News

(Pictured: Pete Gunning) Pete Gunning, the global CIO for Russell Investments based in Seattle, is to return to Sydney to take over as the firm’s new CEO for Asia Pacific. Alan Schoenheimer, the current regional CEO, will transition to a non-executive advisory role. Schoenheimer has had various senior management positions at Russell in his 22…

(Pictured: Paul Chadwick) With its first inhouse-produced conference coming up next month, the Alternative Investment Management Association’s Australian chapter is set to lift its profile in the industry and increase its relevance for members – both managers and investors – with the help of its global affiliate association. The recently knighted Sir Michael Hintze is…

(Pictured: Jerome Lander) Jerome Lander, founder of the new research business, ProCapital, and former CIO of the $12 billion NSW Workcover insurance fund, knows the stakes are high for the future of investment portfolios in Australia.  He also knows that most investment portfolios lack sufficient exposure to good active management to deal with the challenges that…

(Pictured: Darrell Ludowyke) Roll up your sleeves and get in there. And think creatively about your data… because: “the superannuation industry is one of the last to shift to a data-driven world”. So said Darrell Ludowyke and Greg Joffe at the FEAL national conference last week. As boring as it sounds, data management is increasingly important…

(Pictured: Garry Weaven) Garry Weaven is “sanguine” about the leakage of members from big super funds to the SMSF market, but his old boss at Westpac, Ian Macoun, is not.  Nor were too many others as relaxed, at the FEAL national conference, about the estimated A$16 billion which was transferred to SMSFs last year. The benefits…

(Pictured: Robyn Petrou) Robyn Petrou, the chief executive of the A$4.2 billion Energy Super fund, has been named “fund executive of the year” at the annual Fund Executives Association Ltd members’ dinner prior to the national conference in Melbourne last week. The award, which comes with a $20,000 education grant courtesy of AMP Capital, the sponsor,…

The Harwood Superannuation Fund, reputedly Australia’s oldest super fund, is to be outsourced to a master trust or merged with an industry fund. The fund, for various CSR Ltd companies, dates back to the depression period of the 1890s. Tender documents and advice have been prepared by Deloitte. The corporate fund is a complicated one,…

(Pictured: Connie Mckeage) Financial systems company and SMA administrator OneVue is acquiring the retail unity registry business of Computershare, which was recently earmarked for closure. OneVue will lift out Computershare staff from the business unit and hopes to provide a seamless transition for funds managers and securities services clients. The move should help bolster Australia’s…

(Pictured: John Morton) BlackRock’s latest quarterly earnings statement in the US surprised analysts, not so much by the company’s overall positive position but because there appeared to be an inflow of funds into fixed interest products rather than the expected outflow. What has been termed the “Great Migration” may turn out to be no more…

In the six weeks between May 22 and mid-June, the way markets all acted together should have caused a change in approach to the asset allocation mix by institutional investors, according to CheckRisk. Negative correlations have gone and diversification is a questionable and expensive tool. The UK-based investment risk consulting firm points out that US…

Australian super funds tend to pride themselves on their international outlook and the level and diversification of their offshore exposures, notwithstanding the historical volatility of the Australian dollar. However, after adjusting for the size of the Australian market and several other factors, we are ranked only 11th in terms of avoiding ‘home country bias’. A…

Mike Turner, the manager of communications at the Harwood super fund, has taken a redundancy package ahead of the proposed outsourcing of the fund to a master trust or industry fund (see separate report this edition). Turner, a former securities servicing and super administration executive, said last week that he was taking a holiday before…