It seems a long time since the institutional investment world has seen the sort of genius that led to Modern Portfolio Theory and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). Even more unsettling, according to Philip Lawton, recent literature suggests that investors of the future may be deprived of the kind of revolutionary thinking that energized the…
NGS Super is the first super fund to sign onto the NSW Government’s first social benefit bond, committing $500,000 to the Newpin Social Benefit Bond. A social benefit bond, of which the Newpin bond is the first of its kind in Australia, is a form of funding for social services. A government pays a social…
Sovereign wealth funds, especially those from the Middle East, are redirecting their new investments back home, according to a review by KPMG. Due largely to the relative firmness in the oil price, and as Western credit tightened or lurched towards crises, the Middle Eastern funds have taken on greater importance in the world investment market….
The post-global financial crisis shift to investing in bonds and other fixed interest securities, notwithstanding record-low interest rates in most major markets, is putting increased demands on analytics to ensure investors know exactly what they’re doing. However, the usual tools for such analytics may be flawed, according to a paper by RBC Investor Services. The…
Chong Jin Leow, the head of BNY Mellon’s Asia Pacific asset servicing business, who was also appointed Singapore country executive only last year, quietly left the company in late March. BNY Mellon is tightlipped about the circumstances of his departure and any plans for the region’s future leadership. Leow, an experienced custody and securities services…
Ian Perkins, the founder of Morse Consulting and the driving force behind its expansion through Asia, has resigned from the company and sold his stake to the other partners. He will take a break and think about his next move, he said last week. “For the last six months I’d been thinking that the business…
FNZ, the investment platforms systems and administration provider, is expanding into Asia with the decision to open a Singapore office, according to the chief executive for Australia, Martin Jennings. Jennings told the Investment Operations & Custody “Best Practice” conference in Shanghai last week that the Singapore office would be opened soon following receipt of the…
The band in which the Chinese RMB is allowed to float is likely to be increased from 1 per cent to 2 per cent this year as part of the liberalization of management and internationalization of the currency, according to Dr Yuanzheng Cao of the Bank of China. In a wide-ranging speech on the future…
As back-office providers to fund managers and pension funds provide more and more services in the middle and front office areas, the question of data quality and delivery is growing in importance. Jeff Conway, the State Street asset servicing veteran, says the term “outsourcing” needs to be replaced. Addressing the IO&C conference in Shanghai last…
Pension funds, and other fiduciary investors, need to provide greater transparency as the world moves towards increased scrutiny of its savings systems, according to former academic and current managing director of JP Morgan, Benjie Fraser. Fraser, a London-based strategist at JP Morgan, told the IO&C conference that there was increased scrutiny on the pension fund…
