The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is alleging that Fiducian Investment Management Services Limited (FIMSL) "failed to act with care and diligence as the responsible entity of the Diversified Social Aspirations Fund", and has launched civil penalty proceedings in the NSW Supreme Court.

ASIC said the fund was seeking to fill client needs for "socially responsible" or "ethical" investment options and was open for investments between 2015 and 2024.

Allegation fund failed to follow its own rules

ASIC is alleging that the fund manager used underlying investment funds or other managers that had their own ESG methodologies and thresholds for choosing investments; however, ASIC says these processes did not align with the approach that Fiducian had set out in its product disclosure statement (PDS).

The PDS of the Fund stated that: 'The share portfolios comprise investments in companies that aim to be positive for society and for the environment and aim to avoid investments in harmful activities'. It also specified a number of industries or activities that the Fund would avoid investing in. ASIC also alleges the PDS of the Fund contained false and misleading statements that it would monitor the portfolio exposure and investment styles of the Underlying Funds in circumstances where FIMSL did not have the requisite information to conduct that monitoring.

ASIC is also alleging that FIMSL failed to comply with its compliance plan "when it failed to record and lodge investor complaints …  and when it failed to address investor concerns that the fund held investments contrary to the representations made in the PDS such as investments in BHP Billiton Limited, Rio Tinto Limited, Woodside Petroleum Limited, Newcrest Mining Limited and Orica Limited''.

ASIC is seeking declarations, financial penalties, and adverse publicity orders.

Fiducian Group said in a statement to the ASX that it had cooperated with ASIC's investigations to date and "is closely reviewing the court documents and the allegations made''.

As the matter is now before the Court, FIMSL or the company won't make any other comment at this time.

Fidcuian shares were 3.3% lower at $12.73. The company in August reported revenue from ordinary activities of $89.4 million, up 10.6%, and a net profit of $15 million, up 23.5%.

It declared a final dividend of 24.7 cents per share, fully franked. The company will hold its annual general meeting on October 9.

The post Fund manager's stocks fall on ASIC allegations of bogus ESG claims after it invested in BHP and Rio Tinto appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

That's why many investors turn to dividends: cash paid directly into their accounts, often accompanied by valuable franking credits. 

The key is finding businesses with stable earnings, sustainable payout ratios, and room to grow distributions over time. Here are three ASX dividend shares that tick those boxes.

Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT (ASX: CQE)

Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT owns and manages a portfolio of social infrastructure assets, with a particular focus on childcare centres, healthcare, and education facilities. These long-leased properties deliver stable rental income, with a weighted average lease expiry close to 12 years and occupancy at 100%.

That consistency flows directly into distributions. In FY25, CQE met guidance of 15.2 cents per unit in distributions, equating to a yield of around 4.83% at today's prices. With potential Reserve Bank rate cuts expected to lower debt costs and support property valuations, REITs like CQE could be positioned to maintain and potentially grow their payouts.

For income investors, the attraction lies in CQE's long-term leases, predictable cash flows, and exposure to critical services like childcare and healthcare.

Fiducian Group Ltd (ASX: FID)

Fiducian is a founder-led financial services group with operations spanning financial advice, platform administration, and funds management. Executive Chairman Indy Singh still owns more than one-third of the company, ensuring strong alignment with shareholders.

The company has a long-term track record of consistent growth. In FY25, Fiducian delivered 15% revenue growth and 26% profit growth, translating to a 27% lift in earnings per share. Importantly for dividend investors, the company has grown its dividend by 18% in the past year, with a current trailing yield of 4.7% (fully franked).

A solid balance sheet, free from bank debt, adds to its appeal. Fiducian has managed to steadily grow both profits and dividends while maintaining conservative management, making it a compelling income stock with room for further growth.

NIB Holdings Ltd (ASX: NHF)

NIB is one of Australia's largest private health insurers, covering more than a million people across Australia and New Zealand. While earnings have recently been pressured by rising claims costs, the company is actively adjusting premiums and expanding its reach into new areas like NDIS plan management and preventative health services.

In FY25, NIB declared a fully franked final dividend of 16 cents per share, taking the full-year payout to 29 cents. At current prices, that represents a yield of around 3.9%. While not the highest yield on the market, the dividend is supported by a strong balance sheet and the potential for future growth as NIB leverages its scale and health ecosystem strategy.

Foolish Takeaway

Income investors don't just want cash today, they want confidence it will still be there tomorrow, and hopefully a little more. Whether it's CQE's stable rental streams, Fiducian's founder-led discipline, or NIB's scale in health insurance, each of these companies offers a different path to dependable dividends. 

