Still owned by the people who run it.
Founded in Sydney in 2015 and management-owned ever since. We run one business: finding good ideas and implementing them well. No investment banking, no corporate advisory, no capital raising, no trading desk, no paid product ratings. There is nothing else competing for our attention.
The structure decides the outcome.
You cannot serve the client and maximise the revenue taken from the client. When the two diverge, the structure decides which one wins.
Australia spent two decades building integrated financial services. Capture the customer at the bank, move them into financial planning, have the planner recommend the institution's own products. The planner worked for a dealer group the institution owned. Fees were collected at every point in the chain.
The Hayne Royal Commission documented what that produced, case by case, over nearly two years. The word that recurred in the final report was conflicted. What Hayne described was not a handful of bad actors. It was a system working exactly as designed.
Banyantree was set up in 2015 to remove those conflicts structurally rather than disclose around them. We are not a broker, so we do not earn from your client's trading. No manager pays us for coverage, so nothing sits on a list because it bought a place there. There is no corporate finance relationship to disclose at the bottom of a note because there is no corporate finance business.
The managers hold their own capital in the strategies they run. If a portfolio loses money, we lose money at the same time and in the same proportion. That is not a marketing line. It is the reason the incentives point where they do.
Four things we've turned down.
Each of these was available. Each would have made the firm more money. Turning them down is what the independence actually consists of.
To get large
The strategies that produce an edge usually depend on operating where the market is less crowded. A fund at scale cannot build those positions quietly. Growth would mean changing the approach while continuing to describe the old one.
To be acquired
Boutiques get bought. The buyer usually wants distribution reach, and what follows is a product list shaped by what the parent needs to sell. Staying management-owned is what keeps the research answerable only to whether it was right.
Performance fees
A performance fee pays for volatility. It rewards the year the bet came off and charges nothing back for the year it did not. We charge 0.25% of funds under management and nothing else, so the only way we earn more is if your capital grows.
To hire a star
A star manager attracts allocations and speaking slots and press. A star manager also becomes the single point of failure, and the franchise ends up defending the narrative long after the edge has gone. We built a flat team instead, with no one indispensable.
Three people, three sides of the same problem.
Buy-side discipline, sell-side perspective and operating-company accounting. Between them, most of the places a mistake can hide.
Chhai Ung
Portfolio management, global equities and mandate governance at Banyantree. Before that, Aberdeen Asset Management, where he worked as an investment analyst, ran the Australian small-cap portfolio, covered global equities and headed the Australian trading desk.
Aberdeen's method was bottom-up and quality-obsessed: own businesses you understand deeply, hold them for years, do not trade because a macro view shifted. That disposition runs straight through Banyantree's philosophy. Earlier, REITs investment banking at Morgan Stanley, structuring the deals he would later be on the other side of.
Zach Riaz
Investment research, equity coverage and hybrid securities at Banyantree. Previously lead analyst for Australian equities and ASX-listed hybrids at Insignia Financial, and before that equity research at RBC Capital Markets.
The Insignia role was a vantage point on how the largest institutions actually reach decisions, and how often those decisions are driven less by analysis than by inertia. He also advised the Hon. Nick Greiner on strategy and mergers and acquisitions.
Gaurav Singla
Equity research, financial modelling and manager due diligence at Banyantree. Before joining, he worked as a financial accountant inside an operating company: preparing the statements, advising on projected funding, presenting quarterly to senior management.
Very few analysts have stood inside a business and watched a reporting cycle assembled from the inside. It is an unusual background in institutional investment management and a useful one, because it tends to tell you where the bodies are buried in a set of accounts. Earlier, financial modelling and derivative hedging at a stockbroking firm.
Flat team. Shared accountability.
You reach the person who made the decision
There is no client service function between you and the investment managers. Most firms build that buffer to protect the investment team's time. We decided the access commitment was worth more than the protected calendar, so the people doing the work are the people who take the call.
Everyone knows everything, and it's written down
A three-person team only scales if nothing lives in one person's head. Every mandate, every decision and every change of view is documented and version-controlled, so the record does not depend on who is in the room.
Five commitments, from day one.
These define every managed account relationship we have. They are not negotiated per client, because then they would not be commitments.
Total portfolio construction and management
We design and manage the complete portfolio to your mandate: asset allocation, security selection and ongoing rebalancing, all to the agreed policy. Universe, risk limits, liquidity floors, cash buffers and rebalancing rules are documented before any trade is made.
An active research programme
We take the burden of meeting external product providers off your desk. Manager due diligence, fund reviews, company meetings and site visits run continuously, are documented, and are shared. You keep the insight without the overhead.
Ongoing attribution and risk analysis
Periodic one-on-one portfolio reviews. Monthly snapshots flagging what moved and why. Quarterly reviews recording the decisions taken and the plan forward. Every report is dated and version-controlled in a secure portal.
Communications written for your clients
Portfolio correspondence written for the end investor rather than for compliance, so it can be handed over as it is. We are available for client evenings and investor seminars.
Full access to the decision-makers, always
When you have a question about a position or a decision, you reach the investment manager who made it. No client service layer, no run-around. The people you speak to are accountable for the outcome.
Licensed. Documented. Auditable.
No conflicted businesses
We are not a broker and we receive no fees from managers for coverage. Incentives are tied to the quality of the work and to client outcomes, not to transaction flow. We remain benchmark-unaware, so mandates rather than indices set the course.
Policies applied, not published
We operate under an Australian Financial Services Licence and maintain policies for conflicts, research independence, best execution, privacy and complaints. Mandates, trades and valuations carry a full audit trail.
Custody sits elsewhere
Custody and administration sit with platform providers. Our attention stays on decisions, oversight and outcomes. Portal access is permissioned by person and activity is logged.
We publish the reasoning, not just the call.
Start a conversation.
Tell us what your mandate looks like and how you measure success. If we're not the right firm for what you're trying to do, we'll say so.