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(Pictured: Nick Frolich) The Avaloq technology group, which is building the new BT Wrap platform, has strengthened its senior management following the departure of country head Iain Dunstan last month. Avaloq, a global company, announced last week the recruitment of Nick Frolich and Mani Kastellas, both well known in the Australian financial services systems sector. Frolich…

(Pictured: Keith Suter) Keith Suter is not the shy retiring type. He works the industry speaking circuit well and likes to make big brave predictions, weaving in some of what he learned doing two PhDs. He spoke with PENNY PRYOR. “We wont be around by the end of this century in our current form, either we…

 (Pictured: Dan Madhavan) Australia is putting into action the grand plans hatched last year by the G8 countries, led by the UK, to foster impact investing with the recruitment of an experienced financial services executive as the first CEO of Impact Investing Australia. One of the not-for-profit organisation’s early goals is to provide the framework for…

(Pictured: Tim Hodgson) Tim Hodgson of Towers Watson has spent about 12 years at the big consultant’s Thinking Ahead Group, campaigning for ideas to revolutionise investment management.  Now, the group is set for a new chapter. It has attracted about 20 asset owners and managers to become outside members in a forum, which starts formally in…

 (Pictured: John Schaffer) The results of broad bodies of research, of which all institutional investors are well aware, do not necessarily apply when we narrow the universe to practically available options. A research note by the Australian representative of an international growth manager, for instance, poses some interesting questions for investors. John Schaffer, whose Catallyst Advisors…

 (Pictured: Steve Hall) Brookvine, the fund manager and third-party marketer, has put together a dossier on the investment behaviour of family offices and high-net-worth investors, highlighting their differences compared with super funds. Managers and advisors should take note. The dossier followed a gathering, which Brookvine called ‘Whiteboarding 1.0’, which included family offices, managers and researchers. It…

(Pictured: Gavin Walker) The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which regularly rates as the most, or among the most, transparent sovereign wealth fund in the various global studies, has published an independent review of its board and management, complete with a detailed response from the fund. The areas of disagreement are illuminating. The review, conducted by the…

 (Pictured: Michael Leibrock) Cyber risk has now swamped new regulatory hurdles and the possibility of another US recession as the greatest risk facing global financial institutions, according to the latest risk survey by DTCC, the industry-owned post-trade financial infrastructure company. In the wake of several recent high-profile cyber attacks on major sectors of the global economy, starting…

 (Pictured: Gian Pandit) They used to be called ‘swing mandates’. Now they are ‘unconstrained’ and, usually, concentrated. AMP Capital has won another $175 million for its concentrated Australian equities strategy from Nikko Asset Management’s multi-manager portfolio. The win takes the portfolio managed by Gian Pandit, who launched the strategy when he joined AMP in late 2011,…

Mark Delaney… ‘didn’t someone say there are no more dangerous words in investment than ‘this time it’s different’?’ A couple of years into its ambitious push into internal management of its investments, AustralianSuper is well advanced in its aim to manage about a third of its assets in-house. But this progress hasn’t necessarily helped with…