Fund managers have enjoyed a strong bounce in fund flows, according to Morningstar data, and these flows are continuing in the first quarter of the year. In a webinar for clients last week (February 23), Grant Kennaway, Morningstar’s Melbourne-based director of research, said that while 2020 had been a difficult year for fund managers, it…
The major asset servicing firms are widening their field of vision and have, for the most part, become front-to-back-office providers, as middle-office outsourcing becomes ubiquitous for big investors and managers. It is a development which has taken place concurrently with tightening revenue streams among asset managers, which are often under the same ownership umbrella as…
Super funds and other asset owners are adapting to the lingering impact of the pandemic through a big jump in manager searches, according to the latest quarterly report from bfinance. The global fund search and advisory firm has reported a 34 per cent increase in the number of searches in 2020 compared with 2019, with…
In one of the more ambitious of big super fund mergers, the BOC Super corporate fund is to follow the similar-sized Toyota Super and join with the new blended industry and corporate fund structure known as ‘Togethr’. Set to be announced within the next week, BOC Super (formerly known as BOC Gases) will also add…
The world piled on a further US$24 trillion (A$30.1 trillion) in 2020 increasing the total debt mountain to a new peak of US$281 trillion (A$361 trillion), according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF) analysis of 61 countries. As governments and corporates scrambled to cover COVID-related revenue needs the average global debt-to-GDP jumped a massive…
The world’s major pension systems enjoyed their strongest year, last year, for growth compared to GDP, since 1998. The bad news, of course, is that the average 11.2 per cent rise for many countries this helped by stalling or falling GDP. The annual ‘Global Pension Assets Study, 2021’ from the Thinking Ahead Institute based in…
J.P. Morgan has increased its lead on the other major third-party asset servicing firms in Australia, with an 18.7 per cent jump in assets under custody to $973.2 billion in the six months to December last. The latest figures from the Australian Custodial Services Association, compared with the six months to June, represent a strong…
Bryan Gray, a genuine stalwart of, and major contributor to, the strong position of Australia and New Zealand’s asset servicing sector, has retired. He spent 12 years at State Street followed by nearly 20 years at J.P. Morgan. Gray is the only person to have been chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association twice, in…
One in five Australian institutional investors has terminated a fund manager where ESG factors have been a “primary or major factor” in the decision, according to a survey by bfinance, the global research and institutional advisory business. A further 41 per cent of those Australian investors surveyed said that, while not the main reason for…
David Knox, Mercer senior partner, actuary and founder of the global pensions systems index, threw down a challenge to the Retirement Income Review to look at a ‘universal pension’ for all Australians. He is now talking to the industry. Knox, the lead author of the Mercer Global Pension Index, says Australia, which already has one…
