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The Australian Alternative Investment Awards, held in conjunction with the Hedge Funds Rock charity fundraiser, will be proceed in-person this year after last year’s deferral to Covid-19 restrictions. The awards, which recognise the best alternative investment funds and asset managers in the Australian funds management industry, have a new addition in the form of the…

Global manager Ninety One has launched an index for sovereign bond investors which provides an independently verified assessment of alignment with the Paris Agreement on net zero. A feature of the index, the first of its kind, is that its inclusion of all major emerging markets, many of which are most impacted by both climate…

A significant chunk of super fund advertising could now be on ice, with APRA finding that marketing expenditure could not be shown to have improved members’ financial position. As stapling puts a nail in the coffin of default distribution, many of Australia’s biggest super funds have turned their attention to the dark art of advertising…

It’s probably too early to pick the winners in the transition to net-zero. But the lack of a solid plan at the Federal level is making things even more complicated. The interest in renewable energy has grown substantially over the past 18 months, and particularly in the leadup to COP26, where world leaders aim to…

Australia’s industry funds have launched a full-throated defence of their sector as the national default fund debate heats up. Politics and performance are both at stake. The idea of a national default fund is a bold one, and has been advanced a number of times over the 30-year history of compulsory superannuation in Australia. Its…

There’s perhaps only one thing more satisfying for the business people who run big funds management firms than organic growth, and that’s to reward the trust of long-term clients. Around the 10th anniversary of the Martin Currie Global Emerging Markets team, three of the crucial players behind the success of the strategy have reflected on…

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has taken out the PRI ‘Stewardship Initiative of the Year’ award for its campaign against Facebook, Alphabet and Twitter to monitor and delete hate speech. The award, handed down on October 20 at the organisation’s annual conference produced from London, followed the action taken by the NZ$59.8 billion, as of…

Events of the past two years have led to many changes. In the investment world, perhaps none is more apparent than a new level of activism by pension funds. Managers and investee companies beware. At a plenary session at last week’s PRI Digital Conference (October 18-21), ‘Fund Governance for the Next Generation’, representatives of three…

Definitional concerns surrounding ESG have waned in the past few years. They are now mostly about measurement and standards. But what about impact investing? It looks like the new battle ground. Driven largely by the growing power of climate action forces, rising during the pandemic to a tidal wave of consumer, political and investor might,…

While the weight of global retail investment flows has swung behind climate-related themes in the past two years, that is not the case in all countries. Take a large developing nation such as South Africa for example. Ninety One, the listed global fund manager with a range of asset strategies and a long pedigree in…

After a lengthy search, State Street has appointed a country head for Australia as part of a progressive restructure designed to move away from a business unit focus to a more holistic approach. Tim Helyar has been recruited from J.P. Morgan, where he has spent the past 18 years, most recently as head of fund…

Perpetual Asset Management Australia won three categories in last Friday’s annual Zenith Partners awards, including the top ‘Fund Manager of the Year’. In the other major categories, Fidante Partners picked up the ‘Distributor of the Year’ and Eiger Capital the ‘Rising Star’ award. ClearBridge Investments effectively received two awards, that for ‘Infrastructure’, while the firm’s…