News

(Pictured: Raewyn Williams) Parametric Portfolio Associates has produced a new white paper – ‘Where Passive Falls Short’ – as a precursor to the firm’s launch of a range of tax-efficient smart beta strategies in Australia. A momentum-tilted tax-managed portfolio would have outperformed the ASX 200 after-tax by 56 basis points a year for 10 years. The…

(Pictured: Scarlett Dorney and Daphne van der Oord flank Marcus Christoe)  Women in ETFs (WE), an international association formed last year in the US, has started an Asia Pacific chapter with an active Australian group. The group held its first Australian event last month and rang the bell to open trading on the ASX on…

(Pictured: Richard Pzena) by Barrie Dunstan Pzena Investment Management, New York-based deep value investor, is still finding opportunities for its style of investing in current markets with a tilt to European markets, a selective over-weight stake in big oil groups and US financials – and a recent sortie into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Richard Pzena, founder…

There appears to be a disconnect between big investor expectations and their fund manager realities in the incorporation of ESG issues in decision-making, according to the latest Mercer survey. The survey was sponsored by a global alternatives manager, LGT Capital, and includes interesting views on ESG in alternatives. Mercer has been at the forefront of…

(Pictured: Mark Cernicky) The big call for global fixed income managers this year is not so much the continued search for yield or even the need for more credit, but how to benefit from the restructuring in the energy sector. According to Mark Cernicky, Principal Global Investors managing director and head of global fixed income, the…

(Pictured: Tony Booth) The annual survey by Liquidnet of traders at asset management firms around the world, published last week, shows a major concern about liquidity to cover an anticipated increase in global investment flows. The flows are mainly expected into the US and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). The survey of 115 buy-side equity…

(Pictured: Jason Hsu) by Greg Bright In the 1990s Russell Investments launched two ASX indices in Australia, a Russell Value Index and a Russell Growth Index. They shut them down a few years later because no-one wanted to pay for this information. I’m starting to wonder whether the very notion of ‘value’ and ‘growth’ has subsequently…

(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…