Our Authors

(pictured: Jon Shaw) Moneysoft, an online money management and budgeting platform, is widening its marketing effort to include big super funds which are looking to enhance the member engagement tools on their websites. The fintech company launched to advisors in July 2014 after a soft launch two years earlier with consumers. It last week announced it…

The marketing function at asset management companies is moving from one of sales and distribution support to actively engaging clients and targeting investors, according to an international survey of digital marketing trends in funds management. The survey, by New York-based funds management marketing firm Kurtosys, which produces various online marketing tools, shows content marketing has…

(pictured: Raphael Arndt) by Greg Bright The Future Fund has been reducing its investment risk over the past 12 months, as has been well documented, once again dodging a bullet with the global equities market. Less obviously, the fund has also been looking to reduce its longer-term Anglo, western and, probably, male biases in the management…

(pictured: Paul Bouchey) There’s growing evidence that investors large and small are increasingly nervous about the short-medium-term future for both equities and bonds. For Australians, this nervousness probably extends to property, as well. So, what do they do about it? Tumbling oil prices and the slowing Chinese economy are said to have been the main causes…

(pictured: Mitch King) By Patrick Liddy Innovation is a tricky business. Even in times of hostility, lessons are hard to learn and the consequences can be dire. The American civil war, for example, saw the introduction of rapid-firing rifles to replace muskets. This, in turn, led to trench warfare. The trenches of the American civil war,…

(pictured: Stephen Mackley) Thanks largely to their big administrators and systems providers, super funds have a chance of catching up with the bank-owned retail platforms in the use of data analysis to aid member retention and acquisition. Financial Synergy, the systems provider whose 30 clients have a total of about four million members, is introducing the…

Investors relying on a traditional negative correlation between equities and bonds could face a shock in 2016, according to a new asset allocation analysis by global fixed income giant PIMCO. The PIMCO 2016 asset allocation outlook says investors relying on the traditional stock/bond counterbalance should beware if the year ahead features stagnant growth combined with…

(pictured: Jose Minaya) This may not be a big trend – given that it represents a survey of two firms only – but if it is, remember where you heard it first. Two large global managers of unlisted assets have moved to combine their asset class business units at the very top of the management of…

(pictured: Adriaan Ryder) Maybe insiders were not surprised and, maybe, we should have seen it coming, but the announcement by QIC last Thursday that its long-standing chief investment officer, Adriaan Ryder, had resigned to join an unnamed “major middle eastern” sovereign fund, at least surprised the market. The decision follows the appointment last year of…

(pictured: Kent Kwan) Not since the development of ETFs has there been a potential disruptor in funds management like this. A group of international equities managers has launched a performance-fee-only plus pay-for-research series of funds, with full transparency of holdings and with administrator Fundhost’s first all-electronic application and redemption process. The firm, Atlas Trend, has designed…