News

The Australian Custodial Services Association turned 25 this year. It is one of those behind-the-scenes organisations which work away for the benefit of the whole industry without seeking much limelight. Well, it shone at the AIST’s ASI conference last week. In a “special interest” session at the conference, Rob Brown, ACSA’s chief executive, supported by…

For those in the retirement savings industry money saved by members, mainly through super and a house, is a major focus of our working lives. But a happy retirement is not just about money, believe it or not. Enter Jon Glass. Dr Glass, a recently semi-retired investment professional – asset consultant, fund manager and CIO…

David O’Donnell, an investment analyst at the $7 billion Energy Super, has won the seventh annual ‘Rising Star Award’, sponsored by Hermes Investment Management. It is the only award he has won since he got the ‘best and fairest’ for his ‘Under 13s’ cricket team, he said. The Rising Star Award, announced at AIST’s ASI…

Loftus Peak, a boutique equities house, is expanding its remit with the appointment of a professional funds management chief executive. Rick Steele has had a long career in the industry, including several senior roles at both big and small companies. Alex Pollak, the Loftus Peak founder, a former finance journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald…

Global financial market infrastructure firm Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has laid out a chapter-and-verse governance model for the nascent blockchain universe. In a just-published white paper produced with consultancy giant, Accenture, DTCC establishes eight commandments for running ‘permissioned’ blockchains – also known as distributed ledger technology (DLT). Unlike the headline-grabbing blockchain antics of…

by Greg Bright Over the next few months the challenge for the major smart beta providers in Australia and New Zealand will change dramatically. It’s not necessarily bad news for investors, though. But it’s not so good, either. The two biggest players in the market, who have been joined at the hip for years, are…

Factor investing – or tilted indices as the strategy used to be known – is becoming increasingly popular with retail investors, largely due to the growth in ETFs. But it is not as simple as it seems. Factor strategies may seem cheap, but there are risks attached. Institutional investors have understood the world of ‘factors’…

To quote the great Bob Dylan, it really does seem ‘the times they are a-changing’ for the Australian wealth management industry. A challenging investment and business climate, building competitive pressure, consolidation, unprecedented scrutiny of performance and fees, increasing regulatory requirements, and a shifting distribution landscape. The need for asset managers and super funds to put…

The Australian hedge fund awards organisers – The Alternative Future Foundation and Hedge Funds Rock – have announced the finalists for their night of nights, taking place in Sydney on September 12. The evening caps off what is generally dubbed ‘hedge funds week’, which includes the annual summit organised by the Alternative Investment Management Association…

by David Chaplin* Later this year, probably, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand will release the findings of a long-awaited review of the country’s custody sector. Securities servicing, as it should be known, has been long neglected by the NZ regulator. The review – understood to have been outsourced to consultancy firm PwC…

Value will come back. It must do. It’s the most persistent of styles, dating back to the research of Benjamin Graham in the 1930s. Its underperformance cannot go on much longer. Surely. Reece Birtles, admittedly biased towards the style, provides a compelling argument as to why the time is now to dive back in. Birtles,…

by David Chaplin BlackRock has laid out the case for a coordinated fiscal and monetary shock policy to defibrillate the global economy as it struggles to register a pulse. In a paper published last week, the BlackRock Investment Institute argues that with both monetary and fiscal losing potency, more radical approaches – such as the…