Aquis Park was once again the venue of choice for hosting our 27th Annual Client Awards on the 21st of October. We were privileged to be the first group to utilise the newly renovated Sky Lounge, where over 100 guests thoroughly enjoyed a day of fabulous food, good wine, and great company.

Founder & CEO Eric McCay shared the stories of two life-long associations he has been fortunate to be involved with during his financial planning career – the Ngawaka family, who were the first to become clients of MAS upon incorporation in 1995, and the Tucker family, which now spans 3 generations of clients with Carol having accepted a very youthful Eric as her adviser way back in 1988.

As always, the highlight of the day was the presentation of our Wealth Step awards to recognise client achievements. We were delighted to celebrate 16 Wealth Step Awards and present 31 awards in total. We also celebrated 12 couples who have been clients of MAS for 25 years.

The Cancer Council of Australia was our charity for the 9th instalment of the Investment Game.  In one of our best results ever, 4 of our 12 ‘Fund Managers’ managed a profit this year with Table 10 being declared the winners on the day. Overall, our initial investment of $960 was converted into a return of $930 and thanks to some generous donations, we raised over $1,800. We are pleased to announce that Count Charitable Foundation has pledged an additional $1,000 bringing our donation total to $2,800.

Following are some photos from the day.  We look forward to welcoming you again next year!

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After a 2-year Covid hiatus, we were thrilled to host our 26th Annual client awards on the 29th of October.

Aquis Park was resplendent with beautiful blue skies and lush green turf. Guests thoroughly enjoyed a day of fabulous food, good wine and great company.

Founder & CEO Eric McCay spoke about his original vision for the business and its subsequent growth beyond this, which he attributed to the dedication of the MAS Team and the support of our Client Referrals & Advocates.

As always, the highlight of the day was the presentation of our Wealth Step awards in recognition of client’s milestone achievements. We were delighted to celebrate having over forty clients achieve a Wealth Step.

Our 8th instalment of the Investment Game was held with MND Australia chosen as our charity, in memory of Troy who lost his battle with Motor Neurone Disease in July last year.

Despite their best efforts, only 2 of our 13 ‘Fund Managers’ managed a profit this year with Table 4 being declared the winners on the day. Overall, our initial ‘investment’ of $1,040 was converted into a return of $497.  Thanks to some generous donations we raised over $1,700 & we are pleased to announce that the Count Charitable Foundation has pledged an additional $2,500, bringing our total to over $4,200.

Following are some photos from the day.  We look forward to welcoming you again next year!

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23rd Annual Client Awards 2019

Our 23rd Annual client awards were held on the 4th of November at Aquis Park. As always a great day was had by all, with fabulous food, good wine and great company.

The highlight of the day was the presentation of our Wealth Step awards to clients in celebration of their achievements. 12 Wealth Step awards were presented this year, with one couple reaching Wealth Step 5 – True Financial Independence. Congratulations to all award recipients!

Skills and luck were also put to the test with the 7th installment of our Investment Game. Despite their best efforts, our ‘fund managers’ finished the day a little worse for wear, converting an initial investment of $1,040 into $691! Congratulations to Table 12, who were one of just four teams to make a profit and won the day with a gain of $58. Thanks to some generous donations, Future2 will receive a total of $1,175!

Following are some photos from the day; thank you to everyone who attended and made this event possible, we look forward to seeing you next year!

 

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22nd Annual Client Awards 2018

Our Annual Client Awards were held at the Gold Coast Turf Club on Saturday 3rd November with this year being the 22nd Celebration of the success of our clients.

We continued our history of mixed fortunes on the racetrack, as our betting game returned $506.20 after an outlay of $1,120. Despite our bad luck, thanks to additional generous donations, we have been able to give Future2 a donation of $1,334.35!

This year marked a significant milestone for many of our staff at MAS. Belinda McCay and Rob Dugdale were both awarded 20 Years of Service awards, Graham Gohl and Steve Cook received 15 Years of Service awards, and Kathy Herring was awarded her 10 Years of Service award.

As always, the highlight of the night was the presentation of the WealthStep milestone awards. This year we had over 20 award recipients, with one couple achieving WealthStep 5 – True Financial Independence. Congratulations to all award recipients!

Thank you to everyone who helped make this day possible, and thank you to everyone who attended. We look forward to seeing you all next year!

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21st Annual Client Awards 2017

The sun was shining once again on another beautiful Derby Day at the Gold Coast Turf Club.

With our business turning ’21’ this year, Group CEO & founder Eric McCay thanked those people who have supported our business from it’s birth all those years ago, to it’s coming of age today.

Our charity, Future 2, was hoping that our tables of ‘fund managers’ would make the right selections and achieve maximum returns. As has been the case in the past, it was mixed fortunes for our teams on the track. However, thanks to everyone’s generosity on the day, Future 2 will receive over $1,700!

The highlight for Eric and Rob is the presentation of awards for clients who have reached their WealthStep milestones. This year we had 16 award recipients in total, including two couples who have achieved WealthStep 5 – True Financial Independence. Congratulations everyone!

A special thank you to Sarah and the team for organising another fantastic day and we look forward to seeing you all again next year!

