Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
Australian Super picks executive
Australian Super has appointed former Coles executive Sarah Adams as group executive, strategy, brand and reputation. She joins from Bushfire Recovery Victoria where she was executive director of communications and stakeholder relations. Prior to that, she was general manager of corporate affairs at Coles and held senior leadership positions within the Federal Government.
First Sentier has appointed Michelle Tredenick and Richard Wastcoat as non-executive directors to its board. Tredenick has extensive experience in financial services and was previously chief executive of MLC’s corporate superannuation, group information officer at Suncorp and chief information officer at NAB. She is currently a non-executive director of Bank of Queensland, IAG and Cricket Australia and a member of St James Ethics Centre and the Senate of the University of Queensland. Wastcoat is based in London and has over 25 years’ executive experience in US, Europe and Asia. He was previously the managing director of Fidelity International for 22 years. Wastcoat joined First State Investments as its first non-executive director in 2011 and is a director of Marstone Inc.
Aventus Group names Ray Itaoui as a non-executive independent director. He was previously the chief executive of Sanity Entertainment and is now chair of the board. He also serves as chair of Honey Birdette and Mr Vitamins. Itaoui is a substantial investor in Aventus Group with a holding of around 5 per cent.
The Financial Planning Association of Australia has unveiled its five-year strategic roadmap which includes a number of redundancies. While the positions to be made redundant are undisclosed, the structure comes into effect on 1 July and focuses on three pillars: members, advocacy and consumer.
