News

Rupal Bhansali, the CIO of Chicago-based global equities firm Ariel Investments, has just published a book, ‘Non-Consensus Investing: Being Right When Everyone Else is Wrong’. Sadly, one of the wrong things we do is not having sufficient gender diversity at either board or senior management level. The book is edifying. Rupal is a relatively frequent…

CLOs are making a come-back, having received a largely undeserved bad rap through the global financial crisis. An under-appreciated fact is that they, on average, didn’t lose any money in the crisis. They came back to par. They are now shining in a low-yield environment. CLOs (collateralised loan obligations) make up nearly all of the…

Private credit markets represent a hot asset class for big investors at the moment. But they are more diverse, more heterogenous and more geographically different than you’d think. bfinance, the global institutional search firm, says the asset sub-class is attracting a lot of new interest in Australia and New Zealand. UK-based Trevor Castledine, a senior…

US-based impact investor ’57 Stars’, which invests actively in Australia, has developed a thematic approach to its investment strategy. While it still grabs opportunities as they present themselves, the firm is not as opportunistic as you would describe most impact investors. The privately owned firm, formed in 2005 and managing just under US$4 billion (A$6.1…

For those of us who are always on a diet, fish are great. For those of us who are also concerned about preserving the world’s wildlife, farmed fish are even greater. Aquaculture has become one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, including in Australia and New Zealand. In a presentation to a group of investors in…

Orient Capital, a Link Group company focussing on information to institutional investors and to listed companies looking to better liaise with their members and shareholders, has produced a guide for clients and others: ‘Keeping Pace with ESG’. The guide is being released in both Australia and the UK today and will be available at https://orientcap.com/….

by David Chaplin Multi-management has come a long way since Russell Investments helped pioneer the concept decades ago but some things never change. Jon Eggins, an Australian Russell portfolio veteran now based in the group’s Seattle HQ, said that, even today, trainee analysts must still pore over the famous ‘Duncan’s Tome’ that lays out the…

by Greg Bright A new wave of investment vehicles is upon us, reflecting the final convergence of listed and unlisted funds. Once again, Magellan Financial Group and its long-time administrator, Mainstream Fund Services, appear to have stolen the march on the rest of the industry. The Airlie Australian Share Fund is about to transform itself…

A group of three big global managers has linked up to promote the benefits of active management in Australia and New Zealand, ahead of what is generally expected to be a sharemarket correction sometime soon. Active managers have been through a rough time in the past two years. In the inevitable downturn, they should shine…

Zenith Investment Partners will pay $12 million for the research and consultancy business, Chant West, which is owned by Chant West Holdings Ltd (CWL), an ASX-listed company. Warren Chant was the first person to phone David Wright, Zenith’s chief executive, to congratulate him on the purchase. News of the deal, orchestrated by Brendan Burwood, the…

Franklin Templeton, a traditional global fund manager based in the unlikely small city of San Mateo, California, has agreed to buy the multi-affiliate manager Legg Mason, based in an equally unlikely city of Baltimore. Multi-affiliate management, while popular with investors, is not easy. Franklin Templeton’s announcement last Tuesday, February 18, stressed that Legg Mason’s affiliates…

Comment by Greg Bright The Motor Trades Association of Australia super fund, representing, primarily, car dealers and their staff, and Tasplan, the Tasmanian public offer fund representing public servants and others, which are in the process of an unlikely merger into a $22 billion-plus fund, have advertised for a new CIO. Philip Brown, the current…