The Israel Institute of NZ lobbied to halt the exclusion of certain banking stocks from the NZ Superannuation Fund’s portfolio this year, according to recently released documents. In an Official Information Act (OIA) request on April 12, the local Israel association asked for confirmation the NZ Government’s largest super fund had told underlying managers that…
FNZ has wrung out some relief from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) despite losing on most counts in the latest – and almost last – round of its bid to prevent a forced sale of GBST. In a provisional report handed down mid-April, the CMA upheld its November 2020 finding that a merger…
In a highly unusual move, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has cracked down on fund managers advertising post-COVID boom-time annual returns. The regulator has warned managers that advertising any “phenomenal” returns garnered over the 12 months to March 31 could “mislead investors”. Global share markets bounced back spectacularly from the brief COVID-induced shock early last…
About a third of securities trading firms on both sides of the deal experienced operational stresses during the peak covid-19 volatility last year, according to a new DTCC white paper. The paper, carried out by global back-office behemoth DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation) and consultancy firm McKinsey & Company found some weak links in…
Last year proved once again that market timing can be very profitable but an extremely difficult task to pull off, according to a new analysis of tactical asset allocation. The paper, by influential Auckland-based actuarial advisory firm Melville Jessup Weaver and authored by newly minted actuary William Nelson, found NZ share investors could have engineered…
Larry Fink, BlackRock’s outspoken chief executive, has committed the firm to a cultural cleansing in the wake of alleged sexual and racial discrimination at the world’s largest fund manager. In an annual shareholder letter published last week, Fink says “certain employees have not upheld BlackRock’s standards”, putting the manager’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials…
The Australasian asset management industry has received a gender diversity boost this week with the launch of a new high-profile group looking to grow the influence of women in the sector. According to a release, the Australia and NZ chapter of the Bloomberg Women’s Buy-side Network (BWBN) “aims to inspire next generation investors, elevate female…
The NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) has put new money in two US alternative asset strategies including a hedge fund operated by legendary firm Citadel and a direct private equity play in the communications infrastructure market.
Index providers should face the same regulatory hurdles as investment managers, a new US legal paper argues. In the US, plain-vanilla indexers are regarded as information ‘publishers’. The University of Virginia School of Law (UVS) report says most index providers are de facto ‘investment advisers’ – a term under US law that includes fund managers…
Investors should increase allocations to active management strategies against an increasingly uncertain global backdrop, according to a new Willis Towers Watson (WTW) report. It is a “cyclically fertile ground for alpha”. The WTW analysis, ‘Outlook 2021’, says “skilled active management offers growing value for money” as a number of factors converge to add risk to…
