News

IRESS, the listed global financial services software and admin company, is to take over OneVue, the diversified Australian platform, admin and registry company under a scheme of arrangement. The deal gives the expansive IRESS a greater presence in the super industry in Australia. Apart from having the largest third-party registry offering, OneVue also has about…

Labelling it ‘State Street Alpha’, the big asset servicing and fund management firm, which purchased the global financial software company Charles River Development in 2018, has embarked on a journey to be the leading provider of asset intelligence to the owners and managers of the world’s capital. According to Sinclair Scholfield, State Street’s Sydney-based head…

In a nutshell, what happens next is likely to be de-globalisation, therefore lower profitability of companies. In the past 10 years, share buybacks have accounted for more than 50 per cent of returns. That phenomenon has halted. Lots of other things aren’t coming back anytime soon either, except, perhaps, inflation. According to Ruffer LLP, a…

Chant West Holdings, the listed company for the Chant West investment research firm, has reached an agreement to sell ‘Enzumo’, a software business which gave Chant West access to the listed market. The buyer is financial planning dealer group Centrepoint Alliance. The price appears healthy in the current climate. Centrepoint Alliance is a leading provider…

The annual Australian Alternative Investment Awards, held in conjunction with Hedge Funds Rock, an important annual fund raiser for a variety of charities, will go ahead on, or near, the pre-ordained date of September 10. Given the crisis, this year’s awards and the fund raiser are more important than ever. Kim Ivey, chairman of the…

First Sentier, the former Colonial First State Global Asset Management, has strengthened its international management with the creation of several senior global roles. This follows the acquisition of the manager by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group last year. The business, under Mark Steinberg, the chief executive, and Yutaka Kawakami, the deputy chief executive, has established a…

Brian Delaney, a stalwart of the institutional funds management industry and an executive director and global head of client solutions and capital at QIC, has confirmed he will retire at the end of the year. His successor, Ravi Sriskandarajah, who is almost as well-connected, was announced last week. Delaney, who has been in the industry…

Listed infrastructure and property funds failed to live up to their safe-haven reputations during the recent market slump, a recent Makao Investments analysis found. The study says the relative underperformance of the two sectors over March and April highlights why investors should not conflate income with low risk. “Both listed infrastructure and listed property were…

The new kid on the block in super fund administration, IRESS, formerly known, in the institutional space mainly for its information software and individual investor services, has picked up another big super fund client. It has just won a competitive tender away from Mercer Outsourcing. The recent win, of the $2 billion and 80,000-member Guild…

Most, if not all, the big asset servicing firms are diversifying their offerings to fund managers and pension funds, moving from their traditional space in the backoffice through the middle office and to the front office. Northern Trust last week announced a potentially major deal with BlackRock to provide new services to its Aladdin information…

Comment Do we need to have to change the Government to get any sense from try-hard politicians? Tim Wilson MP has grabbed onto the coattails of the likes of Senator Andrew Bragg, last week suggesting HostPlus has a “conflict of interest” because it invests in infrastructure assets through a company in which it has a…

In an appropriately timed session at CMSF 2020’s virtual conference, IFM Investors sponsored the investment sessions, available last week, including ‘The Changing Face of Risk Governance’. It is obvious risk is complex. It would be good if Tim Wilson downloads it. Chaired by David Carruthers, principal consultant at Frontier Advisors, the session showed how funds…