Analysis

The possibility of rising interest rates in major markets, including Australia, has more than bond investors concerned. In theory, infrastructure investors have the most to lose. But new research by Frontier Advisors provides a salve: the link between interest rates and the value of very long-duration assets like infrastructure is not clear-cut. In a paper…

by David Chaplin In a report published last week Mercer has laid out a four-pronged plan to bridge a global retirement savings shortfall that it says could hit over US$400 trillion by 2050. Australia is included in the worrying study of eight countries. The paper, ‘Bold Ideas for Mending the Long-term Savings Gap’, says out-dated…

Never failing to let a chance go by, Industry Super Australia has analysed the latest super fund returns figures, put them in a 10-year context and, once again, compared the pair – industry funds versus bank-owned funds. The gap, the numbers say, is widening. The latest SuperRatings monthly data show, on average, industry super funds have outperformed…

The world’s leading pension and sovereign wealth funds, including Australia’s Future Fund, do not believe it is likely that institutional investors can achieve the standard returns target of inflation plus 4 per cent over the next five years. They believe, however, that by adopting best-practice procedures they can add an additional 1 per cent a…

Financial regulators may have to collaborate on a global scale to police the increasingly fuzzy legal border in the fintech era, according to a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussion note. The IMF paper, titled ‘Fintech and Financial Services: Initial Considerations’, says with new technology breaching traditional nation-state boundaries “international cooperation is essential to ensure…

by Greg Bright It is the last frontier – China. Big fund managers have studied it and tried to build a business there. Many have faltered, but some have built a foothold. The latest to have a go is BNY Mellon. Good luck. One of the world’s largest fund managers should have a good chance…

The next big challenge for investors in the integration of ESG factors in their investment processes is the alignment of the 17 ‘sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) with their own investment objectives. According to index provider S&P Dow Jones, the SDGs are framing the global agenda of sustainable development. In a paper published by S&P the…

Taking active positions on the relative value of about 30 assets has added some NZ$2 billion to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) over the last eight years, a new report reveals. According to the NZS ‘Strategic tilting’ white paper published last week, the approach – where the fund takes long or short positions on specific…

This is a gloomy story but the good news is that the bad news may not happen for a long time. Abdallah Nauphal, the chief executive of Insight Investment, says, after all, a pessimist is just an optimist with more facts. He gave the big global manager’s take on the changing world to Australian clients…

Everyone knows it’s a struggle for active managers to prove they can persistently outperform their benchmarks. In the 1980s, Mercer published a report which showed that you would be better off appointing last year’s worst-performing manager, for balanced funds, than the top-performing one. But the world is now more nuanced and complex. According to the…

Super funds have always laboured with their decisions over currency management – often times the most important investment decision for an Australian investment committee. Hedge or not, active or passive, cross-currency management or not? In a new study, called ‘Managing Currency Risk in a Two-Speed World’, bfinance, the global mandate search firm and implementation advisor,…

Comment by Greg Bright Damian Hill, the chief executive of REST Industry Super for the past 11 years, wrote to the fund’s two million-plus members last Friday afternoon to tell them he would be vacating his position next January. This could be the end of an era. Here’s our prediction: REST is going to go…