By Greg Bright A consensus of pundits drawn out by the media in its time of need – when there is little actual news to report – seems to be warning about both a further slowdown in the Australian economy and a relatively lacklustre sharemarket this year. Normally the two don’t go together, or, rather,…
Pictured: Kirby RappellBig super funds are likely to have had their best calendar year since at least 2000, according to preliminary figures from SuperRatings. The median fund balanced option returned 15.5 per cent in the 12 months to December 31, making it the best year since the research firm began tracking this index in 2000….
Pictured:Â Salvador Saiz It’s not just the attraction of SMSFs causing membership leakage among not-for-profit super funds. The commercial funds, led by the major banks, are making inroads through their drive for membership growth, according to research by CoreData. The research firm’s latest “Member Growth Report” from its Superannuation Intelligence Unit, says that 19.7 per cent…
Pictured: Nikki SmithAfter about 20 years in Australia, Nikki Smith, a securities services and funds management marketer, has returned to London to join Deutsche Bank’s securities services division as a director. She has taken a new role within Deutsche as sector specialist relationship manager/sales for financial institutions. She said the role was evolving but it…
Advances in technology are behind a shift in ownership patterns among the world’s stock exchanges. In the past week, for instance, NASDAQ OMX acquired a small stake in the Turkish stock exchange and BATS Global Markets moved ahead with a proposed merger which will likely make it the largest exchange in the US. In the…
Pictured: Â Joseph Velli In a deal which underscores the problem investors have in assessing the true costs of investment implementation, ConvergEx, the US-based global brokerage and trading services firm, has agreed to pay US$150 million to settle fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and criminal charges brought by the US Department of…
Pictured:Â Craig Dandurand The Future Fund has recruited a specialist alternatives portfolio manager from CalPERS, the US$270 billion Californian public sector fund, who will move with his family from Sacramento to Melbourne in the new year for the role. He is Craig Dandurand, who has been at America’s largest pension fund for 13 years, after…
Pictured: Matthew Perrignon Credit Suisse has upgraded its sales effort for asset management in the Asia Pacific region through the transfer of the sales chief for Australia, Matthew Perrignon, to Hong Kong from January. Perrignon, who is head of the “pension coverage group” and a director, will oversee the regional sales effort, with existing support…
Pictured:Â David Stein The importance of efficient implementation of investment strategies, especially tax management, is gradually gaining recognition in the institutional market, with a new paper by Parametric Portfolio Associates widening the brief established earlier this month in a paper by Mercer. The Mercer paper, as previously reported, split the leakages into “upstream” and “downstream”….
By Pal Sarai* I am glad that you find our business interesting and relevant enough to communicate to Australian institutional investors. However, there are a few inaccuracies in your comment piece (Investor Strategy News, December 16, 2013). They mainly refer to our size and our business model. 1) size: bfinance is an international investment consultant…
