News

Stephen Miller, investment strategist for multi-affiliate manager GSFM, has taken an interesting line in a note to clients on why the Reserve Bank of Australia should not, and probably won’t, follow some other countries into negative interest rate territory. The possibility of funds managers and other financial institutions “hoarding” physical cash is a potential unintended…

Market crises tend to come along a lot more often than you think. Sometimes, as with the market slump due, primarily, to the ‘trade wars’, starting in late in 2018 last year, between the US, China, Mexico and, even, Canada, you don’t even think about it as a crisis. But that market slump was greater…

Total global hedge fund capital fell below US$3.0 trillion (A$4.32 trillion) in the March quarter for the first time since 2016, as financial market volatility surged on uncertainty and increased risks driven by the global coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest global report by Hedge Fund Research of the US. Outflows of US$33 billion (A$47.5…

After more than 30 years of arguments among and between fund managers, academics and, even, regulators, the passive versus active debate may wax and wane but it remains unresolved across the broad investor audience. In a timely paper, Wellington Management has listed seven concerns about “the push for passive”. The consensus about current market conditions…

by Greg Bright When Research Affiliates set up an Australasian office in mid-2018, it probably knew it would cause a stir. It agreed for Australian Mike Aked to go home to Melbourne to set up the new business. He is country head and head of research and strategy. He was the former head of asset…

Some of the best investment strategies have their genesis in personal circumstances or adversity. For Martin Currie, which manages one of Australia’s oldest and best performing equity income strategies, it was both. The firm last month celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Martin Currie Australia Equity Income strategy, which accounts for more than $6 billion…

by David Chaplin The big Netherlands-headquartered investment performance attribution firm, Ortec Finance, has completed the double in both Australia and New Zealand, landing the two largest institutional funds in each country as clients. It picked up NZ’s Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) fund late last month. Another big Australian fund is set to follow. The ACC…

by Wietske Blees* Making well-informed investment decisions isn’t easy at the best of times but throw in a pandemic and a decade worth of quantitative easing that’s fuelling a growing disconnect between equity markets and underlying fundamentals, and reliably predicting future growth prospects becomes a significant challenge. A recent ‘Leading Minds’ webcast hosted by Fund…

Ian Perkins, a long-time executive and entrepreneur in asset servicing in Australia and Asia, spending the past six years at BNP Paribas Securities Services in Sydney, died suddenly of a heart attack on Sunday June 29, age 57, while at home with his family. Friends at BNP Paribas prepared a short personal tribute which concluded:…

Brendan Burwood has just one more task ahead of him now. That is to negotiate an exit for shareholders in the listed shell of the former Chant West Holdings and end a corporate saga which started when the software customisation company Enzumo Ltd acquired the business of fund research company Chant West in December 2015….

The $9 billion profit-for-members Australian Catholic Superannuation & Retirement Fund has appointed the specialist implementation manager Parametric Portfolio Associates to run a mandate as part of the ‘RetireSmart’ strategy for a new custom-designed equities approach with a focus on capital retention and income. Parametric will manage the equity portfolio as part of Australian Catholic Super’s…

Fund manager business risks have spiked upwards during the coronavirus crisis with further fall-out likely as the shockwaves reverberate, according to a new paper by Mercer. The firm sees the possibility of casualties and M&A activity, but not yet a widespread collapse of funds management firms. The ‘Riders on the storm’ report, authored by David…