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Comment by Greg Bright Liberal backbenchers Andrew Bragg, a Victorian-born NSW senator, and Tim Wilson, the member for Goldstein in Victoria and, interestingly, a former human rights commissioner, both appear hell-bent on destroying any chance of bipartisanship over Australia’s superannuation system. You could also say they both appear hell-bent on destroying the whole system. A…

Industry super funds are spending at least $19.5 billion on investment projects across Australia as part of a three-year pipeline that will create more than 200,000 jobs. The planned investments were identified as part of a survey of industry super funds, IFM Investors’ clients and Industry Super Property Trust (ISPT) investors. In these troubled times,…

Health and community services fund HESTA has backed the development of an innovative ‘village’ providing residential care for sufferers from dementia. HESTA invested $19 million to assist the construction and operation of the ‘Korongee Village’ in Hobart through its ‘Social Impact Investment Trust’. The fund hopes other large investors will be encouraged to invest in…

In his annual detailed forecast of markets, managers – and their styles – which this year involves many uncertainties, Peter Warnes, Morningstar Australia’s head of equities research, told the firm’s clients to “remain cautious and increasingly vigilant”. While the current situation is different from anything seen in recent memory, there are insights to be gleaned…

Frontier Advisors has analysed the performance of equities fund managers across the final quarter of the 2019-20 financial year. In a note released to its clients, Frontier reported that growth-focussed managers outstripped value managers by a considerable margin over the quarter, particularly across international markets where some very strong results were recorded. While the underperformance…

ARP Investments, a New York-based global quantitative manager, has entered the Australian market through a distribution partnership with a Sydney-based placement agent, Axius Partners. The staff-owned ARP is currently raising capital for its liquid alternative strategies, which have proved popular strategies in Australia in recent years. ARP, which was formed in 2013, manages about US$2…

UBS Wealth Management last week (July 17) launched its annual ‘Global Family Office Report’ for 2020. The big fund manager and global bank surveyed principals and executives in 121 single-family offices around the world. Those family offices handle an average total family wealth of US$1.6 billion. This represents a significantly larger dataset than that of…

The top 15 super funds all managed to eke out positive returns in the year to June, limping across the line after the most volatile period for markets since the global financial crisis. The top 10, eight of which were not-for-profit funds, ranged between 3.8 per cent and 0.8 per cent for the 12 months….

by David Chaplin BlackRock institutional investors piled out of index fixed income strategies during the June quarter in favour of an active approach to the asset class. According to the BlackRock June quarter results, institutional investors withdrew a net US$10.7 billion (A$15.3 billion) from index fixed income funds while adding almost US$5 billion (A$7.15 billion)…

David Bryant formally entered the Mercer stable last week as chief executive for Australia and Pacific zone leader in a move announced this March. He has a mandate to “advance the firm’s leadership position across Australia and New Zealand”, according to a Mercer release last week. He reports to David Anderson, Mercer international region president….

by Greg Bright In one of the most stunning corporate failures in recent years, the big German payments fintech company Wirecard AG went into liquidation late last month and is now subject to fraud investigations, including money laundering and even dealing in the armaments trade. It is the first DAX 30 index stock – Germany’s…

The human impact of isolation to protect oneself, one’s family, and the community against COVID-19 has prompted investors to pause and re-think their portfolios on several levels. Real estate exposure is a logical place to revisit as the pandemic has accelerated some trends and hastened others that were already underway. According to Heitman LLC, the…