News

Crestone Wealth Management is shaping up as the new blueprint for wealth managers in a post Royal Commission world. Not only have its funds under management increased, at an increasing rate, in the past three years, but the firm has also attracted more advisors into its fold at a time when advisors are moving away…

The ASX-listed Xplore investment platform business, formerly known as ‘managedaccounts.com’, has reconfigured its asset servicing arrangements after a review by MSI Group. J.P. Morgan is the big winner, but new FX and cash management efficiencies are likely to be replicated by other fiduciary investors. Patrick Liddy, MSI Group principal, and a former asset servicing executive…

David Travers, a former veteran of senior management in asset servicing who left RBC mid-way through last year, has made a career change by taking on the role of chief executive of a ‘regtech’ business, Fourth Line. He joins Tony McDonald, a serial financial services entrepreneur and Fourth Line chairman, alongside several other well-healed directors….

A group of academics at the Australian National University, including former asset consultant and investment industry executive Geoff Warren, has studied what should be the “right” amount for the compulsory Superannuation Guarantee. Like most aspects of super, they found the answer is not simple. The group – Geoff Warren, Gaurav Khemka and Yifu Tang –…

Up to 30 per cent of the newly established NZ Government Venture Capital Fund (VCF) could be allocated to “foreign” entities, rules included in the just-released policy statement confirm. Designed to bolster access to capital for promising NZ start-up companies, the NZ$300 million (A$280 million) VCF also has a mandate to support the local venture…

BlackRock signalled a new era for sustainable investing last week that big funds and their managers must catch up with. If you are investing almost US$7 trillion worldwide, you tend to get investors, governments and pretty much everyone’s attention. In letters to clients and industry leaders, BlackRock laid out a major shift to sustainable investing…

One of the tough things about being a publicly listed financial services firm is that every stock market announcement is studied by both shareholders and clients. The two have different agendas. State Street announced its global fourth quarter results last week and said it would focus on cost reduction in the coming year. That may…

by Greg Bright David Hartley seems to be on several missions at the same time. The chair of the investment committee and a director of the $9.5 billion Australian Catholic Superannuation fund has come up with a workable concept to ease Australia’s housing affordability crisis. Along the way, he has also developed thoughts on other…

Holowesko Partners, the ‘Bahamian’ global value-orientated manager represented by Andrew Nolan’s ‘Eleuthera’ third-party marketing business, is to launch two Australian-domiciled funds. They will broaden the firm’s presence in Australia and New Zealand, allowing smaller funds to access the firm’s strategies. ‘Bahamian’? That’s someone, or a company such as Holowesko Partners, that hails from the Bahamas….

Active long-only strategies will continue to drive revenues for a majority of fund managers around the world for the next five years, despite the continued encroachment by index managers and fee compression in several markets, such as Australia. But the total fee issue is not a truly global phenomenon, according to Casey Quirk. Globally, asset…

China’s private equity and venture capital (PEVC) sector grew by 36 per cent in 2018, its lowest growth rate since 2014, hitting US$600 billion. This lower growth rate is perhaps understandable as total GDP grew only 6.2 per cent that year, the lowest in 27 years. But such growth rates can be misleading. What matters…

Putting politics aside, as Australia suffers its worst bushfires in history and with the world looking on, the question for big investors and their managers is: “How should you react from a fiduciary’s point of view?” Big super funds have been cognisant of climate change risk for years. But, now, they need to really engage…