Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Bell Financial Group (ASX:BFG), Co-Chief Executive Officer Arnie Selvarajah
Lel Smits: Bell Financial Group has delivered a strong year in equity capital markets, raising over $1.6 billion across 82 transactions and ranking eighth in the 2025 Australian League tables from the London Stock Exchange Group. The deal flow points to clear pockets of demand, particularly across resources, healthcare and energy transition names as investors continue to back growth and thematic opportunities despite a mixed macro backdrop. Ahead of appearing at Tip Group’s Emerging Wealth Winners Conference, I’m joined by Co-Chief Executive Officer Arnie Selvarajah to discuss where capital is being deployed, which sectors are leading activity and what this signals for markets in the year ahead. Arnie, welcome back to the Stock Network.
Arnie Selvarajah: Thank you, Lel and it’s nice to be with you again today.
Lel Smits: Lovely to have you on and I’m keen to hear more about where you think investor demand is coming from because you’ve just raised $1.6 billion across 82 deals over the last year. And where do you think you’re seeing the strongest investor demand right now, really? What types of companies are getting funded?
Arnie Selvarajah: Well, 2025 was a tale of two stories, really. So certainly in the first half of the year, there was strong demand in the healthcare sector and we raised some capital for the likes of Clarity and 40X, which are two up and coming, very strong healthcare companies. Towards the back end of the year, the market switched thematics and certainly we saw resources sector being very, very strong.
And to that end, raised some capital for companies like Minerals 260. And then earlier this year in 4A4N as well, both in the resources sector. So it seems to change.
The current thematic is that resources is very strong. That’s predominantly, I think, related to what happened late last year with the rotation away from technology stocks, given the whole AI move and the AI rush. Yes.
Lel Smits: Now, Arnie, as you mentioned, resources and healthcare, they’re featured heavily in your transactions of late. But looking ahead, what sectors do you think will continue to really attract capital over the next 12 months? And also, which stocks have been a particular highlight?
Arnie Selvarajah: Look, I think, you know, global events at the moment are impacting the market, obviously. So anything that’s related to energy is going to run hard and it’s going to run, you know, given the oil shock.
So we are expecting that resources, certain parts of resources will still remain strong. And of course, healthcare continues to be strong as well, because they are dependent on results that they get through their testing. So I think those two sectors will remain strong.
The third sector that we are also quite involved in is obviously the advanced manufacturing, or more specifically in the defence sector. So stocks like DroneShield and EOS are running hard at the moment, given what’s happening at a geopolitical front at the moment.
Lel Smits: Yes.
And given what is currently happening at a geopolitical front, how are you thinking about ECM activity into this year? And also, what do you think, in addition to those factors that you have mentioned, is going to really drive the next wave of capital raisings?
Arnie Selvarajah: Yes. Look, certainly our pipeline of capital raisings is very strong. The dislocation in the current market and share prices is causing pause for some corporates to see what happens with this market and to see some recovery in the underlying share prices.
So at the moment, I think it’s a watch and wait. And we’ll hopefully see some recovery in the market over the next three to four weeks. And I think that pipeline will resume.
The pipeline we have at the moment, as I said, is strong. There are quite a few IPOs in our pipeline. And so I’m looking forward to the market recovering.
And we can bring those companies to market for the benefit of our retailer and wholesale investors.
Lel Smits: Yes. And Arnie, in terms of Bell Financial Group’s broader strategy, what do you think are going to be the company’s growth drivers in the year ahead?
Arnie Selvarajah: Yeah, we’ve spoken a lot about our transformation into a more diversified wealth management business.
So the two key prongs of our strategy going forward is to find ways to bring resilience to our earnings and less reliance on volatility in the markets. So we have a direct online trading business and we service clients who are self-directed both in the advised and non-advised segments. So that’s a big driver for us in the future.
The other key component is our private wealth platform, which we used to call PAS. And that sits in our platform segment, if you’re referring to our 25 results. Both those businesses are more of a recurring revenue nature.
And that platform segment, although it represented 34% of our revenue in 2025, it represented 72% of our impact profit. So it’s a big driver of growth for us. And it’s a big driver of resilient and recurring and repeatable income streams for the group.
Lel Smits: Well, Arnie, I really appreciate your insights from Bell Financial today and look forward to hearing more when you’re on stage at TIP Group’s Emerging Wealth Winners Conference in Sydney next month.
Arnie Selvarajah: Great. And look forward to seeing you then. Thank you.
Ends