Analysis

Investment organisations are not learning from their experience when it comes to improving investment committee (IC) practices and governance, according to new research from the ‘Thinking Ahead Institute’, a not-for-profit member group linked to Willis Towers Watson. The research, ‘Going from Good to Great‘, identifies the aircraft industry’s structured-learning environments as one for pension funds…

Two studies published in the past month have shed light on both the latest rankings, by assets, and how Sovereign Wealth Funds are investing those assets. Unlike many big pension funds, there is a big disparity in the cultures of sovereign funds and their investment styles. The definition of ‘sovereign wealth fund’ could also be…

Around every corner of Australia’s roughly $3 trillion in super industry assets, you’ll find a forecaster, says one of the industry’s leading researchers, Raewyn Williams. Investment teams forecast market direction, engagement teams forecast new member flows and finance teams forecast what seem to be the regulators’ favourite topic: fund fees and other costs. “But where…

Until a few years’ ago, multi-asset managers were consistently delivering reliable returns with good downside awareness. However, from 2018 there was a noticeable shift towards persistent underperformance in relative-value multi-asset managers which was outside the range of expectations. Frontier Advisors has produced a paper analysing the shift in performance, underlying drivers and the way forward….

Comment by Greg Bright Liberal backbenchers Andrew Bragg, a Victorian-born NSW senator, and Tim Wilson, the member for Goldstein in Victoria and, interestingly, a former human rights commissioner, both appear hell-bent on destroying any chance of bipartisanship over Australia’s superannuation system. You could also say they both appear hell-bent on destroying the whole system. A…

In his annual detailed forecast of markets, managers – and their styles – which this year involves many uncertainties, Peter Warnes, Morningstar Australia’s head of equities research, told the firm’s clients to “remain cautious and increasingly vigilant”. While the current situation is different from anything seen in recent memory, there are insights to be gleaned…

UBS Wealth Management last week (July 17) launched its annual ‘Global Family Office Report’ for 2020. The big fund manager and global bank surveyed principals and executives in 121 single-family offices around the world. Those family offices handle an average total family wealth of US$1.6 billion. This represents a significantly larger dataset than that of…

by Greg Bright In one of the most stunning corporate failures in recent years, the big German payments fintech company Wirecard AG went into liquidation late last month and is now subject to fraud investigations, including money laundering and even dealing in the armaments trade. It is the first DAX 30 index stock – Germany’s…

After more than 30 years of arguments among and between fund managers, academics and, even, regulators, the passive versus active debate may wax and wane but it remains unresolved across the broad investor audience. In a timely paper, Wellington Management has listed seven concerns about “the push for passive”. The consensus about current market conditions…

by Greg Bright When Research Affiliates set up an Australasian office in mid-2018, it probably knew it would cause a stir. It agreed for Australian Mike Aked to go home to Melbourne to set up the new business. He is country head and head of research and strategy. He was the former head of asset…

by Wietske Blees* Making well-informed investment decisions isn’t easy at the best of times but throw in a pandemic and a decade worth of quantitative easing that’s fuelling a growing disconnect between equity markets and underlying fundamentals, and reliably predicting future growth prospects becomes a significant challenge. A recent ‘Leading Minds’ webcast hosted by Fund…

Fund manager business risks have spiked upwards during the coronavirus crisis with further fall-out likely as the shockwaves reverberate, according to a new paper by Mercer. The firm sees the possibility of casualties and M&A activity, but not yet a widespread collapse of funds management firms. The ‘Riders on the storm’ report, authored by David…