Analysis

Westpac Bank has sold its final 9.5 per cent holding in Pendal Group, after the market closed on June 18, sweeping clean its stake in the business. It will continue to withdraw from the $14 billion in assets that Pendal currently manages for Westpac. The Pendal story would make a good book – and, in…

The increasing flow of money into the ‘impact investments’ asset sector is very pleasing for long-term dedicated participants, such as Nuveen’s co-head of impact, Rekha Unnithan. But there are still industry matters to be dealt with, such as an agreed definition of ‘impact’. One of the issues is that managers who may have previously shown…

by David Chaplin Almost all impact investors hit both monetary and non-financial targets in 2019, according to the 10th annual global survey of the sector. The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) survey of about 300 investors worldwide, including one in Australia, found that the overwhelming majority of respondents reported meeting or exceeding both their impact…

Martin Currie, the Australian and global active equity specialist, has called on other asset managers to create coalitions in order to drive change in the way firms and their clients invest. “Group efforts multiply the value of ESG investing”, Martin Currie, says, having been a leader in that space for many years. In its recently…

State Street has seen a spike in interest, by fund managers and pensions funds in the region, in outsourcing their trading activities in recent months. The uplift appears to have been prompted by COVID-19 and the aim to reduce risk. Michele Hardeman, State Street’s Hong Kong-based head of global markets for Asia Pacific, has written…

In a letter sent to employees late in April, Aon chief, Gregory Case, says 70 per cent of the firm’s staff around the world will take a reduction of approximately 20 per cent of salary, which will be implemented in accordance with local practices. But proposed merger partner, Willis Towers Watson, is not following suit….

Historically, it’s been assumed that the economic multiplier of a fiscal stimulus is about 0.5, but recent work indicates it can be much higher than this in depressed times, such as the current conditions, according to a research note by Amundi Asset Management. In its latest research note in its ‘Thematic Views’ series, Amundi, the…

AXA Investment Managers has shown that, in the coronavirus crisis, funds and strategies which have an ESG bent outperformed those that didn’t. This is intuitive. The client note supports the notion that an observance to ESG principles adds value for investors, especially in market downturns. It’s mainly a risk thing. The AXA-IM note, authored by…

Northern Trust has announced a new service to help institutional investors and their managers analyse their portfolios for ESG factors. It’s available through the big custodian’s Investment Risk & Analytical Services (IRAS) group. According to Serge Boccassini, the senior vice president for global product, accounting and analytics, who has been at Northern for more than…

Applying professional after-tax management in the transitioning of portfolios by super funds can save at least 30bps in the portfolio’s change-over costs, according to new research by Parametric, the specialist implementation manager. Transition managers don’t always look closely at after-tax impacts. The research report, ‘The Sting in the Transition Tail’ says that both specialist transition…

The prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management, with the assistance of State Street, has produced a paper which questions long-held assumptions about the true volatility of private equity investments. It is particularly relevant right now when some big investors are under attack from conservative politicians. As reported in last week’s Investor Strategy News, Australian Liberal…

While multi-asset strategies have gained popularity in recent years, mostly due to Schroders’ success in Australia and internationally, they are not all the same. Morningstar has produced a report to help investors choose an appropriate multi-asset manager. The Morningstar report focuses on the recent market volatility, so it may not be a good long-term assessment….