Australian Ethical posts solid quarter

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

19 January 2026

Australian Ethical’s 2024 acquisition of the GROW superannuation business is continuing to pay dividends with the company reporting a solid second quarter, notwithstanding a small decline in Funds Under Management (FUM).

In a second quarter update to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Australian Ethical said that its FUM stood at $14.08 billion as at 31 December, 2025, representing a 1% decrease over the quarter.

It said the movement in FUM was driven by positive retail and wholesale net flows offset by negative investment performance and “an inorganic institutional outflow during the period”.

Commenting on the quarter outcome, Australian Ethical managing director, John McMurdo said it had been a pleasing first half despite challenging investment market conditions.

He noted that on the superannuation side of the business there had been changes to its digital marketing capability which had delivered an increase in new members.

“With the completion of our transition to GROW, we are realising cost efficiencies and can focus on uplifting the member experience to support continued growth,” McMurdo said.

The ASX update said that second quarter retail and wholesale net flows of $0.10 billion were driven by superannuation, with Australian Ethical seeing a 15% increase in new member joins.

It said that following the sale of its banking business to Bank Australia, Australian Unity Bank’s $0.25 billion mandate with Australian Ethical had been redeemed and transferred to Bank Australia.

“This was a low-margin institutional mandate acquired as part of the acquisition of Altius Asset Management,” the company said. “The loss of this mandate will not impact profit, as the small annual revenue reduction of approximately $0.3 million, will be offset by a planned simplification of the business platform and cost savings as a result of this improvement.”