Analysis

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…

Parametric, the global implementation specialist manager, has put the icing on the cake for ESG investing with its latest research. The white paper not only shows there is little-or-no loss to returns from embracing ESG; it also offers up some tips for returns enhancement through the process. Visiting Australia to speak with clients this week,…

A lively session on the IMCA program last Friday in Sydney looked at the AIST proposal for managers to pay for the operational due diligence to be performed on them by ‘third-party’ assessors. Not everyone is happy with the proposal. IMCA (the Investment Management Consultants Association), an educational body for investment professionals, organised the discussion…

by Greg Bright  Link Group, which entered the managed funds administration business late last year with the acquisition of White Outsourcing, looks likely to shake up this disaggregated part of the industry following a re-branding exercise to be announced today (June 19). White Outsourcing is the main competitor for what is the only “full-service” managed…

International events of the past 12 months have certainly breathed life into global financial markets, as well as providing investors with new challenges. Heena Chakravorti* of Bloomberg puts the position for Australian investors in a global perspective. The Australian economy has started to rebound following the commodities rally, and continues to do so. However, while…

There are not too many free kicks in the investment game and while the increasingly popular factor investing or smart beta strategies can be one, it is not always the case. Investors need to do their homework when embarking on a factor investment program. ‘Factor investing’, which is a term often used interchangeably, but probably…

The probability of a US recession over the next five years is around 70 per cent, according to PIMCO’s latest analysis. So it’s worth speculating on the causes and contours of the “next recession”. In the report, called ‘Pivot Points’, PIMCO poses two scenarios: The economy bumps along until a major external shock hits. The…

by Greg Bright The strong demographic trend to retirement, coupled with structural changes within funds management, is prompting a rethink in the way big super funds handle portfolio risks around the older – and richer – segments of their membership base. FIS Global held discussion groups last week. At breakfast meetings in Sydney and Melbourne,…

It is amazing that a debate continues between passive and active management, nearly 40 years after its emergence in Australia with the arrival of State Street and Russell Investments to these shores in the mid-1980s. Nevertheless, it does. The really odd thing is, in emerging markets at least, the debate is still worth listening to….