News

GMO has hit back at critics of its bearish seven-year forecasts, saying “great companies with great narratives can still experience price movements that are too great”. GMO compared asset class forecasts from the seven-year period leading up to March 2000 with forecasts from 2014 onwards, noting that asset prices have both grown around 70 per…

Schroders has united its alternatives capabilities under a new global structure, Schroders Capital, which now speaks for US$66 billion (A$85 billion) in listed and unlisted assets. The brand and management reporting lines were announced last week (June 7) in London. While the details probably mean more for the staff than clients, it is a further…

Industry fund-owned ‘The New Daily’ is once again in political hot water after a controversial deal with AustralianSuper to auto-subscribe 800,000 of the fund’s members to the publication. ‘The New Daily’ has become a bee in the bonnet for a number of Liberal backbenchers, most notably NSW Senator Andrew Bragg, who has characterised the publication…

It’s approaching orthodoxy that a merger is always in the best interests of members. But is bigger always better? What is the true price of scale? Leeanne Turner, Spirit Super’s inaugural chief executive, told a CMSF audience in May: “If you’re not considering a merger then you either have your head in the sand or…

While many professional investors remain sceptical about the investability of digital currencies such as bitcoin – fool’s gold? – the asset servicing world is taking no chances, according to a study by Citibank and Global Custodian. The big global custodian and main business media title for asset servicing have published a report ….. download PDF…

Eaton Vance has mounted a case for both investors and governments to better appreciate the benefits of economic transparency on sovereign bonds. In a research paper, ‘Economic Transparency Means a Creditworthy Sovereign’, the global manager looks at economic transparency as it correlates to yield spreads, credit ratings, stock price volatility, and trust in government across…

The Your Future Your Super Bill continues to be roundly criticised by the industry after the deadline for comment has passed and notwithstanding doubts about its passage to legislation. Proposed regulations, requiring comment by May 26, included two concessions to the barrage of criticism from almost every quarter of the industry – from the profit-to-member…

The recovery from 2020’s “massive period of turbulence” hasn’t lifted all boats, and there are still plenty of bargains to be had if you know where to look. Gareth James, Morningstar’s Sydney-based equity research strategist, expects Link Group, for instance, to bounce back from “a tough few years” of regulatory changes and the loss of…

No evidence has been presented to support the need for new proxy advice regulations. Rather, an army of investors have argued against them. So who do the reforms really benefit? The Government is facing an uphill battle on proxy advice changes as industry stakeholders, including the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, savage proposals that would…

Magellan Financial Group’s ‘FuturePay’, launched with a fanfare last week (June 1) after considerable pre-launch publicity, heralds an escalation in a retirement products arms race. Both big super funds and fund managers are scrambling for positions in the race, which is expected to have strong demographically driven growth for years to come. Magellan, arguably the…

Asia-Pacific financial markets could experience some turbulence as bond issuers globally switch to new pricing mechanisms later this year. According to a new report published by Bloomberg and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), up to US$190 billion (A$246 billion) of bonds issued in the APAC region could remain linked to the traditional LIBOR benchmark…

NSW’s Local Government Super has launched a sweeping rebrand as part of a bid to win new members. Can funds of a similar size – $13 billion – survive in a new world of mergers? Local Government Super will be renamed ‘Active Super’ in a move that was considered “very carefully” as part of its…