As superannuation and life insurance consolidation continues apace, risk firm Retender warns that the government cannot rely on the invisible hand of the market to ensure competitive outcomes. It’s well understood that big super is getting bigger. That’s as a result of both “Your Future Your Super”, which drives consolidation by closing underperforming products and…
Cashed-up industry funds are expected to be leaders leader in post-pandemic M&A activity as investors begin to see the light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel. While Fidelity anticipates that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a structural shift in consumer and market behaviour, the increased certainty provided by reopening means that M&A activity will…
Investment consultants like JANA, Frontier, and Willis Towers Watson, are banding together to “drive real change” by confronting the “daunting” task of accomplishing a net zero transition. The Net Zero Investment Consultants Initiative (NZICI) will see consultants embed advice on the transition to net zero into their advisory work and support clients on developing policies…
Super funds may soon be forced to reveal internal valuations for unlisted assets. But the lesson from the Future Fund is that the new regulations aren’t in anybody’s best interests. While much of government’s recent focus has been on implementing the “Your Future Your Super” performance test, super funds could also soon be subject to…
Implausible doesn’t mean impossible. But it remains to be seen whether the “creative destruction” that ARK Invest is banking on can trump the possibility that we’ve been in a bubble all along. They’re what legendary investor/prophet of doom Jeremy Grantham calls “super-crazies” – the wildly overvalued assets that start to appear shortly before the bubble…
While ESG is on the radar of most Australian institutional investors, none of them believe it’s currently necessary to what they do. While that’s starting to change, a lack of hard data stands in the way. Currently, none of the Australian institutional investors surveyed by BNP Paribas for its Global ESG Survey believe that ESG…
China’s ongoing regulatory crackdown has investors running scared. But China still wants to be a global player – and its most successful companies aren’t going anywhere. China’s recent regulatory efforts have sent a chill down the spine of even the most bullish investors, with questions swirling about where and when the aggressive crackdown – which…
Geoff Summerhayes, former APRA executive, concedes that while the short-term nature of the Your Future Your Super (YFYS) test is a “challenge” for ESG investment, climate change is a mega-trend that demands more attention. One of the main frustrations around the YFYS performance test has been that climate change does not occur on a regimented…
The inquiry into common ownership has given us that rarest of things: a moment of bipartisan stupidity. There are so many wonderful ways to waste taxpayer money. You can use it to pay for business-class flights to Canberra, or Craig Kelly-style political stunts, or even give it away to profitable multinational corporations in the middle…
The new inquiry into common ownership wants to find evidence of collusion between super funds. But it appears to be the quintessential storm in a teacup. The standing committee on economics’ inquiry into the implications of common ownership and capital concentration in Australia has supposed a problem and now faces the difficult task of finding…
