News

Some of the world’s largest and most influential investors are increasing the pressure on the world’s largest social media companies to do more to prevent “objectionable” content spreading across their platforms in the wake of the March 15, 2019, terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand. Following the attack, more than 100 global investors representing about…

Implementing carbon-lite policies has added about 0.3 per cent per annum to the NZ$43 billion (A$42 billion) NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) performance, according to chief executive, Matthew Whineray. Whineray told the recent Finance and Expenditure Select Committee during the annual NZS review that the “portfolio is 30bps per year better off, which is, we’ll call…

by David Chaplin It was like BT in its heyday; BT when BT was Bankers Trust.  But if the Auckland leg of the Magellan Australasian roadshow was a blast of nostalgia for funds industry veterans it also marked an end point. Magellan is the best at these things. It will be sad to see them…

Ray Dalio, the famed hedge fund manager who founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975, has done a backflip on his initial view of the damage to be caused by coronavirus. He now says it will cost US companies about US$4 trillion (A$6.9 trillion) and the wider world perhaps US$12 trillion. The US$160 billion manager, still controlled…

by Greg Bright A move away from the reliance on traditional strategic asset allocation as the overarching strategy for big investors and towards the use of a ‘total portfolio approach’, will deliver an additional return of between 0.5 and 1.0 per cent a year, according to new research. Roger Urwin, Global Head of Investment Content…

Tim Hodgson, the co-founder, with Roger Urwin, of the ‘Thinking Ahead Institute’ in 2015 -which is sponsored and overseen by Willis Towers Watson – gave big investors a lot to think about last week with respect to climate change. It’s scary for us individuals and also scary for investment professionals. Hodgson led the annual Thinking…

Citi Australia has finalised its agreement with RBC over its securities services business. It has already received letters of intent from almost half the RBC custody client base, with several other fund manager clients, which are primarily among the larger ones, conducting a formal review process. The total business transfers will take between 12 and…

Active managers tend to love a good crisis. That’s when they can make some extra money for investors and push themselves up the performance charts. With the current crisis – a health pandemic, oil-price shock and political dramas – they may even be rubbing their hands with glee. There’s a little self-interest there, too. Martin…

The former Investec Asset Management, from today (March 16) to be known as ‘Ninety One’, created its own font for the new name. This is very rare in marketing and publishing circles. It gets our attention. But it also signifies a lot more than a marketing effort. Ninety One lists today (March 16 AEST) as…

by David Chaplin The Australasian arms of global consultancy giants Aon and Willis Towers Watson (WTW) could face a major shake-up following the groups’ merger announced last week. But the investment services divisions of the respective firms in Australia and NZ may emerge relatively unscathed from any post-merger synergy-creation. While both WTW and Aon provide…

Tim Hodgson, a co-founder of the Willis Towers Watson-sponsored ‘Thinking Ahead Group’, in 2002, has an interesting theory. He says people laugh at him about it, but, then, “people also laughed at Jack Bogle”, the late founder of Vanguard and the earliest and biggest proponent of index investing. Speaking in Sydney last week (March 10…

While APRA has asked big super funds and other institutions – and for them to ask their service providers – about their plans to deal with the pandemic, the big funds and their advisors are already on the case as much as you could expect them to be. No-one knows what’s going to happen next….