News

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,…

Roger Greville The funds management industries in Australia and New Zealand are mourning the loss last week of the successful and influential former head of AMP Capital NZ, the Sydney-based Roger Greville. Greville, 58, was a highly regarded manager for Henderson Equity Partners, until 2011. He died in a skiing accident in Queenstown, NZ, on…

Matt Brown by Greg Bright NAB Asset Servicing (NAS) is set to replace BNY Mellon with Citi as its global custodian, ending an association spanning about 20 years. The decision follows a review undertaken this year and may well involve closer involvement between the two in other aspects of their custody businesses. Matt Brown, NAS…

David Braga The market share charts in Australia’s quickly moving custody and securities servicing sector will be “interesting” over the next two years, according to the new head of BNP Paribas Securities Services in Australia, David Braga. But BNP, the third largest, is not aiming to be number one in assets. Rather, it wants to…

Philip Moffitt  Just about the only option for investors looking at their fixed income allocations at the moment is to replace beta with alpha for at least a part of their portfolio. There is not a lot else jumping off the page, according to Philip Moffitt, the head of fixed interest for Asia Pacific and…

Debbie Wilkes There are 120 board vacancies from next year among Australia’s largest super funds, according to upcoming research by Industry Moves. Only five of the 59 not-for-profit funds with more than $1 billion in assets have the required independent quota filled. Preliminary figures from Industry Moves last week show that only 56 of the current…

Matt Whineray The NZ$30 billion New Zealand Superannuation Fund’s actual and benchmark portfolios are tracking closer than ever before, according to chief investment officer, Matt Whineray. The sovereign fund believes most assets are fully valued and it has pulled back its active risk compared to benchmark. NZ Super launched the reference portfolio in 2009 to…

Jack Inglis The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) is set to open an office in mainland China – one of the few global industry associations to do so. Jack Inglis, the AIMA chief executive, who will address the Australian chapter’s annual forum next month, says Asia Pacific represents strong growth prospects for the organisation. The…