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(Pictured: Ross Barry) Ross Barry, currently a contracted consultant at Towers Watson and previously its head of alternative investments, will leave the consulting firm around Christmas to join one of its major clients, First State Super, in the new year. First State Super’s CIO, Richard Brandweiner, has been expanding his internal investment team since joining the…

(Pictured: Matt Olsen) Matt Olsen, the head of manager research at van Eyk Research, is moving to the retail multi-manager Select Asset Management, after a short period of ‘gardening leave’. He will be replaced by a former senior fund manager at BT Funds Management. Rob de Silva, who was head of fixed interest for Asia Pacific…

(Pictured: Mike Davis) Peter Sartori, the founder of Treasury Asia Asset Management (Treasury Asia), will become head of Asian equity for Nikko Asset Management, (Nikko AM) following the firm’s purchase from the Australian multi-affiliate Treasury Group. Mike Davis, the managing director of Tyndall AM (owned by Nikko AM), says the purchase enhances the Nikko range in…

(Pictured: Michael Baldwin) The Fund Executives Association Ltd said goodbye to its long-standing and much-loved CEO, Michael Baldwin, last week. The speakers tried to not sound like they were delivering eulogies, but it was difficult. Baldwin, who has had a private passion for the arts for many years, has become the deputy head of the National…

(Pictured: David Chaplin) The KiwiSaver scheme, New Zealand’s incentivised retirement savings system, has reached about NZ$17 billion (A$14.9 billion) in assets covering 2.2 million members, according to a research report by David Chaplin. But recent growth has slowed. Chaplin, a specialist journalist who this year launched a funds management research firm studying both retail and institutional…

By Tony Freeman*  In Australia and New Zealand – markets increasingly under pressure from regulatory change, globalisation and cost-pressures – one impending development is going relatively unremarked. It is the global trend towards shorter settlement cycles. This change will have a significant impact on Australasia.   The disparity in global settlement cycles extends across asset…

(Pictured: Darren Stevens) Systems providers in the financial services industry tend to be a good leading indicator of the industry’s position. If that is currently the case, the industry is in ruddy good health, according to Bravura Solutions. Darren Stevens, Bravura’s director of strategy, says that his “pipeline” of new business possibilities has doubled in the…

(Pictured: Robert Buckland) The outlook for global markets is still positive, but patchy, according to Citi’s latest strategic outlook, presented at its annual clients conference in Sydney last week. Robert Buckland, global equity strategist, said the rally of the past 12 months had been more about pricing out the bad news than pricing in any good…

John Coombe: you need clarity around the consultant’s role John Coombe is the last of the originals at JANA Investment Advisers.  He and his former colleagues, John Nolan and Ken Marshman, worked together at Victoria’s State Electricity Commission finance department in the 1980s.  While the others have moved on to other things – Nolan selling…

(Pictured: David Braga) David Braga, a managing director and head of product for JP Morgan, will become the new chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association, following the retirement from the position of Pierre Jond, the head of BNP Paribas Securities Services in Australia. As previously announced, Jond is to return to Paris at the end…