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(pictured: Lukas Daalder) Robeco’s five-year expected returns report – a well-regarded annual outlook for markets and investment opportunities – which this year came to 120 pages – is not a light read. The latest report, published last week, with a world full of uncertainty, was particularly dark. Lukas Daalder, The Netherlands-based Robeco executive director and CIO…

(pictured: Andrew Formica and Dick Weil)  While on an extensive worldwide roadshow meeting clients, shareholders and staff, Andrew Formica and Dick Weil, the proposed co-chief executives of a merged Janus Henderson Global Investors addressed media in Sydney last week. They said the joint-CEO role was a “special solution for a special situation”. Dick Weil, Janus’s…

(pictured: Jeremy Bond) In the longest bear run in global mining stocks since FTSE’s index was launched in 1985, a focus on Australian-listed small resources, including theme-driven lithium (batteries) and potash (fertilizer) stocks, gave one local manager an 87 per cent absolute return in the past 12 months. Terra Capital, the Sydney small and micro-cap manager…

(pictured: Alan Kohler) As Alan Kohler points out, taking on a little more risk in retirement is very different from taking it on when you’re younger. So what’s his advice to retirees? Go 100 per cent fixed interest or similar, he says, which also means you have to save a lot more money before you retire….

(pictured: Jan Kolbusz) Super funds have started to embrace, after a long period of either consideration or procrastination, the use of sophisticated member engagement and other personal advice tools, although they are generally shunning the popular term of ‘robo advice’. Jan Kolbusz, an early entrant with a history in investment admin, offers his take on accelerating…

(pictured: Hiliary Clinton and Donald Trump) Historically, US elections have not mattered much to either the US – and therefore global – economy or to markets. But this one is so extremely polarising and Donald Trump so unpredictable, that many investors are looking to hedge their bets on the off-chance of a Republican victory. Here are…

(pictured: Bruce Moss) by David Chaplin Flesh-based financial advisers remain confident of fending off robo-competitors despite the gathering pace of the digital revolution, a new global survey has found. According to the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) 2016 member survey, most financial advisers saw robots as potential servants rather than the new overlords. “In response to…

(pictured: Michael Dwyer) by Greg Bright  The purchase of StatePlus, the financial planning and wealth management business formerly owned by NSW State Super (STC), is transforming the $60 billion First State Super into a unique fund under a project known internally as ‘BOB’ – best of both. There are no less than 14 working groups on…

(pictured: Kumar Palghat) Kumar Palghat, the co-founder and head portfolio manager of Australian-based bond manager Kapstream, will become the head of global fixed income at the merged US$320 billion Janus Henderson Global Investors. Theoretically, at least, he will be Bill Gross’s boss. The proposed merger of Henderson Group and Janus Capital Group, announced early last…

(pictured: Graham Hand) Graham Hand, the publisher of the influential Cuffelinks investment newsletter, made a compelling case at the annual Paul Woolley Centre conference in Sydney last week that, contrary to what many people have predicted, the funds management industry is unlikely to see an “Uber-style” disrupter to the business. The conference, at the University of…

(pictured: Laurence Wormald) Special report: The evolution of Australia’s superannuation industry has had many twists and turns. Many of them have been of a policy or regulatory nature, but some major trends have reflected demographic and market shifts. Take the insourcing of investment management capabilities as an example. Each of the top 10 not-for-profit super funds…

(pictured: Paul Woolley)  Paul Woolley, the former GMO fund manager and founder of the Centre which bears his name, believes that market-cap benchmarks cause “chronic mispricing” and impair fund performance. Woolley told the annual conference at the University of Technology Sydney last week, that market-cap benchmarks “cause inversion of risk, short-termism, momentum trading, bubbles and…