News

(David Knights) David Braga, who recently became the Australia and New Zealand chief executive of BNP Paribas Securities Services, has stood down as chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association, to be replaced by NAB Asset Servicing’s David Knights. Knights is the general manager of client delivery at NAB, who took the spot at ACSA…

(Pictured: Adam Gee and Geoff Warren) by Greg Bright How can all these people be so wrong: Jeremy Cooper, two successive Federal Governments, the Financial System Inquiry and the Grattan Institute? But there is growing evidence that the focus on fees resulting in MySuper is failing members and that all those people are wrong. Two…

(Pictured: Steve Schubert) Steve Schubert, one of Australia’s leading actuaries, has made the move into funds management. He has left Mercer after four years as partner and, most recently, leader of strategic client partnerships and future opportunities. Schubert joined Melbourne-based Cooper Investors last month as chief operating officer. He said: “After 35 years working for companies…

(Pictured: Ray King)  Ray King has left Mercer Investments, where he has been a partner and senior consultant in the private markets and alternatives area for the past three years since Mercer acquired his former consulting firm, Sovereign Investment Research. His departure followed a restructure among Mercer’s alternatives teams internationally due to the amalgamation with…

Northern Trust has won out in the rationalisation by QIC of its asset servicing providers, replacing NAB Asset Servicing for the main back-office functions of the increasingly global manager. As reported last week, QIC had reviewed the use of both Northern Trust, which has provided mainly middle-office functions at QIC for the past few years,…

At least six final bidders remain in the running to buy Russell Investments, according to offshore media reports. Towers Watson and Threadneedle are considered among the frontrunners. The Financial Times (FT) last week named global asset consulting firm Towers Watson and Ameriprise, owner of funds management firm Threadneedle, as second-round bidders for the Russell Investments…

KiwiSaver member growth is continuing at a solid clip with total membership edging 2.5 million, according to the latest Inland Revenue Department (IRD) statistics. Over the previous 12 months, KiwiSaver member numbers grew 7.5 per cent to hit almost 2.49 million as at the end of March 2015, the IRD figures show. The membership figure…

(Pictured: Kevin Clifford) by Greg Bright Capital Group has set some ambitious business targets for its Australian and regional offices over the next five years. With the help of about US$1 billion in expansionary spending, Kevin Clifford, who is in charge of international distribution, wants Asia Pacific and Europe to each more than double their assets…

(Pictured: Ian Perkins) BNP Paribas Securities Services has won its biggest super fund client, the $50 billion UniSuper, in what is a “unique time for activity” for the asset servicing sector. More is to come with a record value of tenders having hit or about to hit the market. The BNP Paribas deal announced last week…

(Pictured: Peter Tiffin) Fulcrum Asset Management has confirmed its second Australian client for its global diversified absolute return strategy following the $80 million announced in 2012 in a separate product for an industry fund. The manager is heavily research oriented, including the use of “nowcasting” as a tool to better interpret various leading indicators and signals….

(Pictured: Ron Bird) Professional investors may mock the stock selection of SMSF trustees for lack of diversity and heavy weighting to the banks, but a new study shows that such a strategy may well perform better than that of fund managers, both domestic and international. The study, by Peter Swan and others at the University of…

(Pictured: Steve Kuhn) The annual AIMA Australia Hedge Fund Forum, to be held at the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth on September 15 this year, will feature Steve Kuhn, partner and co-CIO at Pine River Capital Management, as a keynote speaker. The Forum, which last year had nearly 300 attendees, is the major conference for alternative strategies –…