News

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…

Sally Humphris  The proportion of employers in financial planning groups intending to increase salaries has almost doubled in the past 12 months, according to the latest financial planning survey by recruitment firm The Dawson Partnership. The survey follows another annual study by the firm, on hiring intentions, which also indicated a bullish period ahead for…

Geoff Warren Super fund members are more engaged with their default fund selection than previously thought, according to new research sponsored by the Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR), published last week prior to its conference being held in Sydney this week (August 11-12). The research paper, ‘Structure and Responsibilities in Default Superannuation Funds:…

Link Market Services confirmed last week it would buy the Aon NZ superannuation admin business in a move first mooted in early July. Stan Malcolm, Link’s NZ head of operations, said the private equity-owned registry business was on track to absorb Aon’s staff and client base in the next few months. “Once we’ve executed [the…

Tom Garcia by Greg Bright In a surprise supplementary submission to the Government over its proposal for compulsory independent trustee directors on big super fund boards, AIST last Friday launched a stinging attack on the proposal and APRA’s involvement. AIST questioned APRA’s role in defining, interpreting and judging the ‘independence’ of trustees. The AIST submission,…

Andrea Slattery  SMSFs are wrestling with the same dilemma that big super funds are wrestling with: what to do with their rising pile of cash? More of it, according to the annual survey of the SMSF Association, is going into commercial property. But residential property is getting difficult for SMSFs. The latest SMSF Association survey,…