News

Last week was a big one for the chief executives of AustralianSuper and Cbus. Their funds announced record-setting returns for the financial year and the next day they both took another hammering from a Commonwealth parliamentary committee. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, chaired by Tim Wilson, a Liberal MP, is often enlivened…

The Police Superannuation Scheme in NZ will tweak its asset allocation model and launch a new high-growth option after some outsourced soul-searching. The exercise is a case study in matching member expectations. In its latest newsletter, the almost NZ$2.4 billion (A$2.2 billion) PSS says the changes follow the findings of an investment review and member…

Rob Brown has resigned his position as chief executive of the Australian Custodial Services Association to pursue business interests. He will continue until a suitable replacement is found. Brown has spent many years in asset servicing, starting with State Street in the mid-1990s – as well as running NAB-owned Ausmaq for six years until 2010,…

Paul Coenraads, the manager investment operations at Australian Catholic Superannuation and a former head of investments at Mine Super, retired last week (July 8) after nearly 40 years in the industry. Coenraads, who recently turned 60, said his retirement had long been planned. He and his wife bought a home at scenic Fingal Bay, north…

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…