News

(Pictured: Daniel Cheever) REST Industry Super has renewed its custody and administration contract with State Street, growing total client funds to nine, which combined have over $100 billion in assets under administration. “It’s probably closer to $120 billion now,” Daniel Cheever, State Street vice president and head of superannuation, said. No official consultant was used for…

(Pictured: John Brogden) John Brogden, chief executive of the Financial Services Council, has offered to assist the Korean Government to set up an Australian investment office, as Korea has done in the US and UK, giving those countries an advantage in developing closer relationships. He also did a neat sales job for Australian fund managers in…

(Pictured: Roger Bridges) Comment by Greg Bright Australian investors have largely missed out on the 20-year bond rally, preferring to invest in cash for their liquid/defensive asset holding, according to Roger Bridges. He has the evidence to back this up but it’s not really the full story. Bridges is the respected head of fixed income…

While people like to focus on the size of the pensions and other savings pools a long-time into the future, they don’t often think about the size and structure of the asset management sector which will support the growth. A report from KPMG says the asset management industry is unsustainable. A combination of new technology,…

(Pictured: David Neal) Comment by Greg Bright  Maybe now, with confirmation of David Neal as its next chief executive, starting in August, it’s time for the Government to seriously consider privatising the Future Fund Management Agency. The Future Fund is a rare example of a government start-up business which has actually been successful. And while…

(Pictured: David Frazer) T. Rowe Price is continuing its Australian expansion with the appointment of David Frazer, an experienced relationships manager, following on from the establishment of a ‘client operations’ manager position, filled by Irene Chung. In the past 12 months the Baltimore-based global firm has established an Australian equities capability and also appointed its…

(Pictured: Michael Kelly) As super funds increasingly look to adopt a more outcomes-orientated approach to the governance of their assets, one interesting fall-out has been the trend to create a new bucket in their asset allocation for several multi-strategy managers. Sometimes called “the new balanced”, multi-strategy funds use dynamic asset allocation (DAA) skills to target…

(Pictured: James Hayes) Australia’s 15 largest asset owners and managers of credit portfolios are expecting to invest more in local credit markets this year, according to a study by BNP Paribas. But, no surprise, sovereign debt is their least favoured sub-class at the moment. The 15 big credit investors make up more than half of…

BNP Paribas Investment Partners has added to its suite of multi-affiliate managers through a deal with global value equity specialist Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss (Barrow Hanley). Through the alliance, BNP Paribas, which represents the quality fixed interest manager Fischer Francis Trees & Watts and several others, will be the exclusive distributor of Barrow Hanley’s…

(Pictured: Martin Smith) Mainstream BPO, the fund management administration specialist, has both expanded its Asian presence and added to its Australian service offering through the acquisition of a Hong Kong-based middle-office service provider, HFO Hong Kong. The privately owned firm has had a fully fledged office in Singapore for the past two years but only a…

(Pictured: Mike Mendelson) AQR Capital Management has come out in support of the often-maligned ‘high frequency trading’ because of the liquidity, and therefore additional efficiency, it provides to markets. The interesting thing is that AQR is not a provider of HFT strategies – simply a well-informed user of markets. Michael Mendelson, a principal at AQR who…

(Pictured: Cliff Asness) by Greg Bright The people who run AQR Capital Management are not the types who let sleeping dogs lay. They are happy, even, to broach confronting subjects at their celebratory 10th anniversary Australian seminar, held in Sydney last week. For the uninitiated, Michael Lewis is the celebrated American writer of various finance-oriented best…