News

(Pictured: Steve Hall) Comment by Greg Bright Every super fund CEO I’ve ever met, which is most of them, has said to me that he or she runs the fund as a business. As I get older and grumpier (my friend Jack Gray says it’s OK to be that way and he’s a lot smarter than…

(Pictured: Nial Gooding) Boutique Asian equities and Australian small-cap manager Eight Investment Partners (8IP) has closed its Hong Kong office. Nial Gooding, the experienced investment manager there, is now looking to form his own boutique. Gooding said last week that, after 20 years in Hong Kong, he would remain there and look to build a new…

(Pictured: Neil Wild) JANA Investment Advisers has awarded a A$385 million mandate through its implemented consulting unit to Causeway Capital Management for global equities. Causeway, which is represented in Australia by Neil Wild and Michael Dorph, is an LA-based value manager for global equities. The firm, which was established in 2001 and has total funds under…

(Pictured: Ben Griffiths) Institutional investors should revisit their approach to constructing equity portfolios in order to take advantage of innovations in the industry, according to a report in Towers Watson’s new publication: Equity investing: Insights into a better portfolio. The report notes that investors have been diversifying away from equities in recent years, yet insists that…

(Pictured: Joe Antonellis) Official institutions are looking to new markets and a broader range of assets as they search for greater returns, according to a new report by State Street, called ‘New Horizons for Official Institutions’. More than 60 senior executives at official institutions – defined as central banks, sovereign wealth funds (SWF) and public pension…

(Pictured: Andrew Formica) Henderson Global Investors, the UK and Australian-listed manager which was owned by AMP for a few years, will hold its first-ever annual general meeting in Australia this Thursday. Australian institutions constitute five of the top six shareholders, after staff. Like most European-based global managers, Henderson had a rough time through the GFC but…

(Pictured: Katrina King) QIC has produced a research note to support expanding the range of fixed interest investments, including long/short strategies, as a way to mitigate against the adverse effects of a rising interest rate environment. Katrina King, director of “global liquid strategies”,research and strategy, at QIC, which includes traditional sovereign bond investing with credit…

(Pictured:Michael Jackett-Simpson) Transition management has been through a tough time, with several of the global players pulling out of the business in the past 12 months. Super funds shouldn’t worry, though. The survivors are actually expanding their offerings, according to veteran Michael Jackett-Simpson. Increased transparency has become a generic theme in investment management but it…

(Pictured: Peter Baker) The amounts of money securities servicing firms – mainly divisions of big banks – spend on technology is mindboggling. BNP Paribas Securities Services, for instance, spent A$150 million in Australia alone in the past three years. So, what do clients get for this? According to Peter Baker, the Australia and NZ head…

McKinsey & Co has produced a bullish report on private equity off the back of new research indicating returns may have been better than previously stated. But, the consultants warn, it will be more difficult to pick the best managers in the future as their track records will count for less. The report published last…

(Pictured: Stephen O’Brien and Gabrielle Pool) The annual Oasis Africa fundraiser, which is supported by various financial services types, takes place at the Civic Hotel in Sydney’s CBD on May 1. One of the directors, Stephen O’Brien, is selling limited print photographs taken during a recent trip to Kenya while artist Gabrielle Pool (both pictured…

(Pictured: John Donovan) After the first-ever delegation to Australia by the Indonesian Pension Fund Association, the organizer of the trip, John Donovan, said he hoped some of the big Indonesian funds would become co-investors in the region alongside Australian funds. Donovan, the managing director of AFM Investment Partners, said last week: “The Indonesian delegation was interested…