By Greg Bright Supervised Investments Australia Ltd (SIAL), a family office-style boutique fund manager, has recruited a new chief executive tasked with building the business through an expanded product range and investment capabilities. Family office expansion is a trend. Michael Ohlsson, who started his new role this month, is a former chief executive of Fidelity…
The $4.3 billion Queensland Government workers’ compensation and insurance business, WorkCover Queensland, has recruited Bruce Watson as its new chief executive. Watson has already moved, with his wife, to Brisbane from picturesque Lake Macquarie, north of Newcastle, NSW, for the role, which commenced on January 2. His recruitment followed the retirement of Tony Hawkins, who…
Analisa Kirby, former general manager of product, marketing and communications at QIC, is to start next month as general manager, intermediary marketing, at National Australia Bank. She is joining another new hire, the Hong Kong-based former marketing and events manager for BNP Paribas, Michelle Toy. Kirby held several senior marketing and sales roles at AMP…
Lazard Asset Management is optimistic that emerging markets can weather the storm posed by the new Trump presidency and that the fundamental strength of their economies should outweigh the policy uncertainties of the new US Government. Hopefully. A new paper by the Lazard Asset Management emerging markets (EM) team, based in New York, which covers…
The December quarter saw some sharp reversals in New Zealand fund manager rankings as asset allocation calls were answered during a hectic period for markets, according to the latest survey by asset consultant Melville Jessup Weaver (MJW). Most notably in the KiwiSaver space, the government-owned Kiwi Wealth scheme jumped from bottom-dwelling over the one-year period…
Research Affiliates, the US-based proponent of new-style passive strategies such as ‘fundamental’ indexing, has produced a paper outlining how investors can overcome potential principal-agent issues. The paper, ‘How Not to Get Fired with Smart Beta Investing’, says that adopting longer evaluation periods for a manager’s assessment is one way to reduce these issues. Research Affiliates has…
It seemed to wane last year, at least in the media, but according to US research house Greenwich Associates blockchain technology is moving from ‘proof of concept’ to ‘production’. Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates, says in a paper published last week that “smart contracts” look to…
State Street Associates, the academic research arm of the big custodian bank and fund manager, has published two studies on the behaviour of sovereign wealth funds with asset allocation and their thinking behind a shift towards private markets. The asset allocation study shows a big move towards alternatives and unlisted investments and increased exposure to…
by Greg Bright As the debate about divestment of certain stocks bubbles along among fund managers and their institutional clients, often concerning whether returns may be impacted by a divestment program, at least one manager is looking to New Zealand to provide cleaner substitutes for its energy exposure in Aussie equities. Martin Currie Australia, an…
Reflation has arrived along with broad economic recovery globally but consensus views on the outlook remain too cautious, according to BlackRock. Animal spirits are returning to the markets. The consensus numbers are further from BlackRock’s ‘Macro GPS’ forecasting model, which incorporates big data signals, than at any time since 2013, the BlackRock Investment Institute says…
