Capital Allocation Advisory
Allocation Advisors was built on a simple idea: advice should be led by your goals, not by which product pays the biggest commission. Disciplined, low-cost, and aligned with your interests.
Independent KiwiSaver and investment advice, without the sales pitch.
What does a financial advisor do?
Matt Guise
University of Canterbury
BCom
Chartered Accountant, KMPG CA ANZ
Executive MBA LSE, London
Structured Finance
Investec, London
Craigs · Forsyth Barr · Hobson Wealth
Investment Adviser
Matt Guise is the founder of Allocation Advisors, bringing investment experience from New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe to a client base that ranges from family offices to individual investors always with the understanding that it is their capital at risk, not his.
He began his career in the Financial Services team at KPMG, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and remains a member of CA ANZ. There he built a detailed understanding of how global banks and insurers use complex financial instruments hedging strategies, derivatives, life insurance products and mutual funds. He then joined Spark, working alongside McKinsey & Company on strategic options for the company's fixed line business.
Matt later moved to London to join Investec's Structured Finance team, originating lending opportunities and identifying the institutional funders best suited to each transaction, while completing an Executive MBA at the London School of Economics.
Returning to New Zealand, Matt worked as an investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners, Forsyth Barr and Hobson Wealth, advising a wide range of clients on investment strategy and portfolio construction. Along the way, he noticed an industry built more around generating fees than generating after fee, after-tax returns one where investment providers are often incentivised to sell product rather than deliver independent advice.
Allocation Advisors was established to do it differently: advice-led, client-focused and transparent, with a simple, disciplined investment philosophy and no hidden fees.
02 — What we do
For most investors, the biggest driver of long-term returns isn't which stock you pick it's asset allocation: how your money is split across the main asset classes.
What a financial adviser actually does
Cash
Fixed income
Shares (equities)
Real estate (property)
Commodities
Getting that mix right comes down to two things: how much risk you can afford to take, and how much you can live with.
Your financial ability to take on risk. We assess your income, assets, liabilities and overall position to work out how much risk you can reasonably carry without being forced to sell during a downturn — while still aiming for growth that outpaces inflation.
Risk capacity
Your emotional ability to sit through the ups and downs. Our role is to keep you focused on the long term rather than reacting to short-term noise, so you stay invested through volatility rather than selling at the wrong time.
Risk tolerance
Our Service
03 — Services
KiwiSaver
Funds available from approx. 0.75% p.a.
We match your KiwiSaver strategy to your risk capacity and long-term goals, and recommend cost-effective funds because money sitting in unnecessary fees is money not compounding for your retirement.
Asset allocation the right mix of growth and defensive assets for your circumstances usually matters more than trying to pick individual investments.
We offer a complimentary, no obligation consultation: we review your current provider, assess whether your fund suits your objectives and risk profile, and show you projections for how different strategies might perform over time.
Private Wealth
Asset allocation · Fees · Tax efficiency
There are three things investors can genuinely control: asset allocation, fees, and tax efficiency. Getting the first right is fundamental; keeping the second low means you keep more of what you earn.
Tax matters too. While advisers don't provide tax advice, Matt is a Chartered Accountant and factors tax implications into the advice process the wrong structure can quietly erode long-term returns.
We offer a complimentary initial consultation, and can review your existing portfolio for asset allocation, fees, tax efficiency and overall fit. Clients are often surprised what turns up.
Our Investment Approach
04 — Approach
We believe asset allocation is the primary driver of long term returns both the balance between growth and income assets, and the split of investments across countries. Ours is a disciplined, mathematical approach: being invested in the right markets matters more than picking individual stocks. Rather than trying to pick winners, we believe broad market exposure through ETFs delivers better long-term outcomes at lower cost.
If you were investing from the moon, with no home country bias, how much would you allocate to New Zealand?
New Zealand investors are typically overweight New Zealand shares and bonds more so once you consider that home, employment and future income are usually concentrated here too. New Zealand has many excellent private businesses, and NZ-founded businesses listed overseas, but relatively few companies listed on the NZX offer real global growth. Many face a small domestic market, governance geared more toward directors and management than shareholders, and disruption from global technology think traditional telcos challenged by global platforms, or gentailers challenged by distributed solar and battery storage.
We prefer markets with strong rule of law, world-class universities, deep capital markets, and the ability to attract and keep talented people the conditions that produce the world's most successful businesses.
Our preferred approach blends hedged and unhedged international investments: hedged exposure accesses the world's best markets while reducing currency volatility for spending here in New Zealand; unhedged exposure adds diversification and helps preserve purchasing power for travel, education or other overseas costs.