News

(Pictured: Ross Chapin) Parametric Portfolio Associates, the after-tax and implementation-efficiency manager, is to introduce a range of index funds in Australia as well as its global emerging markets capability as it prepares, also, to enter the high-net-worth market. On a regular visit to Australia last week, Ross Chapin, a managing director and head of strategy, said…

(Pictured: Warren Chant) The finalists of the Chant West 2015 Super Fund Awards have been announced by the research house Chant West. The fund ratings firm has announced finalists across 12 categories, including Super and Pension Funds of the Year. Seven industry funds, three retail and commercial multi-manager funds, one public sector fund and one corporate…

(Pictured: Paul Harrison) by David Chaplin Boutique New Zealand manager Salt Funds Management has won perhaps the largest New Zealand equities mandate on record, scooping up NZ$690 million (A$670 million) from AMP Capital NZ, doubling the small firm’s FUM in the process. Paul Harrison, Salt director, said the AMP mandate provided scale for the firm, whose…

(Pictured: Jacob Mitchell) Pinnacle Investment Management will establish an offshore distribution capability following the addition to its line-up of the latest high-profile boutique, Jacob Mitchell’s Antipodes Partners, a global equities and Asian equities manager based in Sydney. Mitchell started his new business last week, with six colleagues and about $200 million under management, inherited, thanks to…

(Pictured: Andy Budden) In a timely fund launch, Capital Group has introduced its ‘World Dividend Growers’ strategy to both retail and institutional investors in Australia, emphasising the need for yield investments for both short-term cyclical reasons and long-term demographic ones. Investors have been focused on yield for the past several years because of record low interest…

(Pictured: Anne Richards) by Greg Bright Anne Richards, the global CIO of Aberdeen Asset Management, is nothing if not versatile. Last week she spoke at the Women on Boards annual ‘diversity’ index launch in Sydney to a wide media audience, and then two days later presented on trends in retirement incomes at the CMSF conference on…

(Pictured: Sam Mann) Franklin Templeton Solutions, which incorporates K2 Advisors, the hedge fund-of-funds business, has added an experienced asset consultant to its team, reflecting the evolution of the leaders among these firms since the global financial crisis. They are now focused on multi-asset, outcome-oriented strategies and bespoke portfolios. Felicity Walsh has joined Franklin Templeton after 11…

(Pictured: Bev Durston and David Wright) By Greg Bright Investors and fund managers have had a big rethink about their strategies and business models in the past seven years. No group has been more affected by the global financial crisis than alternatives managers, especially in Australia. This report, based on a roundtable hosted by MST Capital,…

(Pictured: Daryl Crich) Super fund trustees and executives appear to be getting a bit stroppy about the amount of regulation by which they are governed, which, they mostly believe, will become more onerous over the next 10 years, according to a survey conducted jointly by Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and custodian BNP Paribas Securities Services….

(Pictured: Craig Stanford)  AIMA Australia, the alternative investment managers’ group, is to expand its education committee under new committee chair, Craig Stanford, the head of alternative investments at Ibbotson Associates. Stanford, who is also an AIMA executive committee member, said last week that the education committee would be looking initially to apply CPD points for…

(Pictured: Tim Sims) For the first time, in 2014, investment in Australian private equity by sovereign wealth funds around the world and other big overseas investors outpaced that by Australian investors, according to Yasser El-Ansary, the chief executive of Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL). But, at the same time, the performance of Australian…

(Pictured: Brad Young) Brad Young, the co-chief executive and head of investments at Altius Associates of the US, who has been visiting Australia at least once a year for 10 years, believes interest in private equity has been picking up for the last couple of years and there will be more funds moving into the asset…