About Us

 

Firstly, a bit of info on the main components of The SMSF Review.

FREE comprehensive online resource center of independent information, education, and strategies for Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) trustees, plus a monthly newsletter, live webinars, and monthly audio technical updates.

The SMSF Review website brings together in one central place easy to understand information on the wide variety of topic areas that can apply to SMSF trustees, along with a number of tools to help you build your skills and make better trustee decisions. This info and education is delivered across written articles, audio podcasts (SMSF Radio), online calculators, a Blog, comparison tables, and webinars. We also provide a number of sample fund documents for your use. Membership is FREE, and enables us to keep you up to date via our monthly newsletter and monthly technical audio updates. CLICK HERE for more on the benfits of becoming a member, and browse the info on the right hand menu under the heading "SMSF Info, Education, Strategies".

 

Free information, guidance, and strategies to assist your investing within your SMSF.

The SMSF Investing section provides a range of free information to assist you to confidently manage your SMSF investments.

We start with a step by step investment process that is desigend to help you set a firm foundation, along with info on how to manage your all important asset allocation. We then provide a range of educational material covering various asset classes and investment strategies. We also have a separate free weekly fixed income newsletter covering research and education in the bond / fixed income market. CLICK HERE for more on receiving The WIRE Fixed Income newsletter.

 

Have your voice heard with SISFA

The Small Independent Superannuation Funds Association is Australia's original SMSF advocate body, and is the official direct voice to Government and the regulators for members of The SMSF Review. SISFA provides an important link between fund trustees, the superannuation industry, authorities and the community though its regular liaison and submissions to Government and the ATO on matters such as policy, proposed legislation and rulings impacting on SMSFs. CLICK HERE for more info on how you can submit your views.

 

The SMSF Directory

Our SMSF services directory provides you with one central place to browse providers of the various types of specialist services you may need to engage over the life cycle of your DIY Superannuation fund. From fund establishment, end of year administrators, auditors, and strategy advisers, through to stockbrokers, investment newsletters, insurers and more. Its all here in the one spot. CLICK HERE to go there now.

 

 

 

Now for some info on our key content contributors:

The Editor

The Founder and Chief Editor of The SMSF Review is Graham Parkes. Graham began his career in the financial services industry over 14 years ago, and immediately specialised in superannuation strategies. This was initially by accident, due to his first role being involved with directly helping large numbers of people who were being made redundant from northern NSW government utilities at the time. The subject matter quickly grew on him due to the highly technical nature of the work and the satisfaction of creating strategies that tangibly helped people. In early 2001, he then started to specialise in the then cottage industry of Self Managed Superannuation, which has since grown enormously. He then spent 7 years as a SMSF technical resource to a diverse group of stockbrokers and their clients, whilst also spending time on trading desks in equities, derivatives and foreign exchange markets giving him valuable hands on experience with DIY investors at the very pointy end of financial markets. During this time he also did project work building managed investment structures (including managed accounts) and chairing investment committees. It is this breadth & depth of background, with a foundation of SMSF technical knowledge, that puts Graham in the ideal position to be the editor of The SMSF Review given the diversity of information topics this resource has to cover.

SMSF Technical Panel

 

The list below is our SMSF technical panel, who contribute to many of the technical articles of The SMSF Review. These are some of the very best technical experts from across the SMSF industry, and represents exactly what The SMSF Review is all about - bringing together experts from across this fragmented industry for the benefit of trustees everywhere.

 

Darren Kingdon (SISFA)

Darren is a director of SISFA (Small Independent Superannuation Funds Association) and is a member of SISFA’s Technical & Policy Committee, which has had considerable success in the policy development of SMSFs in this country. He is a panel member of the ATO National Tax Liaison Group Superannuation Technical Committee – Australia’s top superannuation technical committee, and provides us with a direct link to the current thinking of the ATO. This is of enormous value to us and to our members. Darren spent 10 years as a technical analyst/manager, which for 6 years was voted the No.1 provider of Technical Services in the financial advice industry. He has written 2 books in the past on SMSF strategies for financial professionals.

 

Brian Bendzulla

Brian Bendzulla has gained a reputation as arguably Australia’s top SMSF actuary, with more than 25 years experience in Australia, South Africa and UK. He built Bendzulla Actuarial to be the consulting firm that has won the BRW Client Services award as the Best Australian Actuarial Firm in each of the past 4 years. In addition, he built the FinSight Plus subsidiary that provides the majority of SMSF exempt pension income certificates in Australia via an online service. These companies were sold in July 2010 to facilitate Brian and his team taking up the challenge to push the boundaries of using actuarial science and maths to provide solutions for the major retirement issues faced by self funded retirees.

