2020 will be a year that historians will write countless novels about. They will compare the strategies and policies of governments and businesses, applying perfect hindsight, and we will see new heroes and villains appear whether they are businesses that adapt or fail to, or whether they are government officials forced to change because of the train wreck their policies had on the future well-being of their societies.

Financial, overall physical and mental well-being have been side-lined by many countries as they focus intently on defending against Covid-19 and while the implications that has to capital markets is uncertain, investors are being asked to value that today. 

What economies and business profits will look like in 2023 is hard to imagine at the moment, but the market has been forced to react and predict what is next at record speed, with limited visibility and at times no facts.

As at today, capital markets have largely recovered from the depths of March 23rd and within 120 days the S&P 500 was flat for the year. To put context around that, the GFC took 433 days to find a bottom as opposed to around 30 days in 2020 and 1173 days to recover versus 120 in 2020. The problem with this is that the market is now predicting effectively what a business may earn in a decade, not what it will in a few years’ time.

The sheer speed at which the market is operating at today will create material increases to volatility, as when facts change they are changing some very long dated assumptions. 

The cause of this is global, the cost of capital is decreasing rapidly due to falling interest rates which in turn has led to an influx of capital from both retail and institutional investors into equities, as they search for returns.

The surge in retail investing and passive ETFs receiving inflows as if they are cash deposit accounts has materially increased liquidity, volatility, opportunities and made the market more complex to engage with.

Our clients are faced with a very simple problem; increased capital looking for a home in what is now a significantly more volatile and complex market. To respond to that requires investors and advisors to get closer to the facts, it requires faster access to expertise, and access to deeper and differentiated pools of capital. As the market becomes inherently more complex, deep experience will matter. Being closer to the underlying trends and applying those learnings to the domestic market will influence returns. 

Strong independent firms centred on the quality of their people, not the breadth of their lending, have been the biggest structural change in investment banking globally over the last decade. With leaner but highly experienced teams, independent firms have been successful at building long-term trusted relationships as opposed to competing for quarterly league rankings.

The importance of culture and values will matter more to both investors and boards, and they will need a broader understanding of the different pools of capital and their drivers. To deliver that will require firms to become increasingly localised, adapting global trends with local decision-making and market nuances, forming partnerships with all segments of the market to provide holistic, balanced advice.

Australia’s and New Zealand’s capital markets have become increasingly synchronised, and with the advent of the trans-Tasman bubble this trend is only going to continue. Many corporates will look to their home markets for M&A, access to capital and investment opportunities. With low returns investors will be looking for tax efficient ways to generate returns. Significantly expanding Jarden’s on the ground presence in Australia was therefore a natural extension.  

Throughout Jarden’s history, the firm has worked with some of Australasia’s largest companies and institutions and has forged close relationships within Australia’s financial and business community. 

To help Jarden deliver relevant advice to their clients we have been on a growth path for the past five years, focusing on increasing its capability in new areas such as self-directed investing, climate impact and carbon/emission trading. Earlier this year we announced an important new milestone in Jarden’s 60-year history, expanding our service offering further into the Australian market.

We saw Australia as a key pillar of our business long term. For our New Zealand clients it was about bringing direct access to a wider pool of capital and broader ideas. For our Australian clients it was about signalling our commitment to deliver an offering closer to their needs by investing in the best on the ground talent.

Jarden’s vision is to build the leading Australasian-focused, independent investment and advisory firm that stays true to our values of being client centric and building long-term trusted advisor relationships. 

We felt an independent firm focused on institutional and corporate clients, based around the best people, would create something unique. 

CEO Robbie Vanderzeil, Sarah Rennie, Dane FitzGibbon, John Spencer and Aidan Allan have been appointed to lead the growth of Jarden Australia. We have continued to add market leading expertise across our core focus areas of Capital Markets, Corporate Advisory, Equities and Research from all parts of the globe. Today we have over 50 Senior employees in the Investment Bank who have worked in every major market and product around the world, making us one of the most experienced and diverse teams in the market.

We are fortunate to have attracted such outstanding talent to date and will continue to invest to build the market-leading Australasian firm. 

With Australia and New Zealand becoming extensions of each other’s capital markets in a post-Covid-19 world, now is the time to be focusing on how we all really take advantage of the opportunities we have both within our home markets and how we reach all parts of the globe. With the Australia and New Zealand capital markets ecosystem expanding, Jarden is excited to be building a genuinely trans-Tasman, client centric business.