News

Following forceful questioning by shareholders at its annual meeting last month comes news that a class action against IOOF, undertaken by Shine Lawyers, has progressed through the funding stage. A previously proposed action, through lawyers Quinn Emanual, was dropped early this year. Patrick Liddy, the principal of MSI Group consultants, and Shine Lawyers have been…

Due to its open-source ethos, bitcoin has travelled an unconventional growth path. For starters, no-one seems to know who invented it (rumoured to be a Sydneysider, possible pseudonym Hitoshi Nakamoto) but what we know is when it will all end – in 104 years when the last bitcoin will be mined. Putting its start behind…

by David Chaplin The NZ$1.5 billion (A$1.4 billion) Foundation North has replaced Cambridge Associates with the Australian firm JANA as investment consultants. The move ends a 10-year relationship between the big community trust and Cambridge. In a release last week (December 8), the Auckland-based trust, headed by Peter Tynan, said the trustees confirmed JANA on…

After nearly 20 years at Maple-Brown Abbott Ltd, Australia’s quintessential home-grown boutique fund manager, Dougal Maple-Brown doesn’t get too carried away with what for the past couple of months has been looking like, at last, a rotation in the style cycle. Dougal, a lawyer by background who moved into investment banking with Baring Bros, where…

Aided by its two new global funds management subsidiaries in the US, Perpetual is giving its institutional distribution capabilities an overdue boost. And it is starting to pay off. Trillium Asset Management, an ESG specialist acquired early this year, is up for mandates in Europe, Asia and Australia. “We just have to do the same…

Dan Higgins, who made a name for himself globally as the CIO of a successful fund of hedge funds manager, has returned to the Australian and New Zealand institutional market through a new third-party distributor, 3PD Pty Ltd. Higgins, CIO and a founding partner of Marylebone Partners LLP in London, has hooked up with the…

In a sign of a high level of confidence in their ability to beat the market over time, Martin Currie has added a 10 per cent borrowing capacity to its UK-based closed-end ‘global portfolio trust’. The independent board, chaired by Neil Gaskell, said this was another endorsement of the high-conviction equities strategy. The Martin Currie…

Predicting when a sustained rally in value stocks may occur has proved to be a fool’s errand for the past several years, but that hasn’t stopped value managers from trying. In its latest paper on the subject, Lazard Asset Management has provided a pathway, if not a timeline. The paper, ‘Can Investors Still Believe in…

Ray King, the veteran asset consultant, has finished up a four-year stint at IOOF, where he had been assisting with its relatively small alternatives portfolio. He will now be concentrating on his private Sovereign Investment Research work and taking more time out for grandchildren and travel. While IOOF has let a good number of people…

With an experienced engineer at the helm, one with a major in ‘mechatronics’ – a blend of mechanical and electronics engineering – and who has spent all his career in medical devices, Australian Unity’s new ‘Future of Healthcare’ fund is looking to add value to its investee companies. Victor Windeyer, the portfolio manager of the…

Listed infrastructure manager 4D is looking to widen its distribution reach to include the institutional market as it approaches a five-year track record of strong performance. The boutique, founded by CIO Sarah Shaw and global equity strategist Greg Goodsall in 2015, is a part of the Bennelong Funds Management multi-affiliate group. Its concentrated global portfolio…

Almost all global pension investors expect post-COVID financial markets to follow a ‘W’ path or play an accordion-like tune, a new survey has found. Whatever the shape of the future, it will not be smooth. The study, by UK-based research firm Create, shows almost half of the respondents projected a W-shaped recovery ahead while 36…