 

Daniel Butler

Daniel is Managing Director of DBA Lawyers. He is recognised as one of Australia’s leading self managed superannuation fund lawyers, and is well known in the industry as being an educator and presenter of the highest quality with SMSF issues. He is also a tax lawyer and has worked predominantly in the fields of tax and superannuation over the past 23 years. Daniel is a regular seminar presenter on tax and superannuation topics to industry professionals, and has published extensively in these areas. He also has an MBA from Melbourne University.

 

Peter Townsend

Peter is the founder of Townsends Corporate & Business lawyers - a legal firm with over 30 years extensive experience in business law, financial services, superannuation, estate planning and commercial litigation. Townsends Superannuation Division specialises in superannuation and all aspects of SMSFs including SMSF Gearing, compliance and regulatory issues, tax issues, deed amendment and modification, fund reconstruction, winding up, pensions, investment structures, investment strategy compliance and more, with a range of highly specialised legal superannuation advice and support. They also provide technical expertise to financial advisers and accountants via SUPERCentral, a leading on-line SMSF deed update service.

 

Denis Barlin

Denis Barlin is a barrister at Wentworth Selborne chambers in Sydney. With a particular focus on the small to medium sized enterprise market, Denis advises on all aspects of revenue laws, including income tax, capital gains tax, goods and services tax and State taxes generally – along with trust law matters generally and superannuation. Denis was heavily involved with the ‘gearing of superannuation fund’ process from before the introduction of subsection 67(4A) of the SIS Act. Denis has been a regular speaker for professional associations such as the Taxation Institute of Australia and has been a regular contributor to a number of professional journals.

 

Meg Heffron

Meg is one of Australia's most highly regarded SMSF technicians and presenters, and is widely regarded as one of the leading lights in the nation's superannuation industry. This view was reinforced when she was appointed as the SMSF industry panel member of the Government's Super System review (also known as the Cooper review), chaired by Jeremy Cooper. The Heffron business was established in 1998 and over that time has developed a national reputation for SMSF excellence. Heffron is a leading SMSF specialist firm, providing a full range of SMSF services to accountants, financial advisers, and individuals including technical support and training.

 

David Busoli

David is one of the most experienced SMSF specialists in the country, and has been at the forefront of SMSF administration for many years. He has specialised in self managed superannuation compliance & administration, strategic advice, deed construction and education since 1994. Much of his time these days as part of the team at Cavendish Superannuation is devoted to educating professional financial service providers including financial planners, accountants, lawyers and stock brokers operating in the self managed super sector. He often addresses public forums and has addressed SMSF conferences for Kaplan and SPAA, PD days for numerous dealers, stock brokers and banks, the Australian Tax Institute, the Australian Investors Association and the Qld Law Society.

 

SMSF Investing Experts:

This is our list of experts who contribute to the SMSF investing section of The SMSF Review.

 

Roger Montgomery - "value investing" in the share market.

Roger is our chief contributor of educational information on the concept of "value investing" in the sharemarket. He is one of Australia’s leading commentators in this area, author of popular stock market guide book Value.able, and is the founder of Montgomery Investment Management. Alan Kohler has referred to Roger as “one of the nations smartest and most successful value investors” and Ross Greenwood has described him as “one of Australia’s best-regarded stock market investors” and as a man who “invests well, not often”.

 

Elizabeth Moran - fixed income / bond market investing

Liz is our chief contributor of educational information in the area of fixed income and bond market investing. She is a senior credit analyst with FIIG securities and is the editor of their weekly fixed income publication, The WIRE. Liz has previously worked as an Editor/Analyst for quantitative rating agency Rapid Ratings, writing daily press releases for Bloomberg which focused on the impact of breaking news, such as M&A activity on the company's credit rating. Liz spent five years in London, three working as a credit rating analyst for NatWest Markets, the investment-banking arm of National Westminster Bank. She was part of a team of 30 analysts responsible for rating the Bank's top 500 corporate clients. While in London, she worked on contract with BP Oil UK Ltd and Generale Bank.

Jim Stening - bond market / fixed income expert

Jim is the Group Managing Director and the founder of FIIG Securities Limited. Jim has extensive knowledge of fixed income, cash and derivative markets fostered by more than 25 years experience in financial markets, interest rate product development and international fixed income trading. Jim has worked with some of the world's best known financial institutions including Merrill Lynch, Banco Santander (Singapore) and National Australia Bank.

Albert Landman - sharemarket analyst and fund manager

Albert is a stock market analyst and active fund manager who has been involved in the financial markets for 17 years.  He ran a wholesale Australian shares long short fund for 7 years from mid 2002 to the end of 2009, with the distinction of being one of the few “true to label” absolute return fund managers to successfully navigate the 2008 bear market with minimal impact. His fund was back at record equity highs by April 2009 whilst the general share market was still languishing well below its previous high point. Albert currently manages the Calibre Investments Australian Absolute Return Fund.