Darrell Ludowyke Link Group’s data services company, Empirics, has added four industry funds, with total membership of about 4.5 million people, to its client roster courtesy of its merger with SuperPartners, which took effect last December. The new clients are AustralianSuper (two million), Cbus (722,000), HESTA (800,000) and HostPlus (one million). They have signed up…
News wire service Reuters has put the Chinese state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group as the frontrunner in a three-horse race to buy Russell Investments from London Stock Exchange. Reuters last month had Towers Watson as the most likely acquirer. Reuters reported last week that CITIC was in negotiations with LSE for a deal reputedly worth about…
Share ownership by Australians has continued to slip, sitting at 36 per cent of the adult population at the end of 2014, compared with 38 per cent in 2012, but most of the slippage has been in “indirect ownership”, through a decline in the use of unlisted managed funds, rather than direct shares. The latest…
 Louise Davidson The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) has stepped up its campaign for more gender diversity on the boards of listed companies, signaling last week that it would be targeting those companies which have made little or no progress in appointing female directors in the coming annual meeting season. ACSI wrote to the…
Gillian Dudgeon by David Chaplin Despite analysis suggesting it would be “most efficient” to close the almost-drained Earthquake Commission (EQC) investment fund, which had NZ$6 billion (A$5.4 billion) invested prior to the Christchurch disaster, the NZ Government has backed its continued existence in a discussion document published last week. However, on current settings it will…
by Greg Bright The Government’s proposed requirement on big super funds to have at least one-third independent directors and an independent chair will have a knock-on effect in the SMSF and other small funds market. An unintended consequence of the Government’s proposal is that the 2,400 remaining APRA-regulated small funds will also be caught up…
Michael Hallinan Large, or ‘uber’, SMSFs are now almost impossible to build, according to Michael Hallinan, a superannuation lawyer. And capping the pension-phase earnings is a solution to a problem which no longer exists. According to Hallinan, special counsel for Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers, the problem with capping the amount of super which can…
Graham Hand The Australian Taxation Office estimate of 0.5 per cent for the asset allocation of SMSFs to international investments – often assumed as accurate by industry participants – is way off the mark. Research by investment newsletter Cuffelinks last week indicated the figure is much higher. The Cuffelinks report (view here)Â says that international equities…
Geoff Wilson It goes to show what fund managers and other service providers can do about fees when they put their minds to it. The latest global LIC, organised by manager and philanthropist Geoff Wilson and featuring a best-of-breed manager line-up, will donate 1 per cent a year of assets under management to various mental…
Stephen Jackman The non-uniform self-classification of certain alternative and other assets as ‘defensive’ or ‘growth’ is disadvantaging some super funds in the ratings agencies’ league tables and perhaps confusing members who rely on these tables to assess the riskiness of a fund’s investment allocations, according to a PwC report (view here). The report, ‘Comparing Super Funds:…
