Oracle Story so far…
Peter and some other partners met with the management of Morgan’s and put forward the idea of becoming a locally owned independent office of Morgan’s. At the time, all their offices were owned by their corporate head office. This was promptly agreed, and we became their first locally owned branch. This was one of our first innovations in the industry. We commenced operations shortly before the stock market crash of October 1987. A baptism of fire to say the least!
In 2003, Scott Jacobs joined the Morgan’s team, moving from his previous accounting role. Our primary focus was providing direct share portfolio advice to an ever-increasing number of clients.
Our next adventure was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, whereby markets experienced declines not seen since 1987. This event taught many participants investment lessons that should well be remembered into the future. We continued to focus on improving our investment selection criteria and our readings directed us to the wise teachings of arguably the world`s best investor, Warren Buffet.
Pictured above: Scott Jacobs and Peter Durbin
- Enduring competitive advantage
- Industry tailwinds (not headwinds)
- Consumer Monopoly (not a commodity) business
- High return on equity
- Low debt
- Management that act like owners
- A history of growing their earnings per share
Using the above criteria, we are not simply seeking to participate in the market. We are aiming to materially outperform the market on an ongoing basis.
We also found that many clients were looking for an increased level of service and therefore we transitioned many clients to a portfolio administration service whereby we continued to provide active portfolio advice, but additionally we also provided the administration, online reporting and tax reporting service.
Whilst this was a material improvement of service, the business continued to grow to the point where we needed to contact many hundreds of clients simply to make one portfolio change to each client`s investments. We decided that this was not the most efficient way to manage a client`s investments and didn’t provide the best opportunity to create the highest returns possible. We felt it was better for us to focus on making the correct investment decisions and less time on implementing the decisions.
We investigated a range on investment alternatives. We decided to implement a range of Model Portfolios that are organised through a Separately Managed Account structure. This is similar to the Individually Managed Accounts that we were previously managing , with the main difference being that we were able to implement portfolio changes as and when required, without the need to seek client approval on each transaction.
- Full visibility of their investments and transactions
- The ability to customise the portfolio by adding or eliminating investments from the portfolio
- Their own individual tax position allowing better management of their tax position which usually results in a lower taxation expense.
- Fixed Interest
- Australian Larger Companies
- Australian Smaller Companies
- International Companies
- Property investments
- Ethical Investments
In 2017 we decided that to fully implement the services that we wanted to provide, that we needed to commence operating under our own licence. Therefore, in April 2018 we commenced operating as Oracle Advisory Group.
Since that date we have expanded our service to include:
- Mortgage Lending Services
- Self-Managed Superannuation Administration (Tax returns and Audits)
- Personal Insurances
- Accounting
Throughout the past 34 years we have continued to innovate in many areas with the view of continuing to improve the services that we offer.
We look forward to further improving and expanding the services, that we offer to our clients over the years ahead.
We invite you to join us on this journey into the future.
