Queen’s honours: ‘Doing the right thing’ lands Andrew Sisson honour

Thirty years after establishing his own funds management firm, Andrew Sisson is modest about his Order of Australia.

Andrew Sisson in his Mebourne office. Picture: David Geraghty

Thirty years after establishing his own funds management firm, Balanced Equity Management, Andrew Sisson is typically modest in explaining what the Order of Australia means to him amid an extraordinarily successful career.

“It’s nice to be recognised even if I have simply sought to do the right thing,” Mr Sisson told The Australian.

Mr Sisson has been awarded the Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to the finance and investment sector, as an adviser to financial regulatory bodies, and through philanthropic support for cultural and charitable groups”.

He is an albeit humble giant of the Australian funds management industry and as such a key player and investor in the growth of Australian companies for much of the past four decades.

A fixture around the Melbourne corporate world since first working as an investment manager for National Mutual in 1975, he graduated from Melbourne University with a mathematics degree. Unsure what to do with the degree, he thought it would be in the actuarial field but after a trial with National Mutual decided investment management interested him most.

As luck would have it for the AFL Hawks tragic, the division included former Hawthorn Football Club president Phil Ryan, so he was right at home.

His colleagues also included some of the legends of the industry in Australia including then boss Ian Ferres, JANA founder John Nolan and one of the early partners of McIntosh Securities, Bruce Parncutt.

National Mutual in the late 1980s was closely involved in the BHP takeover bid by Robert Holmes a Court, who later hired Mr Sisson.

For once timing was out (depending on how you look at it) with Mr Sisson joining just after the 1987 sharemarket crash, by which time Holmes a Court’s highly leveraged empire was under severe pressure. Mr Sisson left the day Alan Bond gained control of the Bell Group. He established BEM in September 1988 with some simple strategies ­focused on the big end of town including derivatives and convertibles in his clients’ portfolios.

“We have always tried to think about companies strategically and look to the long-term implications of today’s news,” he said. “You have to put yourself in your clients’ shoes and be totally transparent.”

A large Qantas shareholder, he hit the spotlight in 2007 when he voted against the deal and helped block the historic, highly leveraged management buyout.

The bid was at $5.45 a share and the stock traded down as low as below $1 before rebounding, but not before causing Mr Sisson notoriety.

He insisted throughout it was an issue of relative value.

In 2011, Mr Sisson sold the company, with funds under management of over $10 billion, to US giant Franklin Templeton.

One of Australia’s biggest arts philanthropists, Mr Sisson said he had always thought “I am not going to take the money with me so, after making sure my family were looked after, I have tried to do things in a way which will benefit the community”.