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(Pictured: Kevin Clifford) by Greg Bright Capital Group has set some ambitious business targets for its Australian and regional offices over the next five years. With the help of about US$1 billion in expansionary spending, Kevin Clifford, who is in charge of international distribution, wants Asia Pacific and Europe to each more than double their assets…

(Pictured: Ian Perkins) BNP Paribas Securities Services has won its biggest super fund client, the $50 billion UniSuper, in what is a “unique time for activity” for the asset servicing sector. More is to come with a record value of tenders having hit or about to hit the market. The BNP Paribas deal announced last week…

(Pictured: Peter Tiffin) Fulcrum Asset Management has confirmed its second Australian client for its global diversified absolute return strategy following the $80 million announced in 2012 in a separate product for an industry fund. The manager is heavily research oriented, including the use of “nowcasting” as a tool to better interpret various leading indicators and signals….

(Pictured: Mamadou-Abou Sarr) Climate change is making its way up the to-do list of super funds as they expand and refine their ESG strategies, helped along by recent scientific views, unusual weather and the next Climate Change Conference in Paris, which is being seen as a milestone in the ESG investing sector. According to Mamadou-Abou Sarr,…

(Pictured: Ron Bird) Professional investors may mock the stock selection of SMSF trustees for lack of diversity and heavy weighting to the banks, but a new study shows that such a strategy may well perform better than that of fund managers, both domestic and international. The study, by Peter Swan and others at the University of…

(Pictured: Steve Kuhn) The annual AIMA Australia Hedge Fund Forum, to be held at the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth on September 15 this year, will feature Steve Kuhn, partner and co-CIO at Pine River Capital Management, as a keynote speaker. The Forum, which last year had nearly 300 attendees, is the major conference for alternative strategies –…

(Pictured: Steve Miller) The headwinds to growth in Australia are more challenging than most people think, according to Steve Miller of BlackRock, who presented the firm’s latest global markets outlook last week. It’s a sombre view of the world. Miller, investment strategist for BlackRock Australia, who has a long pedigree as a fixed income manager, said…

by David Chaplin The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has contacted local subsidiaries of Australian banks in the wake of the most recent financial advice scandals to hit across the Tasman. According to Kirsty Campbell, FMA head of supervision, the regulator has been “having conversations” with Australian-owned NZ financial institutions following a string of high-profile investigations…

(Pictured: Justin Nunan) Media Super has recruited Justin Nunan, head of treasury sales at ME Bank, as its new investment manager, following the departure of Charles Wu last month. Wu has taken a senior investment strategist role at NSW State Super (STC), whose portfolios are being merged with those of NSW Treasury Corporation and NSW WorkCover…

(Pictured: Ross Youngman) Ausbil Investment Management has hired experienced fund manager Ross Youngman as head of institutional business, following the departure late last year of its long-time marketer Adam Lancaster. Youngman was co-founder, with Chris Selth, of the Five Oceans Asset Management global boutique which shut its doors last year after eight years of operations. Like…