Half-way through the MAX and Investment Leadership awards for 2022, the audience was silenced by researcher and co-organiser Alex Dunnin. He said: ‘Life has caught up with us.” His forecasts were chilling. “The investment world has changed entirely,” he said. Now, we are on track to see 9 per cent inflation by the end of…
Academically driven global index provider Scientific Beta has taken strides in its commercialisation with its latest offering. It has also prompted the question: is there a point where smart beta becomes dumb alpha? Scientific Beta, the former offshoot of the French international business school EDHEC, was acquired by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in January 2020….
The conventional view of emerging markets is that they represent a growth strategy and are prone to short-term fluctuations. A focus on the majority of stocks which pay dividends challenges that view. Even for long-term institutional investors there lingers a scepticism about emerging markets in general and the dominant position China plays in the current…
China is a little ahead of the US in the current re-pricing of global equities. That, coupled with western geopolitical concerns, has presented a new round of opportunities. According to Alison Shimada, the lead portfolio manager (PM) for Allspring Global’s Total Equity Emerging Markets team, based in San Francisco, the China region stocks do not…
While the media they use have been in a state of constant disruption for at least 25 years, the noble arts of sales and marketing remain steadfast in pursuit their goals. Next month’s MAX Awards will tell us how they are faring. The 28th annual Rainmaker ‘Financial Standard’ awards for marketing and sales excellence (MAX)…
Investors and their fund managers have dumped Russian holdings in recent weeks amid worsening horror at the invasion of Ukraine. But active managers could lessen the blow for investors through new opportunities on the other side of a Russian trade. For Ninety One’s emerging markets team, Russia is an “ugly sideshow” to the main investment…
Quantitative investment management has undergone a massive lift in profile in recent years, largely due to the rise of ETFs and smart-beta strategies. But the ‘new quants’, as they are being called, are going much further than that. While hardly new to the space, Harindra (Harin) de Silva, a lead portfolio manager at Allspring Global…
Allspring Global Investments has launched an expansion into Australia and New Zealand led by new regional chief executive, Andy Sowerby. If history is a guide, the rollout of institutional funds management capabilities will be rapid. Sowerby, like Joe Sullivan, Allspring’s chairman and CEO, hails from Legg Mason, where he was the Melbourne-based regional head prior…
Before Jack Diamond, a super industry and funds management stalwart, was diagnosed with cancer his friend Josh Funder had come up with the idea of sponsoring an award for innovation in finance. It is called the ‘Diamond Award’. For Funder, the founder and chief executive of Household Capital, an innovative firm itself which lends to…
Helen Hewett, one of the superannuation industry’s finest leaders, the mental health sector’s finest battlers and the women’s movement’s finest warriors has died. When she became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2019, her first thought, she said at the time, was to how proud her parents would have been. The last…
