Analysis

A study by the Economist newspaper’s ‘Intelligence Unit’ on asset owners’ priorities in the ESG space has shown that, within the largest cohort of the top 100 asset owners, in Asia, there has been a significant increase in awareness of ESG issues over the past few years. The Asian-based big global investors, perhaps surprisingly, are…

While presenting a generally upbeat outlook for its continued expansion globally, Link Group addressed brokers and investors in London last week on the issue of its regulatory issue regarding the failure of one of its glamour clients, the Woodford Global Equity Income Fund. In his presentation, John McMurtrie, the global chief executive, said that Link…

Institutional investors tend to be sceptical of the benefits of ETFs. ETFs have a wide spread, which can challenge an investor’s position. But increasingly they are being used for tactical purposes. BetaShares is setting the pace with new ETF offerings. Martin Currie Investment Management is the latest in the new BetaShares list, totalling 53 ETFs….

Australian institutional investors redeemed about US$1.7 billion from their equity managers in the March quarter, erasing the US$1.6 billion they had invested in the December quarter. The latest redemptions were the same as for the whole of Europe in the same period. The latest data from eVestment, the global investment performance research firm, show that…

We don’t have any specialist event-driven hedge fund managers in Australia or New Zealand but, if we did, they would likely be riding high on an influx of new funding. With various forms of disruption, uncertain markets, and continuing CEO and corporate hubris, this is an M&A climate. According to the latest numbers from eVestment,…

by Greg Bright Some people say that investment styles are dead. Certainly, ‘value’ has struggled for several years, compared with ‘growth’, ‘momentum’ and ‘quality’. If those people are right, what does that mean for how a big super fund chooses a manager? Muddying the waters is the smart-versus-dumb beta discussion. We all know that plain-vanilla…

Hexavest, the top-down global manager which is part of the Eaton Vance stable, has come out strongly in favour of investors giving consideration to changing their mix of exposures, if they have a mix, to the broad China market. While there are risks, ‘A’ shares look the best bet compared with the alternatives. In a…

The outlook for the Australian securitisation market is healthy, with the majority of issuers expecting to maintain or increase issuance in the next two years. This is despite slowing demand for consumer and mortgage credit and tough macro-economic conditions, according to a report by Perpetual and the Australian Securitisation Forum (ASF). The 2019 Australian Securitisation…

by David Chaplin Google, Netflix and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway are among a group of 150 plus top US companies to miss the cut in the recently-released S&P 500 ESG (environmental, social and governance) index. S&P, which built the new ESG benchmark in cahoots with Swiss fund manager RobecoSAM, excluded Netflix and Berkshire Hathaway from the…

by Greg Bright For big profit-for-member super funds, good investment performance is a given. They have delivered for a long time. It’s the member services area which is top of mind. In the first of two articles based on discussions with senior executives of the finalists in the 2019 Chant West ‘Super Fund of the…

Two Queensland academics and pension fund advisors, Michael E. Drew and Adam N. Walk, have published a 170-page ‘monograph’, or ‘book’, as they refer to it, which examines in detail and sets out guidelines for the governance of pension funds. While written for a global audience, it could become a seminal work and a must-read…

With more than 2.8 million individual members, and more than $500 billion in assets, likely over the next 10 years to move into the pension phase of big funds, or out of them altogether if they’re not careful, the question is how to treat those assets, and their owners, in and around the process. It…