Best Investment Managers in New Zealand: Who You Are Really Handing Your Money To – A Practical How-To Guide

You found a name online. Maybe it was Fisher Funds, or Milford, or that mate-of-a-mate who said: “Craigs are good.” A few clicks later, your money is gone—not gone gone, but transferred. It’s now being bought and sold by someone you’ve never met, using a strategy you only half-understand, while you pay them a fee for the privilege.

That’s the transaction. But who are they? Really?

Here are four questions to ask before you hand over a cent. Each one will reveal something different about the best investment managers in New Zealand — and whether they deserve your trust.

Question One: Who’s Actually Managing the Money?

Sounds obvious. It isn’t.

Many fund managers in New Zealand outsource stock picking to offshore partners. Others change lead managers more often than a supermarket changes its loyalty programme. Still others are built around a single star whose departure would leave a crater.

Take Fisher Funds. For years, the public face was Carmel Fisher. She stepped back from day-to-day management, and the firm now runs an institutional-style team approach. It’s stable. The fund managers have been there a while. You’re not betting on one person’s hot streak.

Milford Asset Management is different. It’s built around a core investment team that includes Brian Eley and a small group of analysts. When a senior person leaves, it makes headlines — and the funds sometimes wobble for a quarter. But the firm has a deep bench.

Now Pie Funds. Founder Chris Withers is the brand. The firm’s growth style is his style. If you invest there, you’re investing in his conviction. That can be exhilarating when it works and terrifying when it doesn’t. In a recent year, one of their funds halved while another doubled. Same manager. Same strategy.

And then there are the quiet operators. JMI Wealth in Christchurch. Bentley Reid and Mint Asset Management. These firms don’t advertise, don’t have big KiwiSaver schemes, and don’t appear in every comparison list. Their manager rosters are small. One departure could change the character of a fund.

The blunt truth: most investors never ask who the lead manager actually is. They just read the brand name.

Question Two: What Are You Really Paying?

Fees are the one part of investing you can control. And investment managers in New Zealand vary wildly.

Simplicity charges 0.31% for its KiwiSaver fund. That’s almost nothing. It’s a passive manager — they buy the whole market. No stock picking. No active bets. You get what the market gives, minus almost nothing.

Then there’s Fisher Funds. Their growth fund charges around 1.1% plus an annual fund charge. No performance fee. You pay a flat fee for access to their team. It’s middle-of-the-road.

Milford charges a management fee and a performance fee — typically 15% of returns above a hurdle. This can add up fast. In a good year, you might pay 2.5% or more. In a bad year, no fee, but no return either.

Pie Funds uses a similar structure. Performance fee, high water mark (so they have to make up losses before charging again), but still: in a boom year, your total fee can approach 3% of your investment.

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable: a 2% fee difference over 30 years on a $100,000 portfolio can cost you over $200,000. That’s not hyperbole. That’s compounding.

One adviser told me, “People will spend more time researching a new toaster than they will on their fund manager’s fee structure.”

He wasn’t joking.

Question Three: How Have They Actually Done?

Past performance is not a guide to future returns. Every investment manager says it. Then they parade their five-year track record anyway.

Let’s look.

Milford has been one of the best active managers in New Zealand over the past decade. Their Active Growth Fund returned something like 12% per annum over the five years to June 2024 (I’ve seen the numbers). That’s well ahead of the market index. But in the year to June 2022, it fell 11%. Investors who bought at the top saw a painful drawdown.

Fisher Funds delivers more consistent, if less spectacular, numbers. Their growth fund typically sits somewhere around the median. Not the top, not the bottom. Boring. That’s not an insult — it’s a strategy.

Pie Funds put up enormous returns in the mid-2010s. Their Australasian fund doubled in three years. Then 2022 happened. Some investors saw their balances halve.

The pattern? The best managers over one year are rarely the best over ten. And the ones with the smoothest returns often have the smallest upside.

One trick: look at three-year rolling returns. Don’t just look at the average. Look at how often the fund lost money. A fund that loses 20% in one year can still show a 10% annualised return over five years — but your experience would have been horrible.

Ask yourself: Can I handle that?

Question Four: Are Their Interests Aligned With Yours?

This is the question most people never ask.

Fisher Funds is employee-owned. So are Craigs Investment Partners and Forsyth Barr. The people running the firm are also invested in it. That alignment matters. They have skin in the game.

Milford is majority-owned by its founders and staff, but there’s also a big Australian partner (Fidante Partners). Does that change things? Possibly. The investment team still owns a meaningful stake, but the structure means external shareholders may one day want an exit.

Then there are managers owned by banks. ANZ, Westpac, BNZ — they all have investment arms. Their fund managers are employees, not owners. The decisions are made by people who will clock off at 5 pm. Not necessarily bad, but different.

And Simplicity is a registered charity. All profits go back into reducing fees or to charity. That’s about as aligned as it gets.

Alignment isn’t everything. But it tells you how the manager thinks about your money. If they charge a performance fee and you’ve got a five-year time horizon, they might swing for the fences. If they’re paid a salary, they’ll probably be more conservative.

Know what you’re signing up for.

Putting It Together

No single “best” manager exists. The best investment managers in New Zealand for you depend on your answers to these four questions.

Want active stock picking with a strong track record and can stomach the volatility? Milford works. Prefer a steady, low-key approach without performance fees? Fisher Funds.

Want to pay almost nothing and trust the market? Simplicity.

Want a human who sits across a desk and knows your name? A private client adviser at Forsyth Barr or Craigs Investment Partners can do that — but you’ll pay more, and you’re hiring an adviser, not necessarily a fund manager.

One more thing: check the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) register. Every investment manager in New Zealand must be licensed. A quick search will tell you if they’ve had disciplinary action, if their licence has conditions, or if they’re under investigation. It takes two minutes.

Most people don’t bother.