News

We’ve known about it for years, but D-Day is now close at hand for big super funds. An estimated $500 billion is, potentially, going to leave the system over the next two years, according to an APRA estimate. Funds can longer afford to be complacent about their business. David Orford, an actuary who made his…

Heitman LLC, the global real estate investment management firm, has launched the ‘Heitman Global Prime Real Estate Trust’, seeded by an unnamed super fund with A$128.5 million. Equity Trustees has been appointed trustee. Heitman’s ‘global prime strategy’ is a benchmark-unaware, diversified portfolio of publicly traded global real estate securities designed to provide investors exposure to…

WCM Investment Management, which manages global money for two of Contango Asset Management’s listed investment vehicles, puts a lot of store into the importance of analysing the corporate culture of its investee companies. This is not always easy. The manager has been building a footprint in the Australian institutional market for about five years and,…

While disaggregation among financial planning groups commenced before the Royal Commission, it is certainly more top of mind now. But not everyone is keen on going down that route. A group of Perth-based businessmen is looking to raise $3 million in a first round of investment for a financial advice aggregation business, known as Broadleaf…

Nikko Asset Management has excluded a new swag of ‘sin’ sectors from its ‘high conviction’ global equities fund. In a just-released statement of investment policies and objectives (SIPO), Nikko details exclusion rules for the group’s Global Shares Fund covering companies involved in pornography, alcohol, fossil fuels and gambling. The fund, managed by the Edinburgh-based Nikko…

Chinese stock markets received a huge boost last week following the call by index provider MSCI to up its China A shares inclusion factor from the current 5 per cent to 20 per cent by the end of this year. The MSCI move could see up to US$125 billion flow into Chinese shares as funds…

by Greg Bright From the genesis of universal super in 1986, with the ‘Accord’ between the Hawke-Keating Government and the ACTU, the industry has always been political. The more money in the pot the more political is the daily noise. Right now, with a federal election looming, it doesn’t get much more political than this….

If ever it needed an endorsement of its business strategy, Link Group produced another strong result as its UK acquisition kicked in just at the right time, with regulatory changes starting to impede growth in the core super admin business. The result for the six months to December, announced last Friday, was the first time…

The global financial crisis was not all bad news. Australia and New Zealand, for instance, escaped recession. We may not have had the Royal Commission without it. And it has spawned a whole new industry sub-sector for fund managers – private credit. As regulators around the world introduced tough new requirements on the big banks…

The NZ Stock Exchange has embarked on a restructure of its suite of managed fund vehicles and is streamlining its securities services contract under BNP Paribas in the process. The NZX plans to restructure SuperLife to offer an unlisted product range that mirrors the group’s Smartshares exchange-traded fund (ETF) suite. Hugh Stevens, Smartshares chief executive,…

Warakirri Asset Management has entered the retail market with a new agriculture investment fund which has already been given an “approved” rating by Zenith Investment Partners. The fund has been launched with several family offices and high-net-worth advisory firms. Warakirri, which was launched by John Nolan, founder of JANA Advisors, in 2003, has been investing…

Global consultancy firm Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has won the job of reviewing the NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) following a short tender process last December. The review has to take place every five years. WTW was appointed last week to run the review – the fourth for NZS – with a final report due by…