News

(Pictured: Don A. Steinbrugge) This year should be a good one for hedge fund managers. Surveys of investors in the past few months have been predicting bigger allocations to alternatives. But we’ve heard that before. The main reason this year will be good is that alpha is likely to have returned. According to Agecroft Partners, a…

(Pictured: Matt Whineray)  By Greg Bright New Zealand Superannuation Fund, the A$25.7 billion sovereign wealth fund, has staked a big claim in the Australian retirement market. It has bought, through a 50-per-cent-owned vehicle, the fourth-largest retirement village company – RetireAustralia. Australian super funds should take note. NZ Super has partnered with Infratil Ltd to pay…

(Pictured: Kenneth Froot) Forget uncertainty about China, Asia as a whole is propping up global investor confidence, according to the latest State Street Global Exchange investor confidence index. Europe is down significantly and the US is down a bit. But Asia is up. Kenneth Froot, the Harvard professor who works with State Street’s research arm, State…

(Pictured: Jason Hsu) The two big trends for fund managers in 2014 were smart beta and outcome-oriented investments. Hardly new concepts, but they struck a nerve with investors still a little shaken from the global financial crisis. Research Affiliates, which came up with the “fundamental index” that started the smart beta trend, has a word of…

(Pictured: Patrick Liddy)  Many super funds and other investors are foregoing incremental investment returns which can add up to hundreds of basis points due to either lack of diligence or awareness, according to Patrick Liddy. “There is money for nothing to be had if you are prepared to look,” he says. Liddy, the principal of…

(source: CISCO) By Greg Bright The two big drivers of the superannuation industry, along with many industries throughout the world, next year and beyond are rising consumer empowerment alongside increasingly rapid advances in technology. Business now is as much about the Democracy of Everything as it is about the Internet of Everything. Neither consumer empowerment…

(Pictured: Rob Keavney) Rob Keavney, a leading light in Australia’s financial planning industry for many years, has died after a long illness. An enthusiastic commentator and industry participant, the business Keavney and his wife Glenese started, which became Centric Wealth, is now one of the largest of its type. After running their own practice, Investor Security…

(Pictured: Whitney Drayton) Artisan Partners, a US-based global manager, will open an Australian office next month. It has employed its former third-party marketer in Australia and New Zealand, Whitney Drayton, as a full-time executive to run the office in Sydney. Drayton brought Artisan to Australia in 2011 and has represented them since through his company Grey…

(Pictured: Justin Burman) Australian alternative managers who market their capabilities in Europe, such as infrastructure, private equity and real estate specialists, need to comply with the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). A number are yet to do so, according to BNP Paribas. BNP Paribas Securities Services has developed a guide for managers with the latest…

(Pictured: George Walker) Senior staff at Neuberger Berman, the New York-based global manager, have completed their full acquisition of the firm – a process which commenced in 2011 after the Lehman Bros ‘estate’ agreed to sell its 48 per cent holding. Neuberger has shown the benefits of staff control since it emerged, in 2009, from the…

This is our last investment outlook report focusing on 2015 – we promise. It’s from Morningstar, which should be – at least in theory – dispassionate about its views. In a nutshell: Australian shares present a challenge for investors next year. Morningstar’s annual outlook for the Australian share market says that the decline in prices…

(Pictured: Rob Holroyd) Rob Holroyd, a prominent hedge fund manager who launched his commodities strategies business in Australia in the late 1990s, has died suddenly after returning home to New Zealand for Christmas from his recent base in Zug, Switzerland. His firm, Commodity Strategies AG, was one of the casualties of the van Eyk Blueprint blow-up….