That variety is valuable. 

It shows that quality income can come from property, finance or healthcare, giving investors the opportunity to build a diversified and resilient dividend portfolio.

The post Cash in the hand: 3 ASX dividend shares to know about appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Four ASX shares that are rising more than most today are listed below. Here's why they are storming higher:

DroneShield Ltd (ASX: DRO)

The DroneShield share price is up 12% to $1.00. Investors have been buying this counter drone technology company's shares following the announcement of new contract wins. Droneshield revealed that it has received a package of five separate contracts totalling $32.2 million. These contracts were placed by an in-country reseller for delivery to a military end customer in an Asian Pacific country. Commenting on the news, Droneshield CEO, Oleg Vornik, said: "In close succession to the earlier order announced on 29 January 2025 from this sophisticated customer and a close military ally of Australia in the Asia Pacific region, DroneShield products are again meeting the challenge set by them. The scale and frequency of orders has been increasing as leading counter-drone customers are moving from testing hardware to broader roll-outs. DroneShield is rapidly expanding all aspects of the business to meet this demand across multiple regions."

Fiducian Group Ltd (ASX: FID)

The Fiducian share price is up 5.5% to $8.97. This follows the release of the financial services company's third quarter update. The company revealed that net inflows to the core Fiducian platform from aligned dealer-group for the quarter ending 31 March 2025 were $59 million and year to date $245 million. It also advised that its badged platform and Auxilium fund balance was $182 million and the net inflows for the quarter ending 31 March 2025 were $40 million.

Neuren Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: NEU)

The Neuren Pharmaceuticals share price is up 20% to $10.98. This morning, this pharmaceutical company revealed that the upcoming Phase 3 trial for NNZ-2591, a potential treatment for Phelan-McDermid syndrome (PMS), has received the green light from the US FDA to proceed as planned. The company's CEO, Jon Pilcher, commented: "We are very pleased with the outcome of another constructive discussion with the FDA and are now excited to be able to move forward as planned with the first ever Phase 3 trial in children with Phelan-McDermid syndrome."

Newmont Corporation (ASX: NEM)

The Newmont share price is up 4% to $86.84. Investors have been buying this gold miner's shares following another strong rise by the precious metal on Friday. It isn't just Newmont shares that are rising today. Most gold miners are pushing higher, which has led to the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold index climbing 1.3% at the time of writing.

The post Why DroneShield, Fiducian, Neuren, and Newmont shares are storming higher appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Four ASX shares that are not letting that hold them back today and are avoiding the market selloff are listed below. Here's why they are rising:

Fiducian Group Ltd (ASX: FID)

The Fiducian Group share price is up 6% to $8.04. This follows the release of an update from the financial services company. The company revealed that net inflows to the core Fiducian platform for the quarter ending 31 March 2024 were $53 million. This brings its year to date net inflows to $139 million. This means that the company's funds under management, administration and advice were $13.7 billion at the end of March. This is up 11.4% year on year from $12.3 billion.

Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST)

The Northern Star share price is up 4% to $15.90. Investors have been buying Northern Star and other gold miners today after investors rotated out of risk assets and into risk off/safe haven assets. This has been driven by reports claiming that Israel has retaliated to the recent Iranian attacks with strikes of its own. Demand has been so strong for safe haven assets that the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold index is up almost 3% this afternoon.

Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: PAR)

The Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals share price is up 3.5% to 29.5 cents. This morning, this biopharmaceuticals company announced the submission of key documents to the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) for review and agreement on the progression of the phase 3 clinical program in osteoarthritis. Paradigm's managing director, Paul Rennie, commented: "This is important progress for Paradigm as we deliver a significant amount of new data to the US FDA for review to progress to the next stage of the phase 3 OA program."

Santos Ltd (ASX: STO)

The Santos share price is up 3% to $7.93. This has also been driven by news that Israel has retaliated and attacked Iranian sites with missiles. In response to the news, oil prices have jumped almost 4% amid concerns that this could disrupt oil supply in the region. According to CNBC, at the time of writing, the WTI crude oil price is up 4% to US$86.06 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price is up 3.9% to US$90.50 a barrel. The S&P/ASX 200 Energy index is up 0.8% in afternoon trade.

The post Why Fiducian Group, Northern Star, Paradigm, and Santos shares are charging higher appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

The Motley Fool chats with the best in the industry so that you can get an insight into how the professionals think. In this edition, Elvest Co portfolio manager Adrian Ezquerro explains the two ASX shares he thinks are buys right now.

Hottest ASX shares

The Motley Fool: What are the two best stock buys right now?

