News

Australia’s largest super funds are casting a close eye over their property and infrastructure allocations amidst challenging market conditions, according to new research from J.P Morgan. And while investment internalisation continues to gather pace, not all funds are sold on its worth.

Even the fund has been caught off-guard by demand for its new index and socially conscious high-growth options, which were rolled out in response to members wanting more choice – but not so much that they were overwhelmed.

Treasury is fine-tuning the Your Future, Your Super performance test ahead of its next iteration in August. While the updates could pave the way for a better test, its extension to trustee-directed products is cause for consternation.

Vanguard usurped BlackRock as the biggest institutional fund manager in 2022 during a year where most firms went backwards, according to the latest Pensions & Investments global survey.

As NAB Asset Servicing ceases its operations and its book of orphaned clients come to market Citi Securities Services hopes that a new referral agreement – and its experience with RBC – will give it an edge over other providers.

Australian Retirement Trust has warned that introducing more granularity into the YFYS test might only confuse members and that funds will incur greater transaction costs as new benchmarks are added to it.

Just two years after selecting State Street as its custodian, Perpetual is deciding whether to take its business elsewhere in the wake of its acquisition of global fund manager Pendal.

Kristian Fok has been appointed CEO of Cbus following the departure of Justin Arter and as the fund launches a new five-year investment strategy that will see it in-house another 12 per cent of its assets under management.

Active Super and Vision Super will press ahead with a merger that will “lower costs and improve member services” in a sign of the times for smaller super funds.

ESG is the “emptiest” idea, according to Aswath Damodaran, while AI will morph into higher costs for companies overall with no competitive advantage in a world where the technology is ubiquitous.

Investors have negative outlook “fatigue” and are tired of being cautious. But a large chunk of asset price falls have been due to earnings misses, and the lagged impact of monetary policy means the risks are still out in front.

Boutique fund manager Alphinity has struck a partnership with the CSIRO to develop a new framework to assess responsible artificial intelligence practices and ESG considerations.