News

by Greg Bright The proposed best-of-breed 10-manager panel to choose default funds plus forced amalgamation of funds which have underperformed for a period grabbed the headlines following the Productivity Commission’s final report on superannuation. For some practitioners this masks a missed opportunity. In 2011, when Bill Shorten, as minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, enacted…

The new global multi-affiliate manager which plans to target Australia and New Zealand this year, both to seek super fund mandates for its existing suite of underlying managers and to look for new managers in which to take minority shareholdings, is also on the lookout for a local distribution partner. iM Global Partner, which was…

Amundi Asset Management, the largest asset manager in Europe, which has had a long presence in Australia through various guises, has appointed Shed Enterprises, a Sydney-based third-party marketing firm, as its Australian and New Zealand representative. Paris-based Amundi was founded in 2010 to run the asset management businesses of Credit Agricole and Societe Generale. It…

State Street announced in Boston last Friday, January 18, that it would be letting go about 1,500 staff – 6 per cent of its workforce – at its various offices, particularly in “high cost regions”, and losing 15 per cent of senior manager positions in a US$350 million program to cut costs. State Street’s assets…

It’s tough for investment professionals to live and work in Port Moresby. Sometimes, the unique culture of the underprivileged nation can go against the grain and local politics can interfere with what we consider best practice. David Brown has just been through such an experience. New Zealand-born Brown is a well-known and respected Australian fund…

Retirement products and strategies have proliferated in recent years, targeting everyone from big super funds, their members through investment options, wholesale investors through planners and retail investors through their SMSFs. They come in all shapes and sizes, though, and some key differences deserve examination. Pentalpha Investment Management, one of the new players in the space,…

by Nicholas Way* Barrie Dunstan, devoted husband and father, dedicated Magpies (Collingwood) fan, and highly respected business and finance journalist – by both his peers and the wider business and finance community – died from cancer in Melbourne last Tuesday, January 15, aged 80. His family, friends, former colleagues, business leaders, and his many readers,…

Despite an end-of-year slowdown last quarter and lack of market price support for the year, Australia’s ETPs reached another record, up 13 per cent to $40.8 billion in total market cap in 2018. This was due solely to fund inflows. BetaShares is predicting an increase of between 22-34 per cent this year. Alex Vynokur, BetaShares…

The great Jack Bogle died last week, on January 15, aged 89. He was the founder of Vanguard, in 1974, inventor of index funds and champion supporter of the interests of individual investors. Vanguard remains the largest mutual organisation in the world, owned by its investors. Famous for his passion about the importance of keeping…

Both active and passive fund managers may have to adjust pricing models this year with the emergence of two new fee trends: ‘free’ and ‘fulcrum’, according to a new report by global consultancy Deloitte. The report says the launch of the first zero-fee index fund last year – by US firm Fidelity – “was a…

by Greg Bright Mark Lazberger has temporarily checked out of the investment management industry, taking his first ‘sabbatical’ in about 37 years. He says he is likely to turn up in another role again, although he is in no hurry to do so. Tracing his career to date is like tracing the history of funds…

Long the poor cousin of commercial and retail sectors of direct property, industrial – in particular warehouses – has been coming to the fore in the past couple of years, thanks to changing consumer buying patterns. Forget the old notion of a dusty warehouse. These are often new buildings, increasingly multi-storied, with robots in abundance….