headcount, another 55 staff added in the half year period, representing a 12% increase.
Netwealth continues to be the number 1 rated platform and continues to be the greatest recipient of fund inflows across the industry, meaning that its market share continues to grow, It is still only the 6th largest platform, with a 5.2% market share, so the upside potential remains enormous.
The critics of Netwealth seem to point to declining margins brought about by increased competition and hence pressure on the fees that Netwealth can charge for fund management and administration. To counter this criticism, Netwealth are gaining more accounts, the average size of each account is increasing, and the revenue earned from each account is increasing, so the top line is still growing at a healthy pace.
A re-negotiated agreement with ANZ Bank with lower interest rates on cash deposits also seems to worry many commentators. From March this year interest on deposits will reduce from 0.95% above the overnight cash rate to 0.5%. By my calculations the impact of this reduced interest rate is around $5m based on 6% of funds under administration being held in cash, so it is not immaterial, but in a rising interest rate environment this impact should have been eroded by the time we get to FY23.
I am doubtless making the mistake of falling in love with a company that I own, but Netwealth is still a very strong hold for me.
How to hedge against increasing rates environment? Buy business that will benefit from rates increase.

For the first quarter of the year, FUA net inflows were $4b, an increase of 111% on pcp, bringing total FUA to $52b. $0.9b was accounted for by just 2 clients (presumably large institutions), so there was a bit of a spike in the quarter. Netwealth increased full year net inflow guidance by $2.5b to $12.5b, just over $3b a quarter, and say they have a very strong new customer pipeline.
Market share increased to 4.9%. HUB is not far behind at 4.3% and seems to be giving NWL a good run for their money. I'm happy that I picked the best horse in the race.
The market seemed to overact to this update. Profits will not grow in direct proportion to growth in FUA since the larger clients will attract lower management fees, but nonetheless this was a very pleasing update.
This financial services company has delivered attractive returns to investors. But, isustaining healthy margins in this low interest rate environment will be challenging. The share price had doubled in the past 12 months to April 22, 2021, so investors can consider taking profits in a company with a recent lofty historical price/earnings multiple of about 69 times.
Netwealth delivers 34.5% NPAT growth and current FUA1 $40.7 billion
1H2021 financial results highlights (PCP2 )
~ EBITDA of $40.5 million ($31.1 million), increase of 30.1% to PCP.
~EBITDA margin of 56.0% (53.1%) for 1H2021.
~ NPAT of $27.6 million ($20.5 million), $7.1 million increase or 34.5% increase to PCP.
~ Total Income of $72.4 million ($58.7 million) an increase of $13.7 million or 23.4% to PCP. Platform Revenue of $71.2 million ($57.3 million), an increase of $13.8 million or 24.1% to PCP.
~ Total Operating Expenses of $31.9 million ($27.5 million), an increase of $4.3 million to PCP, up 15.8% (including increase in employee benefits of $3.9 million, up 19.5% to $23.7 million for 1H2021). Headcount at 31 December 2020 of 371 with an additional 32 roles added in 1H2021.
~Operating net cash flow pre-tax3 of $40.5 million ($31.3 million), an increase of $9.1 million or 29.2% to PCP.
~EPS of 11.3 cents (8.4 cents), an increase of 2.9 cents or 34.5% to PCP.
~ On 17 February 2021, the board declared a fully franked interim dividend of 9.06 cents per share totalling $22.1 million for 1H2021. The dividend is payable on 26 March 2021. The exdividend date is 22 February 2021.
~ On 17 February 2021, Jane Tongs retired from the board and Tim Antonie was appointed as Chairman. On 1 February 2021 a new independent non-executive director, Kate Temby, was appointed.
21/8 rec'd as BUY ausbiz the call - Adam and Junie
Very small market share but huge inflows of new funds in the sector - Long runway.
Similar to PPS and HUB.
Very small market share but huge inflows of new funds in the sector.
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