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Comment by Greg Bright People of a certain age tend to overstate recent change and look fondly on a fuzzy past of seemingly greater consistency. So, maybe it’s just me approaching retirement age but it looks like there is a generational change happening at the top of superannuation and funds management. While attempting not to pass…

Who has been the most successful funds manager, in terms of building a business, that Australia has produced? The late Robert Maple-Brown? Kerr Neilson? Chris Cuffe? Mike Crivelli? Perhaps John Wilson should be considered. Here are Wilson’s credentials after he announced last week that he was leaving PIMCO. In 1997, having left the old Bankers…

Funds management is a tough business.  Tribeca Investment Partners has decided to do away with a specialist sales and marketing position. Jim Savage, who joined the boutique equities firm in 2005 and was a shareholder, left last week. David Aylward, the managing director, said that associate company Grant Samuel, which owns about 40 per cent…

JP Morgan and Credit Suisse have both closed down much of their transition management businesses internationally, but JP Morgan confirmed Friday that its Australian business was unaffected by the offshore moves. According to the newsletter ‘aiCIO’, Credit Suisse has quietly closed at least part of its transitions business, but declined to comment on the matter….

Michael Block, the former general manager of investments at FuturePlus and, before that, Workcover NSW, has accepted the position of chief investment officer for Papua New Guinea’s main pension fund, Nambawan Super Ltd. Block expects to take up the position, based in Port Moresby, towards the end of June. Block left FuturePlus Financial Services, which…

In a cautionary tale for super funds going down the member-directed investments path, a US academic has produced a paper, based on court filings and other independent pensions research, which is highly critical of large investment menus being afforded by corporate-sponsored savings plans. Mercer E Bullard, a professor of law at the University of Mississippi,…

Mercer has launched an Australian shares fund which highlights the benefits of tax-aware portfolio construction for various investors, especially those which don’t pay tax, such as foundations and charities. The firm published a client note on the fund, which is open for tax-exempt investors, saying: “At Mercer, we believe that tax-exempt investors have a distinct…

Profile by Penny Pryor AUSCOAL chief executive officer Bruce Watson is passionate about his industry, passionate about his members and takes his commitment to provide them with an intimate experience very seriously. Big marketing spends have never been part of the agenda, but he heads up a $7 billion fund that not only takes out…

Frontier Advisors has just completed a major restructure of how it operates, to equip the fund for the industry’s changing asset consulting needs in a new superannuation environment. Staff levels have risen from 42 to 50 since Damian Moloney came on board 18 months ago as chief executive officer. New divisions have been created, and…

It seems a long time since the institutional investment world has seen the sort of genius that led to Modern Portfolio Theory and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). Even more unsettling, according to Philip Lawton, recent literature suggests that investors of the future may be deprived of the kind of revolutionary thinking that energized the…

NGS Super is the first super fund to sign onto the NSW Government’s first social benefit bond, committing $500,000 to the Newpin Social Benefit Bond. A social benefit bond, of which the Newpin bond is the first of its kind in Australia, is a form of funding for social services. A government pays a social…

Sovereign wealth funds, especially those from the Middle East, are redirecting their new investments back home, according to a review by KPMG. Due largely to the relative firmness in the oil price, and as Western credit tightened or lurched towards crises, the Middle Eastern funds have taken on greater importance in the world investment market….