Analysis

Almost half of the top 500 global fund manager brands have disappeared in the last decade, the latest Thinking Ahead Institute annual review of the sector has found. A total of 232 names on the 2009 list of 500 largest asset managers were not on the 2019 list. Pre-dating the COVID-19 crisis, the Thinking Ahead…

Companies are increasingly making low-carbon investments, not only to reduce emissions and costs, but also to take advantage of revenue opportunities. When you step back and look at what’s required to reach the targets already set, massive disruption and investment means major business opportunities. The 189 parties to the Agreement, which took effect in November…

One of the great unanswerable questions for investors over the past 10 years is why value investing, the tried-and-true performer since it was identified in the 1930s but probably used innately well before, has stayed out of whack for so long. The chorus bemoaning value’s plight just gets louder and louder. But there are signs…

Big super funds appear to have taken at least one government change to their overall operations in their stride – the compulsion to hold a member annual meeting, with the first necessary before March next year. Some, such as AustralianSuper, CareSuper and UniSuper, have already been holding regular large meetings for members for years, as…

by David Chaplin Even a blind monkey-based manager could outperform the average active fund by simply flinging darts at the stock index chart, according to US academic, Burton Malkiel, 88. His claim, first aired in his classic ‘A Random Walk Down Wall St’, has been used as anti-active ammunition ever since. Later studies actually concluded…

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) is overhauling its 10-year old responsible investment (RI) strategy to stay on track with global best practice, after recording a 60bps gain due to its old policy. In its ‘Climate Change Report’ published last week, the NZS says the fund had launched a project dubbed ‘Resetting the Responsible Investment…

A sample of institutional asset owners and fund managers has confirmed their views on the increasing complexity around both asset allocation and the strategies they design. They also confirmed the increasing importance of technology but expressed annoyance at continuing room for improvement in some areas. According to the authors at the study’s promoter, global systems…

Robert Shiller, Nobel laureate in economics, wrote about stories and images being created around new economic events. COVID-19 has thrown up a sequence of images from the past, pushing governments and central banks into unknown territory. This is the current ‘Day After’ narrative. In its views on a post-crisis world, Amundi Asset Management, Europe-based global…

While investing following strong and integrated ESG principles does not readily spring to mind when considering China there is more action going on across the sustainability space there than many people think. The building blocks are already in place: a growing green credit market that is encouraging companies to invest in ESG-related projects, strategic government…

It’s not only big super funds, such as Australian Super, which have taken a stick to Rio Tinto over the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia, forcing the departure of the chief executive, head of iron ore and head of corporate affairs. ESG-orientated fund managers have also been…

Even before the fallout from COVID-19 hit home, hedge funds and other alternatives managers had been looking to diversify their offerings to cater to a shifting investment environment. This has had “strong implications” for their operating models as well as their traditional service providers, according to a report by the asset servicing arm of Northern…

Over the very long term, interest rates and share market returns have been positively correlated. It is only since the late 1990s that they have been negatively correlated for any length of time. A new research note by Michael Armitage, says investors should brace themselves for a return to the long-term normal and suggests consideration…