News

(Pictured: James Leplaw) Research by Eureka Report, the News Corp investor newsletter which is about to enter the SMSF platform market through a deal with OneVue, raises doubts about the sector’s future allocation to direct shares and offers hope to fund managers who have largely missed out on the rapid growth in SMSFs. In a timely…

(Pictured: Greg Cooper)   What fund managers and institutional investors are doing now, as they have done for the past 20-or-so years, has a high probability of producing a poor outcome over the next 10 years, according to Greg Cooper, the chief executive of Schroder Investment Management in Australia. He told a session on investment product…

 (Pictured: Rob Wilson) by Greg Bright Investment analysts are a quirky bunch. I’ve always thought they are a bit like journalists: inherently sceptical. So, when MFS Investment Management, the Boston-based global manager, hired its first full-time ESG specialist last year, it decided to go with someone who had a traditional analyst’s background. Rob Wilson, who was…

(Pictured: David Braga)  Led by a surge in business at JP Morgan, Australian assets invested offshore under custody and administration rose 14.5 per cent in the six months to June 30, according to figures released last week by the Australian Custodial Services Association. JP Morgan clients, which include funds such as AustralianSuper and the recently…

(Pictured: Nick Frolich) The Avaloq technology group, which is building the new BT Wrap platform, has strengthened its senior management following the departure of country head Iain Dunstan last month. Avaloq, a global company, announced last week the recruitment of Nick Frolich and Mani Kastellas, both well known in the Australian financial services systems sector. Frolich…

 (Pictured: Dan Madhavan) Australia is putting into action the grand plans hatched last year by the G8 countries, led by the UK, to foster impact investing with the recruitment of an experienced financial services executive as the first CEO of Impact Investing Australia. One of the not-for-profit organisation’s early goals is to provide the framework for…

(Pictured: Gavin Walker) The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which regularly rates as the most, or among the most, transparent sovereign wealth fund in the various global studies, has published an independent review of its board and management, complete with a detailed response from the fund. The areas of disagreement are illuminating. The review, conducted by the…

 (Pictured: Michael Leibrock) Cyber risk has now swamped new regulatory hurdles and the possibility of another US recession as the greatest risk facing global financial institutions, according to the latest risk survey by DTCC, the industry-owned post-trade financial infrastructure company. In the wake of several recent high-profile cyber attacks on major sectors of the global economy, starting…

 (Pictured: Gian Pandit) They used to be called ‘swing mandates’. Now they are ‘unconstrained’ and, usually, concentrated. AMP Capital has won another $175 million for its concentrated Australian equities strategy from Nikko Asset Management’s multi-manager portfolio. The win takes the portfolio managed by Gian Pandit, who launched the strategy when he joined AMP in late 2011,…

(Pictured: Peter Baker)   Mercer is having another go at rebooting its Mercer Sentinel business with the surprising recruitment of Peter Baker, the head of securities services in Australia and New Zealand for BNP Paribas. The investment operations, custody consulting and transitions management subsidiary of Mercer has been without a permanent head for the past three…

 (Pictured: Tim Haywood) Alternative fixed interest strategies have been coming into their own over the past couple of years, notwithstanding a pick-up in yields earlier this year. The issue is how to differentiate between those strategies. Tim Haywood, investment director and business unit head for fixed income at GAM (Global Asset Management) says that many people…

(Pictured: Scott Donald) With more than 200 big APRA-regulated super funds – both not-for-profit and commercial – diversity would appear to be another line of defence for the superannuation industry in the event of an unexpected shock. But new research has questioned the nature of that ‘diversity’ and the adequacy of regulatory engagement across the whole…