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Graham Rich … ‘quality financial advice adds material value’ Graham Rich considers it a compliment that his own investment biases are not well known. The founder of several businesses, including that which became Morningstar in Australia, has devoted much of his career to providing independent and objective information to the financial advice industry. He speaks…

(Pictured: Andrew Barnes) By Greg Bright* Australasian Wealth Investments (AWI) last week transformed itself from an LIC – it started life as the Fat Prophets listed vehicle – into a traditional listed company after shareholders voted to remove the management company. As previously announced, most of the former investment portfolio has been cleaned out, allowing the…

(Pictured: Olivia Engel) There not many signs that companies are starting to reinvest in capital expenditure. More worryingly, they are leveraging and raising fresh capital to, largely, maintain or even increase dividends. A report by State Street Global Advisors points out both dividend per share and the payout ratios of ASX companies have risen by almost…

(Pictured: Yasser El-Ansary) After some years of improvement, Australia’s previously abysmal record of investing in innovation, is again looming, venture capitalists fear. They are concerned that the new Government’s belt tightening may threaten the next round of funding for the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) and the Translational Biotech Fund (TBF). The Australian Private Equity and Venture…

(Pictured: Craig Mercer) Towers Watson has confirmed its new hedge funds and alternatives consultant, to join the Sydney office from the UK, as one of five recent hires in Australia. He is Craig Mercer, who has most recently headed up the London office of Dalton Investments LLC. Prior to the recent role at Dalton Investments, Mercer…

(Pictured: Connie Mckeage) OneVue is having a busy year. The privately held company has completed a pre-IPO raising with two cornerstone investors and restructured its management following its purchase of the Computershare retail fund registry business. It announced a new senior hire from IOOF last Friday. OneVue has merged its strategy, sales and service teams which…

(Pictured: Joanna Davison) A survey of about 6,000 members of 30 big super funds – and 50 employers from 11 of those funds – has found an increased, and continued positive, level of engagement. The survey, the sixth annual undertaking, is a joint initiative of the Fund Executives Association Ltd (FEAL), the Melbourne Business School and…

Vanguard Asia Pacific has seconded a senior investment analyst from the US, Jeffrey Johnson, to oversee its investment strategy and research team based in Melbourne. He will have a team of four analysts and economists. The team’s revamp is designed to promote and enhance Vanguard’s reputation for thought leadership in investment-related issues and as a…

David Gallagher … ‘what we are doing has a lot of public benefit’ The Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR), based in Sydney, was established as a result of a decision by the first Rudd Government, emanating from the Johnson report into Australia’s financial services industry and its interaction with the region. David Gallagher…

(Pictured:Patrick Liddy) In 1915, for 10 months the ice-moored ship ‘Endurance’ drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But for Ernest Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men the real ordeal had just begun. It was to go on for a further 10 months, in the most unforgiving of terrains, the Antarctic. Shackleton would bring them…