It’s tempting to think of the latest review into Your Future Your Super as just more regulatory tinkering, but experts think there’s a good chance it will give the industry a real solution to the unintended consequences of the performance test.
More and more of the global institutional investor set is turning to thematic strategies even as they resist the use of ESG benchmarks amidst questions about the methodologies that underpin them.
In private debt, you win by not losing, and key to not losing is good manager selection. But with a massive number of “me too” players entering the market, that’s getting harder.
The smart money at the US$10 trillion asset manager is in hedge funds, gold and inflation-linked bonds, while local investors in its exchange-traded products are bargain hunting in China.
Australia’s biggest super fund is set to increase its investment in the UK to around $35 billion by 2030 and expand its already 100-strong on the ground presence in Kings Cross.
When is a bubble not a bubble? When traditional monetary transmission mechanisms are disintermediated by private credit. Meanwhile, a decent chunk of so-called ‘alternatives’ are just beta in a low-vol wrapper.
The return of the Future Fund to active equity management has seen it dip its toes into Japanese equities as decades of low growth and corporate stagnation comes to an end.
BNP Paribas’ securities services division has done well for itself in the NAB Asset Servicing feeding frenzy, adding a fistful of managers and insurers to its platform in addition to its big Insignia Financial win.
The custodian has leapt up the league tables off the back of its big Australian Retirement Trust win, and it’s now getting ready to transfer a number of former NAS clients to its platform even as it beds down the megafund integration.
The MySuper reforms have seen costs come down and members getting a better deal, according to a decade of data compiled by Chant West, but the laser focus on fees from government and the regulators mean the industry’s opinion is “generally less sanguine”.
