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Twenty years ago Sheridan Lee wandered, “aimlessly”, up and down the east coast of America calling fund managers to try to represent them in Australia. “All I lacked was a business plan and experience,” she said at her company’s big birthday bash last week. “I knew before Donald Trump did that that was a potentially…

Willis Towers Watson has recruited Sue Brake, one of the people who put together the governance structure for the launch of NZ Super and a former adviser to the IMF, in a senior consulting role based in Sydney. Brake started this month in a role which she describes as “across the board, with an emphasis…

Matt Lawler, the former chief executive of Yellow Brick Road, has joined OneVue as executive general manager of Wealth Management Services. In a passionate address to the company’s AGM Connie Mckeage outlined not only the future for the company, including Lawler’s role, but also the future for retail investment admin generally. Mckeage, the founder and…

A new analysis has debunked the assumption that low fees inevitably equate with better outcomes for investors, at least the investors in the New Zealand KiwiSaver market. Australian investors can readily be substituted. The study, released by Australian research house SuperRatings last week, found there was “often an inverse relationship between fees and investment outcomes…

(pictured: Ben Chong) The signs are there for an uptick, with two big super funds making commitments and others taking strategic positions in fintech companies, but venture capital in this country remains an after-thought compared with other unlisted assets. Notwithstanding First State Super’s $110 million and HostPlus’s $400 million, the handful of Australian-based venture firms are…

(pictured: Ulrich Braun)  In the past few years, ESG management has taken on a holistic hue over most big fiduciary funds as an integrated part of their strategies. It is now also starting to permeate niche asset classes that the funds invest in. The latest to be offered in Australia is European property. Through its…

(pictured: Sean Healey)  There are some big secular changes occurring in funds management and there are some cyclical or even faddish changes. Someone who studies these trends more than most is Sean Healey, the chairman and chief executive of Affiliated Managers Group. AMG is the largest multi-affiliate manager in the world, with 39 firms under…

(pictured: Lou Maiuri) Liquidity has risen to become top priority in the management of fiduciary funds for both asset owners and fund managers, according to a joint survey by State Street and the Alternative Investment Management Association. In a report published last week, London-based AIMA and Boston-based State Street say regulations stemming from the 2008 financial…

(pictured: Tim Mitchell) Improving governance offers institutional investors win-win – or at least not-lose-win – odds of boosting performance potentially outdoing even the most optimistic post-fees alpha earned from active management, according to a new Willis Towers Watson (WTW) paper. The study, authored by Tim Mitchell, the former New Zealand Superannuation Fund head of strategic projects…

(pictured: Ray Dalio) by Greg Bright Ray Dalio is one of the world’s great investors. He is also a self-confessed misfit. I had lunch with him in the 1990s, when he was on a rare visit to Australia – represented at the time by Sheridan Lee and Tony Tuohey. What he said then resonates now. The…

(pictured: Philip Moffitt) Goldman Sachs Asset Management in Australia will be focusing on developing and promoting a solutions business in the future, following the leveraged buyout of its locally domiciled strategies, emphasising the firm’s global fixed income capabilities. According to Philip Moffitt, the global co-head of fixed income and head of the remaining Australian business, the…

(pictured: Adrian Orr) By David Chaplin Despite his engaging introductory monologue, Adrian Orr, NZ Superannuation Fund chief executive, faced tough competition for the attention of the 250-plus International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Fund (IFSWF) delegates assembled at the Auckland Viaduct Centre last week. As Orr rolled energetically through a diversified portfolio of one-liners, NZ history lessons,…