Funds should allow retiree members to request they select a retirement product on their behalf, and create “safety net provisions” for those who don’t, according to new research. New research by David Bell, executive director of the Conexus Institute, Geoff Warren, associate professor at the Australian National University, argues that relying solely on retirees to…
The Standing Committee on Economics is launching a new inquiry into big super. Not everybody is happy about it. Compulsory viewing for many professionals and reporters, the Standing Committee on Economics is infamous for its hardball interrogations of Australia’s biggest institutional investors, and the announcement of a new inquiry will likely have some stakeholders tearing…
The portfolio that drives excess returns over the next decade ‘will likely look a lot different’ than that of the 2009-2019 period as the world enters a new era of outsize economic policy. Private equity giant KKR believes that markets are accepting “the visible hand” of government intervention across areas as diverse as inequality, monopolistic…
The value vs growth competition isn’t a competition, according to Schroders. Value will always outperform because it exploits “the one thing that never really changes”: human beings. Markets have seen a period of very strong value performance since the announcement and rollout of effective Covid-19 vaccines – the so-called “Vaccine Monday” – as markets reappraised…
An Australian super fund has seeded a boutique emerging market debt (EMD) fund as instos look overseas for yield. But challenges for the asset class abound. As Argentina approached its presidential primaries in August 2019, the team at EMD boutique Finisterre grew wary. The primaries would take place during a low liquidity month; they were…
With the advent of Your Future Your Super (YFYS) Australia’s super funds are more closely examining their indexing options. The trick is ensuring member outcomes don’t suffer. Benchmark-relative risk is now top of mind for super funds, with specialist implementation manager Parametric seeing a substantial uptick in the number of funds taking an interest in…
The collapse of an investee company has seen IFM hauled before the standing committee on economics. The bigger issue is how a fund manager keeps commercial matters confidential in Parliament. The hot topic at Thursday’s (29 July) hearing of the standing committee on economics was Tandem, a workplace contractor and IFM investee that has now…
After a soft streak in a chaotic 2020, the IPO market is expected to take off with a “strong pipeline” of new floats coming through 2021, according to HLB Mann Judd. The Australian IPO market is gaining pace after a sluggish period that saw a scant $132 million raised in the first half of 2020,…
Failing to take advantage of the recovery trade looks bad. But with Alibaba, Magellan missed a risk you could see from space. Hamish Douglass, Magellan chairman and chief investment officer, has been much maligned in recent months for something that’s probably his fault but not actually his problem: missing the market rally in late 2020….
Trustees need to be wary of seeing everything through the lens of super, according to Chant West’s Ian Fryer. Engaging with controversial ideas around its uses can be a boon for member outcomes. As the big banks and their superannuation products copped a hiding in the Hayne royal commission , the rivers of gold correspondingly…
