Analysis

Strong super returns are about to encounter significant headwinds. And with the government prowling for more money, funds might once again foot the bill. It’s no secret that market conditions have been enormously supportive over the last decade – and that super has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of those conditions, particularly through 2020,…

Active manages have failed to heed changing times – and changing markets. But while Hyperion doesn’t do “concept stocks”, it’s got its eyes on plenty of disruptors. The great elephant in the room for active managers has been their inability to outperform the index long-term. Around 93.4 per cent of international equity managers and 86.3…

Mercer has urged investors to consider a wider range of inflation scenarios in portfolio design plans as price uncertainty ramps up across the world. In a new paper, the global multi-manager and consultancy firm says investors now face more complicated decisions amid confusing inflation signals. “Adding a less predictable inflation environment now increases complexity for…

The trend towards super consolidation is continuing apace, but there will be fewer mega mergers. It’s now just a matter of mopping up. Mega fund mergers are likely to slow as boards realise the “significant transition planning and integration activity” required to pull them off – but the established mega funds will continue to gobble…

They might be behemoths at home, but Australia’s biggest super funds will be on the backfoot as they scour the globe for investment opportunities. NAB’s biennial FX Hedging survey is not only a good insight into super fund hedging strategies, but the state of the industry itself – particularly its growing interest in markets beyond…

The backyard keeps shrinking. And as another big asset disappears from the public market, Australian listed infrastructure investors will have few options but to look abroad for their exposure. The sale of Sydney Airport has generated plenty of headlines about the might of big super funds; no shortage of acrimony about another of Australia’s sparse…

If super fund investment staff didn’t appreciate the importance of indices prior to the introduction of YFYS, they should do now. With fixed income, the indices tell an interesting, and in some ways counterintuitive, story. Notwithstanding the continued popularity of absolute returns-based portfolios, especially with the end investors, the new fund performance test implemented by…

With markets as frothy as they are, you need to find the misfits – and play your cards close to the chest. It helps to be away from the pack. It often takes an outsider to reveal the idiosyncrasies of Australian society. The same can be true of its financial services. Adam Leitzes, founder and…

Tomorrow is starting to look a lot like yesterday, with policymakers leveraging lessons from post-war Europe to solve the new problems barrelling towards us. Free market thinkers will likely chafe. “Financial repression” is the institutional constraints on interest rates designed to reduce the government’s cost of funding and shrink public debt. The term, coined in…

Local equities fund shops have increasingly allocated to Australian shares over the last four years, a new Mercer NZ analysis has found, partly to ease pressure from ballooning assets under management. The Mercer study of a dozen NZ fund managers found Australian shares now represent 34 per cent of their collective portfolios compared to 26…

Usually restrained fund managers are venting their frustrations with governments and companies over climate inaction. The rebukes get louder as COP26 gets closer. Martin Currie, a global equities house with about $9 billion in Aussie shares, has made its position clear on what it would like to see come out of the Glasgow meetings for…

The new players in any market are smaller, faster, and (sometimes) better. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be dragged back down to the earth. Disruption is hard to take. It’s not for no reason that Luddites smashed up textile machinery (history has not been as kind to them as it perhaps could have, given…