News

Pictured: Salvador Saiz It’s not just the attraction of SMSFs causing membership leakage among not-for-profit super funds. The commercial funds, led by the major banks, are making inroads through their drive for membership growth, according to research by CoreData. The research firm’s latest “Member Growth Report” from its Superannuation Intelligence Unit, says that 19.7 per cent…

Pictured: Nikki SmithAfter about 20 years in Australia, Nikki Smith, a securities services and funds management marketer, has returned to London to join Deutsche Bank’s securities services division as a director. She has taken a new role within Deutsche as sector specialist relationship manager/sales for financial institutions. She said the role was evolving but it…

Advances in technology are behind a shift in ownership patterns among the world’s stock exchanges. In the past week, for instance, NASDAQ OMX acquired a small stake in the Turkish stock exchange and BATS Global Markets moved ahead with a proposed merger which will likely make it the largest exchange in the US. In the…

Pictured:  Joseph Velli In a deal which underscores the problem investors have in assessing the true costs of investment implementation, ConvergEx, the US-based global brokerage and trading services firm, has agreed to pay US$150 million to settle fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and criminal charges brought by the US Department of…

Pictured:  Craig Dandurand The Future Fund has recruited a specialist alternatives portfolio manager from CalPERS, the US$270 billion Californian public sector fund, who will move with his family from Sacramento to Melbourne in the new year for the role. He is Craig Dandurand, who has been at America’s largest pension fund for 13 years, after…

Pictured:  Matthew Perrignon Credit Suisse has upgraded its sales effort for asset management in the Asia Pacific region through the transfer of the sales chief for Australia, Matthew Perrignon, to Hong Kong from January. Perrignon, who is head of the “pension coverage group” and a director, will oversee the regional sales effort, with existing support…

Pictured:  David Stein The importance of efficient implementation of investment strategies, especially tax management, is gradually gaining recognition in the institutional market, with a new paper by Parametric Portfolio Associates widening the brief established earlier this month in a paper by Mercer. The Mercer paper, as previously reported, split the leakages into “upstream” and “downstream”….

Super funds and asset consultants provided most of the spark in the people moves over 2013 – the appointments and disappointments – as funds continued to hire but their managers were reluctant to in the face of a sluggish marketplace. An analysis by ‘Industry Moves’, a new service to be launched in the new year…

This is the last edition of Investor Strategy News for the year. The next edition of the Monday newsletter is January 6. The next edition of ‘Friday Interview’ is January 17. We wish all readers a safe and happy Christmas season. – Greg Bright

Pictured: Emmanuel Calligeris Emmanuel Calligeris, the former CIO of ANZ Global Wealth and the Optimix multi-manager fund, is to join Zurich in an asset allocation role. Calligeris headed up Otimix under several owners for nearly 20 years before leaving ANZ’s OnePath business in February this year. His departure followed the integration of the management of…

About 30 per cent of investors who use a financial advisor are at risk of leaving their current advisor, according to a report by research firm CoreData. Most of the ‘at risk’ clients had little or no recent contact with their advisors. The report was based on a survey of 1,525 advised and unadvised consumers…

(Pictured: Ian Irvine) The ASX Managed Funds Service – formerly known as AQUA II – is almost completed and awaiting regulatory approval for a launch in the new year. The 64 initial providers, including REs, managers, unit registries and administrators, have been told to be ready to go in the first quarter, which is earlier…