(Pictured: Martin Stevenson)Â In his 42 years in the superannuation industry, Martin Stevenson has seen some changes. Most, he says, have been for the better. But Australia still has a looming retirement incomes problem and the eventual solution is to legislate for some form of compulsory income stream system, he believes. Stevenson retired from Mercer…
(Pictured:Â Don Ezra) As super funds move away from traditional approaches to measuring their investment success, or otherwise, and the members increasingly focus on expected outcomes, the Fund Executives Association Ltd national conference next month will dissect the topic: “Measuring What Matters Most”. A keynote speaker will be Don Ezra, the Russell Investments global director emeritus,…
While the ramifications of the Eurozone’s debt concerns have heightened in recent weeks and with the euro finally coming in for a correction, the global investment risk research firm Check Risk has given Australia a better report in its latest weekly risk assessment. Check Risk produced an update on the velocity of money in the…
Chris Briant has been appointed chief executive of the Australian and New Zealand arm of specialist manager Parametric Portfolio Associates, one of the five affiliates of the listed US manager Eaton Vance, which has also been boosting its Australian presence in other ways. Briant finished up recently at Tibra Investment Management, where he was chief…
While funds managers pride, and sell, themselves on their skill and while asset consultants and super funds forever debate their ability to identify skill, it is only recently that there has been a serious discussion about investment implementation and execution skills as an area also demanding of scrutiny. And we can thank the much-maligned high-frequency…
The word that springs readily to Graeme Miller’s mind when asked about the impact of regulatory change on super fund investments is “fatigue”. “MySuper is on top of Stronger Super, on top of SuperStream… it doesn’t seem to stop,” the director of investment services at Towers Watson told the annual AIST end-of-financial-year breakfast last week….
Stephen O’Brien, the former chief executive of Deutsche Asset Management in Australia, has joined the advisory and marketing firm Brookvine as executive director, starting today. Steve Hall, Brookvine’s chief executive, said the recruitment of O’Brien, with whom he had worked in the late 1980s at ipac, showed the firm was continuing to invest in the…
Citi has strengthened its Australian transitions management team at a time when other big players in the US and Europe, in particular, are shuttering or reducing their services in this area due to low activity volumes. Citi has recruited former Mercer consultant Sandeep Gurkhi who was, most recently, at State Street as vice president, portfolio…
Investment banks should be given more credit for their marketing genius. Goldman Sachs invented the term “BRIC” in 2001 and this developed into a fully fledged organization. More recently, last October, Bank of America Merrill Lynch came up with the term the “Great Rotation” and now this is taking over global investment dialogue. The actual…
“You do nothing by halves either to your enemies or friends.” (Lord Minto to Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, 18th May 1803) Much has and will be written about the extraordinary man who was Horatio Nelson, his battles, his personal life and his management style. Little is written about Admiral Pierre-Charles de Villeneuve. He was the opposing…
