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(pictured: Paul Woolley) The University of Technology Sydney is hosting its 10th annual Paul Woolley Centre two-day conference with a focus on how our financial institutions rate and whether there’s an ‘Uber’ in the wings to disrupt them. Benchmarking and failings in retirement products will also come under scrutiny. The Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Market…

(pictured: Damian Moloney)  Frontier Advisors is turning up the heat in the increasingly widespread debate about funds management fees, with its chief executive putting pen to paper for a thought-leadership piece which updates previous work by the asset consultancy. The latest paper, “Progressing a New Deal on Fees: Ideas for Institutional Investors” aims to: “Reiterate the…

It may not be the exodus of ex-pats that some real estate agents are saying, but the impact of Brexit on commercial property in London is starting to be felt. Ironically, there’s a cyclical buyers’ opportunity, according to global property manager TH Real Estate. Nick Deacon, the fund manager’s ‘director of central London offices’, said…

(pictured: Nick Vamvakas) by Greg Bright Equip is one of the oldest surviving super funds, dating back to the heyday of the Victorian coalfields in the 1930s. It has also been managing assets in-house for longer than almost every other fund – since the 1980s. Now, with a very modern assessment of risks, it has decided…

(pictured: Craig McCulloch) The challenge of providing retirement products increasingly plagues big super funds, especially as a lot of their near-retirement high-balance members weigh up the SMSF alternative. Big funds have many advantages they may not be exploiting, such as ‘longevity pooling’ strategies. Milliman, the global actuarial advice firm which specialises in retirement and risk…

(pictured: Pru Bennett)  In an increasingly risk conscious investing world ESG factors have come a long way since the mini-boom in ethical funds of the early 2000s. And, according to one of the most experienced investors in the field, Australia stands tall as a “mature” market for ESG and related practices. Pru Bennett, the Hong…

(pictured: David Braga) BNP Paribas Securities Services has started a global program, which it is calling “augmented custody”, which will give it an edge over competitors for speed of actions across a range of investment administration activities. Australian and New Zealand clients will be early beneficiaries. The program follows a systems upgrade and will cover 24…

(pictured: Doug Hodge) Doug Hodge, the PIMCO chief executive who is well known to Australian and Asian investors from his time in the region several years ago, will step down from his position but remain a managing director at the big Newport-based global bond firm. Hodge is relinquishing the chief executive role in favour of new…

(pictured: Jane Buchan) Against the backdrop of rising global membership of the Preqin “club” of institutional investors which invest more than US$1 billion in hedge funds, the AIMA annual forum in Sydney will examine whether hedge funds generally are delivering on their promises. The forum’s program was updated last week and includes the second keynote speaker, Jane…

Aon has confirmed it will begin shifting its fund administration to Link Group from next week. According to the latest Aon KiwiSaver accounts, “planning is underway for the administration to be sub-contracted to Link” for the NZ$370 million scheme from August 1. It is understood Aon’s two biggest external KiwiSaver admin clients – the NZ$400 million…