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20th Annual MAS Client Awards 2016

Our clients thoroughly enjoyed themselves once again as MAS Wealth Management hosted it’s 20th Annual Client Awards. The Gold Coast Arts Centre’s Paradise Showroom provided a beautiful location, with welcome photos taken against the backdrop of the Gold Coast skylilne. Guests embraced the ‘Red Carpet’ theme, turning out in their finest. Scott Williams, the laughter specialist was on hand to keep everyone entertained.

As always, the highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Wealthstep awards to clients who have achieved milestones on their way to their retirement objectives. Special congratulations this year to Mo & Robyn Meppem on achieving Wealthstep 5 – True Financial Independence.

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After the 1987 share market crash, group founder and CEO Eric McCay witnessed clients of a share broking company be forced to sell their shares into a market that had already fallen over 50%. They were over-geared and unable to make payments on loans. After watching this destruction of wealth, these people watched from the sidelines as markets rebounded – they were unable to participate in the recovery, having been forced to sell out at the bottom. Eric vowed that no client of his would ever be a forced seller like what he had just seen.

Fast forward to 1996 when he was creating the ‘5 Pillars Program’, the first element that Eric designed was the concept of a ‘safety buffer’. Every client in the program would have enough undrawn capacity to cover a 50% fall in the sharemarket without needing to sell any of their investments. This strategy had been criticized as too conservative by some industry observers, particularly in the early to mid 2000’s when the sharemarket was posting great returns. However, the strategy was proven to be successful in 2008. As news broke about clients of Storm Financial and others being forced to sell their investments after the Global Financial Crises, Eric’s decision had been vindicated. Once again he watched on as people were forced to sell into an already falling market, knowing the clients of MAS Wealth Management were safe and those who had surplus buffer could take advantage of the opportunity.

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Imagine a bank that pays negative interest. In this upside down world, borrowers get paid and savers penalized.

At the moment, some 500 million people, in a quarter of the world’s economy, are living with negative deposit rates. Central banks are doing this in an attempt to increase lending, spur along inflation and reinvigorate the economy, after traditional measures have proven ineffective. The fear in Europe is that they will follow Japan into protracted deflation, and so central banks want to avoid this at all costs. Hence the focus on “unconventional” monetary policies that can operate to lift demand when lending rates hit zero.

If European central bank inflation forecasts are met, they should not need negative rates for too long – All expect inflation to increase towards their respective targets by 2017. However, in recent times central bank inflation forecasts have been too optimistic, which means these “temporary measures” could last much longer than expected.

What has this meant for savers?

Bank retail deposit rates are exceptionally low in those countries where central banks have adopted negative policy rates but they have seldom turned negative – zero is generally the floor. Deposit rates have been maintained better for households than for big corporates and for at-call accounts than term deposits.

And the borrowers?

Commercial bank retail lending rates have trended down in the negative interest rate countries but reductions have gradually lost momentum. Banks have been protecting margins, with a less prompt or full flow-through of changes in central bank deposit policy rates into retail lending rates. Where economies are strong or particular market segments buoyant, banks have even lifted margins to help offset the impact of negative central bank policy rates.

Euro-zone housing loan rates are around 2% and have been trending down while new lending to non-financial corporates have also been trending down and varied between 1½ and 3½% depending on loan size and type.

How low could deposit rates go?

The main constraint on making deposit rates very negative is the possibility that banks, business and households might hold their funds as cash rather than in negative rate deposit accounts. The cost and inconvenience of holding cash becomes crucial, a cost that varies according to the type of depositor and sums involved. Will Europeans store their cash in a safe at home?

Many households surveyed by ING in Europe say they would indeed change their behaviour if they faced negative retail deposit rates, shifting their money into other assets or hoarding it. There has been no evidence of such behaviour yet in Europe whilst retail deposit rates remain positive.

It’s still too early to know for sure whether or not negative interest rates are working, and only time will tell if they are able to increase demand and inflation.

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One of the big changes to superannuation on budget night involved Transition to Retirement (TTR) pensions. Are they still a worthwhile strategy going forwards?

To recap, a TTR strategy involves salary sacrificing additional amounts of your income into superannuation, and then starting a pension to pay you money to offset the amount you have reduced your income by. The goal being to have additional money contributed to super whilst not experiencing any reduction in your back pocket. The benefits of a TTR strategy were:

• The earnings on the assets inside a TTR were tax free (vs. 15% in superannuation)
• The salary sacrifice to superannuation reduced overall tax
• The pension payment is taxed at a lower rate (by virtue of a tax rebate) or tax free if over 60.

The proposed changes that will impact TTR strategies:

From 1 July 2017, assets inside a TTR pension will be taxed at 15% (previously 0%). There will be no changes to the tax on pension payments.

In addition to this, there will be a reduction in the concessional contributions cap from $35,000 to $25,000, meaning less money can be contributed to super by way of salary sacrifice.

The Results

Modelling shows that the benefits of a TTR strategy for clients under age 60 are now minimal, or potentially negative, compared with a typical range of $1,500 to $4,000 per annum.

Over 60’s however may still see some benefit in the strategy, although the benefits are reduced (generally by half) under the new proposals.

To sum up, the proposed changes will alter the benefits of TTR’s dramatically, and all strategies will need to be reviewed thoroughly before the proposed 1 July 2017 implementation date.

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