Mercer expanded its research process to evaluate the extent to which every funds manager in its database pro-actively integrates environmental, social and governance factors into their mainstream investment process.
David Bell and his hedge funds-of-funds team at Colonial First State Global Asset Management face uncertain futures after the $200 million business they oversaw was shut down.
Credit Suisse promoted Stephen Giubin to head of Asset Management Australia, retaining his domestic equities stewardship. Former COO, Gailie McIntyre, was promoted to become his deputy. The pair together replace the retiring Keith Ince.
Private equity LIC, ING PEAL, challenged the notion that private equity valuations are overstated during periods of falling equity markets, recording an average uplift of 41 per cent over carrying value for the seven realisations it made since last November.
Master trusts remain more expensive than not-for-profit industry and public sector super funds, according to a Chant West fee comparison report, but the gap is much smaller when it comes to corporate plans with assets around $10 million, and industry fund fees generally have been rising the fastest over the past three years.
Quensland Investment Corporation entered into a strategy of synthetic inflation swaps, arguing that equities had been disproven as an inflation hedge, and that inflation-linked bonds were difficult to access and diversify (none of the bonds have maturities past 2020) and also used up precious capital allocation.
AMP Capital Investors promoted veteran Chris Judd to head of property funds management.
It was a month of big appointments at UniSuper, highlighted by Terry McCredden’s resignation from the top spot at Telstra Super after 18 years to become CEO. David St. John added eight people to his investments team, including Gordon Young and Brett Lazarides to newly created roles heading property and infrastructure/private equity respectively. Warming McCredden’s seat at Telstra Super as a global search to replace him gets underway is Martin Crowe, the chief financial officer.
Schroder Investment Management Australia appointed Simon Stevenson to its Australian Multi-Asset team in a newly created role heading strategy. He was previously head of research at Investa Property Group.
Mega buyout funds continued to deliver higher since-inception IRRs as a whole than their smaller peers and other segments, such as venture capital, according to the latest release of the State Street Private Equity Index, compiled from PrivateEdge client data.
And I&T News exclusively reported…
Martin Currie, the Edinburgh-based global equities manager, will open an Australian office under Legg Mason country head, Kimon Kouryialas.
