Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
Gray takes on ambassador role at Goal
Bryan Gray, who retired from full-time work this year after a distinguished career in asset servicing, has taken on a role as ‘brand ambassador’ at Goal Group in Australia.
The new part-time role involves working with Goal’s clients and prospects on their use of the firm’s technology services behind class action monitoring, filing and recoveries as well as withholding-tax reclaims. He will open a Sydney office to complement and work with a Melbourne team of three..
Goal’s main competitor with an active Australian presence is Financial Recovery Technologies (FRT), which has a Melbourne office run by father and son Brian and Lachlan Slade. Brian Slade also spent six years at Goal in Melbourne.
The field of class actions, involving lawyers, litigation funders and tech-savvy administrators such as Goal, a UK-based global firm, has become increasingly important for big super funds, managers and custodians in Australia in recent years.
For all fiduciary investors, especially those which are regulated by APRA, there is an assumption that they will be aware of relevant class actions relating to stocks they hold, which becomes all-but impossible for big funds with significant global exposures to do themselves. Even custodian banks tend to outsource such administration. Goal refers to itself as a “fintech” company, demonstrating the importance of technology in the process.
Gray announced his retirement from J.P. Morgan, where he was, most recently, managing director in charge of platform sales, in February this year. Before his 20 years at J.P. Morgan, he spent 12 years at State Street, rising to head up sales in Australasia.
Gray said that over recent years Goal had cemented its position in the fintech space within asset servicing. “It’s evident that asset managers and custodians are recognising the need to adapt their service proposition to meet the changing expectations of today’s investors – and the potential competitive advantage in doing so,” he said.
“With its unique technology and expertise in both tax reclaims and shareholder litigation services, Goal has a compelling proposition for the investment community and I look forward to helping them further their service delivery excellence.”
Stephen Everard, Goal’s UK-based chief executive and founder, said: “Market demand for both withholding-tax reclaims and securities class actions recovery services is soaring across the region. At the same time, we are bringing new cloud-based solutions to market that leverage high levels of automation to transform our clients’ process and cost models.”
As an aside, Brian Slade also had a long career in asset servicing, his last role being at BNY Mellon. Slade holds the distinction of being the inaugural chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association, at which Gray was the chair on two separate occasions.
