News

An independent review has called for a governance and investment upgrade at the NZ Government Superannuation Fund after finding the fund’s management and board had been at odds over recent performance. In its five-year statutory review, the Australian arm of global consultancy Willis Towers Watson (WTW) found the GSF, a NZ$4.2 billion (A$4.0 billion) fund…

Fund managers are increasingly speaking with one voice on issues around climate change, with at least 143 global firms so far joining the ‘Net Zero Asset Managers’ initiative. Several big ones signed up last week. The Australian signatory managers and international firms with strong Australian commitments are, by accident or design, implying increased pressure on…

Geoff Hodge, founder and chair of Milestone Group, one of the Australian fintech success stories of the past 20 years, is to finally cash out. BNY Mellon is to acquire the now-global business. The two companies announced the transaction last Friday (July 9 Australian time), saying that it would benefit the existing clients of both…

Just as ESG investing has largely won its battle to convince investors returns don’t suffer, so too is impact investing making progress to the same end. Impact has become institutionalised. According to some of the world’s largest practitioners in the impact investing space, including the US$450 billion CalPERS public pension fund, impact funds are starting…

Australia’s second-largest super fund will look to bridge the trust gap between industry funds and independent financial advisers (IFAs) as it expands further into the external advice space. Matt Willis, Aware Super’s head of business development, says the fund plans to build on the advice offering it acquired through its 2020 merger with WA Super…

Kim Ivey and friends Alastair Sloan and David Gray, all experienced industry professionals  in the alternatives space, have co-founded a Global Macro strategy through a boutique investment company, Albany Capital. The firm starts with offices in Sydney and London and a mandate to manage $US50 million from a New York investor. It is in the…

Jordan Cvetanovski and Steven Glass, former Pengana Capital equities managers, have resurfaced at the helm of their own venture, Pella Funds Management. Cvetanovski and Glass formulated their offering after leaving Pengana in March. They have now recruited two staff and commenced discussions with prospective investors for the new international equities boutique. Cvetanovski will be CIO…

The Future Fund has come first out of the world’s 100 largest sovereign and public pension funds in the latest ranking by the Global SWF group on governance, sustainability and resilience. It is the second year in a row that the Australian fund has been the only one to score positively in all of the…

Asia and Australia are outstripping most of the rest of the world for growth in private capital raisings. But private equity managers, especially big buyout firms, are finding deals to be slow to bring to fruition. In its first special report on alternatives in the Asia Pacific region, Preqin provides more detailed analysis of private…

Following its BNZ win in May, State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has picked up the final large passive institutional mandate abandoned by Vanguard in New Zealand. According to new disclosure documents, ASB will shift its indexed Australasian equities portfolio – of an estimated NZ$4 billion plus – from current manager Vanguard to SSGA this month….

A new financial advisory firm-run KiwiSaver scheme is set to launch with former AMP Capital multi-asset CIO Sean Henaghan in charge of investments. Henaghan, well known in Australia for his 15 years at AMP Capital, was an ex-pat Kiwi stranded back home last year under covid-19 border restrictions. He returns to active duties at Aurora…

The Your Future Your Super (YFYS) benchmarks will require an all-hands-on-deck approach to a “performance test to be reckoned with”, according to Willis Towers Watson’s Nick Callil. With funds required to inform members if they fail the test – an “unpalatable action for any fund” – and barred from accepting new members into an underperforming…