News

Fiona Reynolds is coming home for good. A visit back to Australia last summer, extended because of covid-19, was not enough. The former chief executive of AIST, who stepped up big time to take the top job at UN PRI in London in 2013, announced last week (June 7) her intention to retire once a replacement…

Chris Mather, head of platforms distribution at BT Financial, and Adele Welsh, head of marketing at Praemium, took out the top two personal awards at last week’s MAX Awards. The annual super and investment industry sales and marketing achievement awards night, held in Sydney on June10, attracted a record attracted a record 17,000 votes, according…

Prospects for private markets, including real estate and venture capital, are as bright, or brighter, than they are for the public markets in China, according to a PGIM investor event. The US$1.5 trillion global manager, the investment management arm of the Prudential insurance group of the US, held its annual China Investment Symposium, virtually, on…

The discussion about the best way to build and manage an appropriate exposure to China is becoming more urgent. Mercer has helped investors with some new research. In a paper entitled: ‘Positioning Your Portfolio for the Future of Emerging Markets – the case for a dedicated China equity allocation’ the global advisory and funds management…

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…