The executives no longer have a shareholding, however Morrow explained that John Kinghorn does not believe in staff equity schemes, and thinks salary and bonus incentives linked to performance hurdles are a better remuneration model.

The implemented consulting industry was ripe for a shake-up, Morrow said, with the existing players “putting all their assets into mega-managers…[Sigma Group Australia] will not be another index advisory house.”

Graham Morrow is a colourful figure in the history of Australian asset consulting.

He made his name in the 1980s, founding the listed actuarial and asset consulting business Morrow Australia. It advised corporate funds on how to reduce their contributions to defined benefit super, and aggressively promoted the use of then-emerging managers such as EquitiLink, SPAL, Clayton Robard, ANZCAP and County. Some of the recommended managers were also shareholders in the listed company.

The firm struggled after the stock market crash of 1987. In 1989, Larry Adler bought it for about $12 million but died soon afterwards.The business withered and also died under its new corporate owners.

After a short ‘retirement’ at Sanctuary Cove in Queensland, Morrow returned to the fray to start again with a similar business but this time the corporate super market was rapidly contracting and the new company did not go so well. It was placed in administration in the early 1990s and Morrow withdrew from the limelight, running Sigma Alpha International as a one-man show.