News

Frontier Advisors last month published its initial views on the dramatic shift in the global macro-economic environment which suggested the Australian economy could contract by 6 per cent in 2020 due to Covid-19. The firm will today publish a follow-up short paper for clients, which shows some optimism given the fiscal response of Australia’s federal…

Investor Strategy News will not be published next week, Easter Monday (April 13), a public holiday. We’re having a break. Believe it or not, it is more difficult to produce a media title in lockdown compared with being out and about. But the media has a long history of taking the Tuesday after Easter off….

A total of about 260 global asset owners, including 30-odd Australian fiduciary investors, completed a survey instituted by research and asset manager allocation firm bfinance late last week on how they are responding to the current COVID-9 crisis. We are more pessimistic than most other big investors. The survey also asked whether they were satisfied with…

Research Affiliates, the company which some folks think invented smart beta, even though they didn’t call it that back then, is expanding in Australasia. But its founder, Rob Arnott, is pre-occupied at the moment. Research Affiliates (RA) spends a lot of time looking at risks. And there’s a big one happening at the moment. Arnott,…

by Greg Bright It never rains but it pours. John Streur, the president and chief executive of US specialist ESG manager Calvert Research and Management, based in Washington, was scheduled to speak at three gatherings in Australia two weeks ago. They were all cancelled. His message is still clear, though. And it is about the…

Managed accounts allow financial planners to become ‘more professional’, according to Toby Potter, the chair of IMAP. They now represent almost 10 per cent of all the wholesale/retail money on platforms. They have now eclipsed ETFs in assets under management after a 28 per cent rise last year. Not that the two are mutually exclusive….

Warakirri Asset Management has appointed Joe Marassa to the newly created position of head of ‘marketing and product’. Based in Sydney, this role will report to Jim McKay, Melbourne-based managing director. In this role, Marassa will lead the marketing, product and digital strategy for Warakirri as well as being part of the leadership team. He…

EY has promoted Rita Da Silva as its new ‘Oceania wealth and asset management leader’, effective from this Wednesday (April 1.) She replaces Antionette Elias, who is moving to a tax leader role for EY Oceania Financial Services. In the role, Da Silva will be responsible for leading EY teams of more than 400 wealth…

by Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny* These days it’s hard to get people to pay attention in any meeting, but when people aren’t in the same room, it can be especially difficult. And it’s particularly annoying when you make a nine-minute argument, pause for an expected reaction, and get: “I’m not sure I followed you”,…

by Greg Bright In 2008, with the global financial crisis gathering pace, a handful of countries, including Australia, banned short selling. This was later admitted by regulators, such as the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the UK’s former FSA, to have been a mistake. Hedge fund managers, and a few other groups, were at the…

J.P. Morgan, Australia’s largest securities services firm, has told several of its direct sub-custody clients that they need to look elsewhere for another provider. The biggest of these, Clearstream, is already going to tender. This doesn’t happen too often, but it happens, and reflects the intricate nature of the asset servicing business. J.P. Morgan Securities…

It’s not about the catastrophes themselves, which are bad in all respects, including for the insurance companies. It’s about how certain specialist fund managers enable their client super funds to trade in the risks and provide an enhanced bond-like yield. The specialist fund managers buy underlying investments which have nothing to do – uncorrelated –…