News

by Robert J Brown* The Australian master custody market is vibrant, competitive and facing more challenges than at any time in its 30-odd years as a recognised sector.   To add to the excitement, many of our market’s leading custodians have some new faces at the helm. Custodians really have only two things to worry about:…

Wade Matterson As low interest rates push aging retail investors to retain exposure to growth assets, portfolio risk management has become increasingly important, according to Wade Matterson, practice leader in Australia for global actuarial firm Milliman. Matterson said retail investors – particularly those in or near retirement – are faced with a difficult choice in…

The $50 billion Victorian Funds Management Corporation is about to end a long relationship with National Australia Bank for custody and investment administration, following a review which extended from March last year. VFMC is expected to announce within the next week the appointment of State Street Australia as its new securities servicing provider. The Victorian…

by Greg Liddell* In the period immediately prior to the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in November 2014, a number of large pension and endowment funds announced plans to divest their portfolios of fossil fuel companies. One of these was the Australian National University. What is a fund’s duty as a fiduciary in this case?…

Comment by Greg Bright Disruption in financial services from new technologies and new – and some old – participants is being talked about everywhere: in the financial media, in the general media, at industry conferences, including our own My Platform Rules, and, most importantly, in the capital-raising marketplace. But what does this really mean? Is…

(Anne-Marie Corboy) If there’s one thing that women – and probably men – can learn from Anne-Marie Corboy’s career in super and elsewhere it is: “give it a go”. She told the annual Women In Super (WIS) lunch in Sydney last week not to automatically take the safe option: “You need failures to understand success”….

(Al Jalso) Russell Investments has added two new managers to its international fixed interest fund while reducing allocations to incumbents and layering on a novel currency “positioning strategy”. Al Jalso, Russell global bond fund portfolio manager, said the revised approach reflects the need to manage liquidity, introduce further diversity and add value in an increasingly…

(Andy Flynn) While super funds have been enthusiastic investors in separate domestic small-cap mandates alongside their broad-market Aussie equities strategies, they have not been so keen, historically, on separate global small caps to accompany global core equity mandates. Andy Flynn, of William Blair, made a good case last week for a change of heart. Andy…

(Darrell Ludowyke) Empirics, the data specialist business which is part of the Link Group, has launched a new service for super funds and other organisations to help them better assess sentiment, problems and other information being discussed by their members and clients. Empirics has been working on data from social media and other digital sources…

(Virginie Maisonneuve) PIMCO, the world’s largest fixed income manager with about US$1.6 trillion under management, has closed down two of its equity funds, which it has been nurturing since 2009, and lost its global head of equities. While the closures amount to less than US$1.5 billion of its US$50 billion in equities, it is a…

by Penny Pryor At a star-studded dinner at Sydney’s Ivy Ballroom, UniSuper and QSuper, won the two top awards at the third annual Chant West Awards night, but for many in the room, it was Bruce Watson of AUSCOAL who stole the show with an impromptu and heartfelt appeal for the victims of the Nepal…

(Bill English) The New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) has won important concessions in soon-to-be-passed legislation that allows it to assume majority control of some investment entities and fences certain underlying assets from public scrutiny. This could help the Future Fund lobby the Australian Government to relax some of its restrictions. Under the New Zealand Superannuation…