News

Michael Gordon  Michael Gordon, the group executive for Perpetual Investments, announced his retirement last week. It’s not the first time he has done so, but this time he means it. Gordon is one of Australia’s most successful investment management leaders, having had chief executive or head investment roles in Sydney, Hong Kong and London over…

Andrew Barnes Andrew Barnes, the New Zealand funds management entrepreneur and former chairman of Australasian Wealth Investments (AWI), last week hired a chief executive for his privately held trust company Complectus, prompting speculation of more corporate action in both Australia and New Zealand. But he told Investment News NZ that listing was still off the…

Byram Johnston Mainstream BPO is looking to raise a relatively modest $10 million through an IPO involving the sale of up to 30 per cent of the company’s shares. The market capitalisation of what is arguably Australia’s largest third-party administrator for fund managers is expected to start at between $30-35 million. The IPO, first flagged…

Michele Mazzoleni Research Affiliates, the California-based smart-beta manager, has produced an interesting paper questioning several key assumptions about the relationship between the US dollar and the economic and market performance of emerging markets. Is the stronger greenback really bad news? The paper says there are three ‘myths’ which investors often believe are true: >  Higher US…

Margo Lydon The big group insurers to industry and other not-for-profit super funds have recommitted to the SuperFriend mental health initiative, cementing the organisation’s work with employers on employee mental health issues. SuperFriend is also about to announce a new framework to improve and standardise the assessment of psychological claims. The insurers estimate that mental…

David Bell, Craig Stanford, Mark Levinson and Travis Schoenleber by Greg Bright Liquid alternatives and highly liquid retail hedge funds, alternative beta, new benchmarks, performance comparisons, education and, inevitably, fee structures featured in a recent hedge fund roundtable. Participants were David Bell, the CIO of mine wealth + wellbeing (formerly AusCoal), consultants Craig Stanford of Ibbotson and…

Lars Jaeger Lars Jaeger, a scientist who made his name in the investment world developing alternative beta strategies, has a big new mission. He is helping the global asset manager GAM, of which he is head of quantitative research in the Alternative Investment Solutions team, to build a platform of alternative risk premia as an industry standard. Jaeger, visiting Australia…

Mark Holzworth  The global financial crisis taught investors a thing or two and spawned a number of trending investment strategies, such as outcome-oriented and multi-asset investing. For one boutique manager, IndexInvest founder Mark Holzworth, the crisis turned on the light for what his advisory firm’s clients now wanted. Holzworth, a Brisbane-based accountant and advisor, formed…

Miles Mallick Telstra Super, Australia’s largest remaining corporate super fund, has shaken up its investment operations for the second time in three years, appointing a new custodian and announcing senior management changes. In a low-return environment, investment operations are increasingly at the fore. The $16 billion Telstra Super has appointed JP Morgan for master custody,…

Allan Murphy by Allan Murphy* The bigger players in the super funds industry are focussed on the principles of government intervention in a system which “ain’t broke” and the definition of “independent”. Meanwhile, there is another group of long-established funds which risk becoming collateral damage in the Government’s plan to introduce a minimum composition of…

Pete Kyle The Centre for International Finance and Regulation held a celebratory two-day conference in Sydney last week to coincide with the 30th anniversary of seminal research by two legendary academics – professors A.S. ‘Pete’ Kyle and Lawrence R. Glosten. Kyle, billed as a future Noble laureate, is currently studying the predictability of stock market…

Mike Jenkins Despite just launching in New Zealand, start-up online trading platform, Syndex, is already eyeing offshore markets, according to company co-founder, Mike Jenkins. The peer-to-peer exchange for listing, trading and managing “proportionally-owned assets”, is in talks with various parties in Australia and the UK as well as in New Zealand. Jenkins, the managing director,…