Adrin Ezquerro: Good question. It's always topical. I think notwithstanding some of the economic challenges we've just discussed, there's certainly a lot more value apparent now in small caps than there was for much of last year. I could probably talk to a bunch of opportunities that we're pretty excited about but the two I'd highlight to start with would be News Corporation (ASX: NWS) and Fiducian Group Ltd (ASX: FID). 

First thing with News Corp, it's an interesting one. Most of its market value is actually underwritten by its digital real estate division.

That houses a 61.4% stake in REA Group Limited (ASX: REA) and it's also got an 80% ownership stake in Move Inc. That's the owner and operator of Realtor.com in the [United] States. That's the number two portal, much like Domain Holdings Australia Ltd (ASX: DHG) here.

Now, based on things like market share, profitability, margins, competitive strength, we genuinely believe that REA is one of Australia's highest quality businesses and so it's a hugely valuable holding for News Corp and, in our view, that is overlooked. 

But, of course, beyond digital real estate, the business also comprises several other really highly cash-generative business units as well. That's things like subscription video, its Dow Jones business unit, news and information service, and it's also got a strong position within book publishing.

If you look at it in aggregate, we think REA and Move Inc probably have an aggregate value of close to about $14 billion… That compares to News Corp's market capitalisation of about $15 billion. The implied value of the balance of the business, which generated EBITDA of about US$1.1 billion in FY22, is valued at about AU$1 billion — less than one times EBITDA. 

In our view, not only does News Corp house really high quality assets, it's particularly cheap at about 15 times earnings and free cash flow yield of over 8%. Notwithstanding some of the headwinds facing advertising, we're pretty optimistic about the prospects for a solid investment return from this entry point.

The second stop, Fiducian Group, stock code FID, it's another one I think it's worth highlighting because it tends to fall under the radar a bit, particularly in small cap land. It's an integrated financial services provider. It's got three key operating divisions: financial planning, platform administration, and funds manager. 

It's been around for a long period of time. It was founded in 1996 by Indy Singh and despite a pretty incredible track record of self-funded growth, and we think that's a really important driver of per-share value creation, it's got [a] relatively low profile. It's not covered by any brokers, and yet it's done particularly well year-on-year for many years now.

Today it's got about $11.2 billion of funds under management advice and administration. And as that grows, of course, that is a value creator in itself. We think it's pretty unique in this market in that its financial planning division is seen as an enabler of flows to its high margin platform administration and funds management divisions. We say it's unique because conceptually, it's like having a high performing diversified funds management group without any key person risk, combined with a really high margin platform business… and that's all sitting in the one structure. 

The positive long-term performance of the Fiducian funds means that we're seeing great outcomes for Fiducian's clients, to advisors and, of course, shareholders that have benefitted for many years.

As it stands, over two-thirds of Fiducian's funds under advice are on the company's administration funds management platform. That's where a lot of the value is created in terms of earnings. 

The recent results have been good. We think Fiducian will continue growing earnings at double-digit rates in the coming years as they've done for quite a few years in the past. In fact, we're forecasting compound growth in the order of 15% to 20% over the next three or four years. 

Now, a big driver of that, and it's important to call out, relates to the transition of funds under advice from the recently acquired financial planning arm of the People's Choice Credit Union, based out of South Australia. That's added $1.1 billion of funds under advice. We think maybe the market's under-appreciating the impact this will have on earnings over the coming three years. 

To sum up our thinking on Fiducian, it's another high quality founder-led business. It's got strong industry position, bright prospects, and a strong balance sheet. It's a consistent cash generator and it continues to trade at a pretty big discount to our values, so at this level, we remain quite happy holders.

MF: I see it gives out a 4% dividend yield as well, which is handy.

AE: Yeah, and it's consistently paid that as well. If you look at the chart of earnings and dividends over the last 10 years, it's remarkably consistent. The executive chairman owns about a third of the business, so there's a lot of insider ownership, a lot of alignment. They've grown the business both organically and via acquisition, but they haven't issued shares to do that. That's why we feel it's a powerful driver of value creation because it's still under growth and you can see in terms of the capital allocation decisions, they've been really sensible. Again, that often goes hand in hand with a founder leading the business.

MF: That all sounds so good. I wonder why it's so under the radar?

AE: It's relatively small. Market cap is circa $230 million and, as I've just said, there's significant insider ownership, so the free float is relatively low. It's not as liquid, so that may remove certain brokers and funds from considering it, which is fair enough. But for the individual investor that's got a decent long-term time horizon, they might be managing their self-managed super fund, it's probably something worth having on the watch list.

The post One very famous and one very obscure ASX share to buy: fund manager appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.