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Whoever’s fault it was – David Murray was probably too late to the battle to do anything constructive, assuming he would have tried, and the board was clearly moribund. The other senior management were possibly more concerned with their own positions than anything else. Whoever’s fault it was, the disaster that is AMP is reaching…

Murray Brewer finally departed T. Rowe Price last Friday (August 28), having established the global manager’s presence in Australia 14 years ago. His resignation period was a long one – first announced late last year. But now comes the good part: he will be holidaying as much as possible and then considering his options, at…

Capital Group has an interesting suggestion: why not turn the standard portfolio construction view for investors on its head? Why not reverse the traditional beta-heavy core and alpha-seeking satellites of the portfolios of most big super funds? The global manager believes that putting active strategies at the core provides more flexibility, and, ultimately, a better…

Rio Tinto, a global resources company which has both an Australian lineage and an Australian supply base, has started a war, perhaps unintentionally, with big super funds and a large proportion of the broader community following the company’s destruction of an ancient Aboriginal heritage site – the oldest known in Australia, dating back about 46,000…

A report by media research group the Nielsen Company following Australia-specific data collection shows there has been a significant spike in readership of business and finance news and commentary online, and also share-trading access to online investor tools, since the start of the lockdown in March. Readership of financial news and information has jumped 43…

Commonwealth Superannuation Corp, the Federal Government’s $50 billion fund which accounts for 11 sub-funds and a total of 730,000 members, has become a ‘partner’ with the industry’s major mental health body, SuperFriend. There is no better time than now for the industry to support mental health initiatives. The big fund became the 24th super fund,…

Harvey Kalman, the long-time head of sales and business at Equity Trustees, has taken back all international responsibilities to cater for fund managers and other institutions looking for Australian trustee and admin services, as well as for Australian firms looking to expand offshore. “We’re now taking this to the next level,” he said last week…

Even though almost all asset services firms suffered declines in their assets under custody in Australia in the six months to June, J.P. Morgan managed to strengthen its position relative to the rest of the pack. It will increase this further soon when it implements the transfer of assets from new client CareSuper. The latest…

A year after it launched its first private companies fund – the ‘Perennial Private-to-Public Opportunities Fund’ – Perennial Value Management is set to launch a second similar closed-end fund for wholesale investors. The ‘Perennial Private-to-Public Opportunities Fund No.2′ will open tomorrow (September 1) and close October 2, with the goal of raising up to $125…

Rob Harrison, a well-known marketer of new funds management strategies in both Australasia and the US and Europe, who has been living in New York for several years, is bringing a hard-core ESG manager to Australia and New Zealand. He is being joined by Steve Larkin, a former colleague at BNP Paribas Investments in Sydney….

NGS Super, representing non-government schools, is a natural merger partner with the Sydney-based Australian Catholic Super (ACS), representing catholic schools, aged care facilities, hospitals and other bodies, according to Greg Cantor, the long-time chief executive of ACS, who has been nominated to lead the proposed new merged fund when they emerge from their due diligence…

After its formation late last year, Epsilon Direct Lending, a boutique manager focusing on a particular part of the burgeoning private debt asset class – the under-served $70 billion mid-market growth and event-driven financing space – is ready to go to the investment market with an institutional and wholesale fund The three founders of the…