News

Westpac Bank has sold its final 9.5 per cent holding in Pendal Group, after the market closed on June 18, sweeping clean its stake in the business. It will continue to withdraw from the $14 billion in assets that Pendal currently manages for Westpac. The Pendal story would make a good book – and, in…

The Goodman Group has topped the size rankings in ANREV’s latest survey of fund managers operating in the Australian unlisted property space, with $52 billion under management. Charter Hall came second, with $38.9 billion, and Lend Lease third, with $36.5 billion. ANREV is a not-for-profit research firm which is part of a global network including…

Carbon-offset investments could see a boost under the new NZ emission trading scheme (ETS) regime that passed into law last week. Paul Harrison, Salt Funds managing director, said the new ETS legislation – currently awaiting Royal Assent – goes further in setting a more realistic market price for carbon lifting the current cap of NZ$25…

Capital Group has recruited Jessica Ground as global head of ESG, a new position for the US$1.7 trillion firm. She will join Capital from Schroders, where she has worked for about 20 years, in September. Capital has a well-established Australian and New Zealand presence. Ground, who will be based in London, will be responsible for…

Value investors are finally seeing “green shoots” in a style that has underperformed for over a decade, Russell Investments chief investment officer, Peter Gunning, global CIO for Russell Investments, said last week. In the first of a webinar series replacing the annual Russell NZ conference this year, Gunning said the value factor had flickered into…

Uniting Financial Services, perhaps the oldest ethical investor in Australia, whose philosophy and processes can be traced back to the 1980s, has ceased what was likely to be a positive review of Rio Tinto, as a stock in which to invest. The re-think followed RIO’s desecration of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site in Western Australia. Rio…

The increasing flow of money into the ‘impact investments’ asset sector is very pleasing for long-term dedicated participants, such as Nuveen’s co-head of impact, Rekha Unnithan. But there are still industry matters to be dealt with, such as an agreed definition of ‘impact’. One of the issues is that managers who may have previously shown…

by David Chaplin Almost all impact investors hit both monetary and non-financial targets in 2019, according to the 10th annual global survey of the sector. The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) survey of about 300 investors worldwide, including one in Australia, found that the overwhelming majority of respondents reported meeting or exceeding both their impact…

Eschewing cruder customs, such as making money, Rainmaker Information delivered an entertaining awards night for sales and marketing people in funds management, despite the current restrictions. Usually a gala social dinner at Sydney’s Ivy Ballroom, the MAX Awards went virtual last week (June 11). They worked. Despite the straightened times, the publisher and events company…

People in the investment industry, as well as media and events, are taking stock of what can be learned and retained from how we coped with COVID-19 so far – as has been going on in most other industries. Perhaps the best-case study for very big events was provided by the organisers of Mothers Day…

For heads of operations at big funds management firms, moving 100 per cent of their staff to work from home was their biggest challenge of dealing with COVID-19. But what quickly followed was that share market and derivatives trading volumes spiked. It was a scramble to get back to business as usual. Ross Gulliford, head…

National Australia Bank Asset Servicing (NAS) has won the top award for the ‘Best Sub-Custodian Bank in Australia’ from Global Finance magazine in New York. The award’s judges assessed “reliably providing the best services in local markets and regions”. They did so for custodian banks in about 80 countries across seven regions. The decision, announced…