Knight Group to help Western Australians to invest smarter with the launch of Knight Direct
Leading Western Australian accounting and wealth management firm, Knight Group, today announces the launch of an innovative digital investing solution designed to help Western Australians invest for their futures in a smarter way – with the assistance of experienced professionals.
Knight Direct, an online solution accessible directly from Knight Group’s website, enables consumers to sign up themselves and access one of six diversified investment portfolios managed by the group’s experienced investment team. The solution is open to everyone, and people can get started with as little as $15,000.
Knight Group CEO Simon Howard explained that the firm’s vision that has motivated the launch is to help the broadest audience possible, in particularly people who feel they have been excluded from accessing professional financial advice for cost reasons.
“Personal advice requires a considerable amount of individual attention and a lot of document preparation, and as a result, is a costly process, not available to everyone. And yet, we believe everyone would benefit from having experienced professionals in their corner. That’s why we’ve developed Knight Direct, to enable everybody to access the professional investing expertise of the Knight Group team,” Howard said.
The six managed portfolios available in the Knight Direct solution cover a range of four risk/return profiles, together with an Australian Shares portfolio and a portfolio targeting Diversified Income, allowing individuals to select the portfolio that best suits their circumstances.
Knight Group director and head of the firm’s investment committee, Jason Featherby, also a popular commentator on personal financial management and investing on radio stations 6PR and CurtainFM, explained that his radio station experience dealing with the public convinced him the firm should use technology to help a much larger number of people.
“Based on the calls we get and the conversations we have, there is so much uncertainty about how to invest in a sensible way, diversifying one’s portfolio so as to manage risk. People are desperate to learn good investing habits so they can improve their and their family’s long-term wealth,” Featherby explained.
He added that a key motivation for launching the new Knight Direct solution was to help teach people the sort of financial literacy skills that form the basis of sound investing, and thereby help keep them safe from the growing numbers of get-rich-quick schemes and scams that are heavily promoted via the internet.
“The press is reporting there are 30,000 Australian investors trying to get their money out of collapsed crypto exchange FTX. That’s more than just a statistic; that money was earned through hard work, and it’s a tragedy for so many ordinary Australians who just can’t afford to lose their savings. Through Knight Direct we will help to explain to people that there is a right way to invest – via diversified portfolios – and thereby hopefully keep them safe from flashy but high-risk schemes and scams,” he added.
The Knight Direct solution has been developed in conjunction with Melbourne-based investment platform, OpenInvest. The company’s head of distribution, Ravi Verma, said that OpenInvest was proud to be partnering with a firm as widely respected throughout Western Australia as Knight Group.
“We tend to attract those progressive wealth management firms who share the same values we do, that are passionate about helping as many people in their community as they can. Clearly, given Jason’s radio station exposure, that community is much larger than that of the average firm we work with, but that’s the benefit of offering an online solution: there is no limit to the number of people that Knight Direct can reach,” Verma said.
Featherby concluded by saying that the launch of Knight Direct was a natural and logical extension of the firm’s traditional personal advice offering.
“We have prided ourselves over many years on providing our private wealth clients the sort of long-term professional support and guidance that has enabled them to feel more secure and confident about meeting their long-term financial and life goals. We have the exact same goal with Knight Direct – it’s just that as we’ll be delivering this via scalable technology, we can now help a much larger audience, Featherby said.
