News

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….

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) data suppliers could be pulling in a collective US$1 billion in revenue by next year, according to a new paper by European consultancy firm, Opimas. The Opimas study found the rapidly expanding appetite for ESG investing – especially in Europe – fed the new breed of data suppliers some US$617…

Ironbark Asset Management, the third-party marketing and multi-affiliate manager, is working on an SMA with a wealth advisory firm, concentrating on a multi-asset strategy. Ironbark Asset Management will be the RE. Ironbark, which represents assets of about $2.9 billion in the ‘multi-asset’ product sector, was started by former Deutsche Asset Management chief executive Chris Larsen…

Institutional allocation to global fixed income strategies has been rising in recent times, according to the latest research rep[ort from Foresight Analytics, an Australian-based specialist investment research firm. “Yield-based” strategies have stood out, while other manager performances have been “mixed”. The ‘Global Fixed Income Report‘ for 2019 says that the global fixed income sector and…

MMC, the Auckland-based administration and consulting firm, has acquired about half of the equity in Brisbane-based super fund administrator IFAA. MMC says it is a “passive” investment and that future technological synergies will flow both ways across the Tasman. IFAA is well known in the Australian super industry for its bespoke personal service for members,…