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…
Rob Prugue, head of Lazard Asset Management Asia Pacific, has been seconded for his third pan Asia “tour of duty” as Lazard further expands its Asian presence into Singapore. As with Lazard’s Sydney, Tokyo, and Seoul offices, Singapore will exercise Lazard’s “three pillars”: domestic product for domestic clients; domestic product for offshore clients; and, imported global product…
Russell Clarke, Mercer’s global CIO for “mainstream assets” is to return home to Melbourne as CIO for the Pacific, while his former boss in London, global CIO Andrew Kirton, has become head of Mercer Investments’ European business. Mercer did not announce last week whether the two London-based CIO roles would be filled. The Australian-based CIO…
William Blair, the US-based multi-asset class manager which opened an Australian office this year, will do the same in China soon to help better understand the way emerging markets are changing and how to capitalize on long-term investment opportunities there and elsewhere. Jeff Urbina, one of William Blair’s founders in international investing, who runs the…
Investors with a strong ESG emphasis should not ignore the world’s second-largest economy – China – notwithstanding the country’s poor form with human rights and, until recently at least, unsatisfactory labor conditions. Nathan Lim, portfolio manager in charge of international equities for Australian Ethical, says that with a globalized supply chain there is more opportunity…
