News

Tim Mitchell New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) veteran, Tim Mitchell, has resigned after more than a decade in various senior roles at the organisation. Mitchell moved to his most-recent strategic advice position earlier this year following a stint as head of NZ active equities for the NZ$33 billion fund. As well as consulting on the…

Joe Antonellis and Colin Brooks Two big names in global custody are moving on, it was announced last week – State Street’s Joe Antonellis, who is to retire later this year, and HSBC’s global sub-custody boss, Colin Brooks, who has left the bank. Antonellis, 60, is currently the group’s vice chair and head of global…

Robert Morgan Northern Trust Asset Management has hived off its alternatives division into a new company, 50 South Capital, which will give the alternatives managers more autonomy within the group while protecting the parent bank from direct investments in some trading activities. For Australian and New Zealand investors, though, the upshot may be that, with…

Stephen Rowbottom AUSCOAL Super, which from next month will be known by the thoroughly modern name of ‘Mine Wealth + Wellbeing’, has reappointed JP Morgan after a custody services review, following news that VicSuper has also reappointed its custodian, NAB Asset Servicing. Not all reviews of custody services result in a change of provider, but…

Carl Blanchard The NZ$33 billion (A$30.3 billion) Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) investment fund is preparing to scale up its exposure to unlisted assets after hiring investment banker Carl Blanchard in a newly created role. Blanchard, who resigned from an investment banking position at broking house First NZ Capital last week, will join the ACC fund…

Daniel Ivascyn After its annual ‘Secular Forum’, which this year boasted speakers such as Ben Bernanke, Rob Arnott, Dr Anat Admati and Jean-Claude Trichet, as well as the PIMCO investment team leaders, the manager produced a cautiously optimistic report and a set of guidelines for global investors to follow. The report sets out six trends in…

Peter Gunning The annual Russell Investments/ASX long-term performance study of the nine major asset classes has led the advisory firm and multi-manager to question traditional investor allocations to domestic shares and residential property. With the possibility of a housing bubble in Sydney and Melbourne – as well as Auckland in New Zealand – being openly…

Michael Baldwin After 18 months as assistant director of the National Gallery in Canberra, Michael Baldwin has returned to the super fund industry in a new position at First State Super, following closely on two other senior changes at the $53 billion fund. The former chief executive of FEAL has become the head of corporate…

Xavier Dumon An interesting case study for both Australian fintech and traditional financial services firms alike is the experience over the last couple of years of Hello bank!, an associate company of BNP Paribas, which has taken Europe’s Generation Z’s by storm. Hello bank!, owned by the French-based BNP Paribas and Fortis bank of Belgium,…

by Sandy Rattray* It was US presidential advisor Bert Lance who popularised the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” while serving under Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. He went on to say: “That’s the trouble with government: fixing things that aren’t broken and not fixing things that are broken.” For many in…

Pam McAlister Mercer has produced a detailed report on super fund governance, including board structures, in the context of worldwide practices. It supports improved competencies and independence levels among trustees, but has stopped short of recommending mandated changes. The report – written by Mercer partner Pam McAlister and principal Liana Brover, both consultants in Mercer’s ‘governance…

Alexandra McGuigan Tribeca Investment Partners, an affiliated manager of Grant Samuel Funds Management, has appointed a new head of business development, after splitting the role for the past two years between the portfolio managers and the Grant Samuel marketers. Alexandra McGuigan has left third-party marketer Shed Enterprises to take up the role, which was last…