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The big global consulting firm Cambridge Associates, which has traditionally specialised in alternative asset classes but in recent years has gone mainstream as well, has laid off an estimated 48 staff globally. It is understood the Australia and New Zealand business, however, is not affected by the staff cutbacks. Locally the firm, headed up by…

by David Chaplin and Greg Bright Kapstream Capital, the active fixed income manager at the centre of the Janus Capital and Henderson Global Investors proposed merger, in Australasia at least, is expanding the group’s reach with a new deal in New Zealand. Despite rising interest rates, bonds are back. The new fund is to be…

by Greg Bright Fat Prophets and Switzer are the latest LIC successes to beat their target raisings. Now, Morphic Asset Management’s ‘ethical equities fund’ and Plato Investment Management’s ‘income’ fund were launched last week. Are LICs a funds management bubble? The market, dominated by individual – and mainly unadvised – investors, is hard to pick….

Paradice Investment Management is looking to recruit a team to invest in small and mid-cap stocks in emerging markets, following the success of its global small-cap fund run out of Denver in the US. The firm, which has used Equity Trustees as its responsible entity (RE) for the global fund, is expanding the service provider’s…

Vontobel Asset Management, the big Swiss-based multi-strategy manager, which has been managing money on a sustainable basis since 1994, believes the corner has finally been turned. Investors – at least the professionals – now know that ESG management enhances returns. Zurich-based Roger Merz, Vontobel managing director and head of portfolio management, said on a recent…

The recently launched Remerga emerging markets ‘sustainable leaders fund’ has introduced an innovate fee structure for investors which rewards them for having a long-term outlook. The boutique manager charges 45bps plus a 10 per cent performance fee over benchmark for the first three years of an investor’s relationship, dropping to 40bps and then 35bps after…

By David Chaplin AMP Capital will offload about $438 million of tobacco equity and fixed income securities in a radical detox of its Australasian portfolios. It is also getting rid of any holdings in munitions companies, as it has already done in New Zealand. The smoke ban, which follows similar moves in Australia’s asset management…

Supervised Investments Australia, the family office style manager controlled by David Constable and Ken Cooper, is looking to widen its product offering and build its investment team, according to new chief executive, Michael Ohlsson. Speaking at an investor briefing in Sydney last week, at which Constable, Cooper and the firm’s chair Helen Coonan, the former…

Mirae Asset Global Investors has launched its India Sector Leaders strategy in Australia for institutional investors and is about to widen its reach for its Asia Sector Leaders fund with a unit trust offering. The firm’s third Australian product since it opened an office in Sydney in 2015 is a concentrated thematic strategy known as…

ESSSuper’s recently released member app, developed in association with CapitalRoad Financial, has delivered 3,000 downloads and “received very positive feedback”, according to James Holmes, the fund’s manager of member engagement. CapitalRoad is a Melbourne-based fintech developer and software-as-a-service provider who built the native iOS and Android application for mobile phone access to specific account information…

by John Kavanagh Australian institutional investors are moving on from addressing gender equality issues in their own organisations to asking the same questions of the investment managers they work with as well as the companies they invest in. The gender issue has been shifted up a notch from companies to fund managers. Heather Ridout, the…

by Greg Bright In what was, possibly, the best publicity stunt the investment industry has ever seen, State Street Global Advisors and its smart New York ad agency, McCann, last week sent a strong message to companies to get their gender balance in order. Wouldn’t you love to hire this brave young girl? OK, she…