Former ARIA chief, Steve Gibbs, has been hired by a major investment bank to help distribute its synthetic and alternative investment products to not-for-profit super funds.
The head of Merrill Equities’ pension services division, Nicholas Allen, said Gibbs had started on a part-time basis on April 1. “;Investment banks have had a reputation among super funds for going in hard and doing deals, but then not following up with the kind of client service you get from a funds manager,”; Allen said. “;Steve is obviously very well respected in the super fund industry, and his role is to build bridges between the funds and the investment bank.”; Allen’s division wants to work with super funds on two fronts. One is the provision of cheap beta, predominantly through synthetic replication, to facilitate alpha transport. On the alpha front, a wide suite of alternative investment products is available. Gibbs, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, will remain based in Canberra.
Fixed income
Emerging market debt offers good strategic opportunities says Aviva Investors’ Aaron Grehan
Asset allocators should review their biases of emerging market debt as a tactical investment of higher-yielding, lower-quality assets, says expert.
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