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Jo Townsend … “REST remains a firm believer in active management” REST Industry Super, one of Australia’s largest super funds, has also been a top performing fund in the SuperRatings analyses for the past several years. Jo Townsend, the fund’s general manager of investments, spoke to the ratings agency for this report. Townsend thinks that…

(Pictured: Ron Bird) As submissions to the Financial System Inquiry are closed off, today, academics attached to the Paul Woolley Centre have questioned the fundamental assumption that a larger financial system is better for GDP than a smaller one. Professor Ron Bird and Dr Jack Gray, both former fund managers, produced a submission to the Inquiry…

(Pictured: Stephen Dunne) By Greg Bright Australian financial services firms have generally not travelled well. Of the banks, NAB lost a lot of money trying to expand in both the UK and US. Westpac never really became the bank of the Western Pacific as Pieter Huveneers* designed the name to be. ANZ has slowly gathered some…

(Pictured: Louise Davidson) By Penny Pryor Cbus is currently working with MSCI to identify the worst performing ESG stocks in the emerging markets index, for a new emerging markets index mandate. Speaking at a session on divestment at the Conference of Major Superannuation Funds last week, Louise Davidson, environmental, social and governance manager at Cbus…

(Pictured: Paul Schroder) AustralianSuper has completed the hiring of a strategy, performance and analytics team within the trustee office to better harvest and integrate the fund’s data sets. Paul Schroder, group executive membership, was excited about the calibre of the team and said its formation was the first step in understanding how the collection and integration…

(Pictured: Sue Wang) While the sell-off in emerging markets last year has prompted renewed interest from value-oriented investors, Mercer Investment Consulting has cautioned that there has been increased dispersion between markets and also, in the case of equities, within markets. In a recent presentation on EMs, Mercer consultants Sue Wang and Simon Calder said the firm…

(Pictured: Daniel Celeghin) Casey Quirk, the US-based advisory and research business for funds management, has opened an office in the region, with partner Daniel Celeghin relocating from New York to Hong Kong last month. Celeghin, who has been a frequent visitor to Australia, along with his fellow partner and Boston-based Ben Phillips, who is well known…

(Pictured: Wes Palmer) After 15 years in asset servicing and custody, Wes Palmer has transitioned to broader investment sales and marketing, taking up a position at Mercer as a principal in the financial services division. The Melbourne-based position involves sales for the $17 billion Mercer super trusts, corporate super and administration. Palmer, a former British army…

Craig Mercer, a senior investment consultant at Towers Watson, recently transferred from the UK to Australia to take up the role of heading up the firm’s hedge fund research and advice. His goal: “I want us to be regarded as the leading alternatives consultant in the region.” He spoke with Greg Bright about building portfolios…

(Pictured: Michael Delaney) The ghosts of the GFC continue to haunt MTAA Super’s members. The fund is to wind up its ill-fated ‘target return option’ following a review of investment arrangements. This is the option into which the fund had also directed allocations from its ‘growth, ‘balanced’ and ‘conservative’ options under its previous management, prior to…