Public Knowledge – making news this month…

Cash means cash at First State Super.

Amid a slew of other funds’ enhanced cash options losing money, the NSW public sector fund was moved to announce that its cash option contained “no growth assets” and achieved a return of 1.5 per cent for the first three months of 2008/09. Minister for Superannuation, Nick Sherry, released a discussion paper on the proposed clearing house, which would allow small businesses to consolidate their SG payments for free.

The paper canvassed whether only one provider should receive funding to provide the service, with the administrative simplicity of a single provider weighed against the fact many businesses already use a variety of clearing houses, not just for super but for payroll tax, workers comp requirements and the like. The paper is available at www.treasury.gov.au and feedback is due December 19.

Sherry also announced that on 1 July 2010, the boards of Australian Reward Investment Alliance, the Military Superannuation & Benefits Scheme and the Defence Force Retirement & Death Benefits Scheme would merge to form a single trustee board. Yieldbroker, the most popular electronic trading platform in the Australian fixed income marketplace and Omgeo, a trade matching and confirmation portal, established an interface between their services to bring streamlined fixed income processing to Australian market participants.

Former Goldman Sachs JBWere Asset Management Australian small caps managers Chris Adams, Michael Glenane and Leigh Cronin finally confirmed they were being incubated by nabInvest, which has taken a significant minority stake in their new shop, Fairview Equity Partners. Perpetual Limited reopened applications for its Monthly Income Fund, Wholesale Monthly Income Fund and Private Investor Mortgage Fund, but the quarterly redemption facility imposed on October 23 remained in place.

Australian equity boutique Karara Capital founder David Slack has bought out Bell Asset Management’s minority stake in the business, in partnership with lead portfolio managers and directors Luke Sinclair and Rohan Walsh. Bell Asset Management will retain the existing international equities business and its interests in the Bridgewater Managed Funds and Global Mining Investments, with Ned Bell its new CEO.

Greg Healy, director of AMP Corporate Superannuation, was elected chair of ASFA’s board succeeding Rosemary Vilgan. An annual benchmark report commissioned by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia found that broad responsible investment grew 8 percent from $52.8 billion to $57.1 billion in 2007/08, reflecting an increase in the assets of fund managers and super funds that have integrated ESG factors into their investment processes.

Select Asset Management spruiked a 20.77 per cent return for the year to October 31 on its Select Futures Fund, sub-advised by Aspect Capital, a London-based futures trader covering 80 global markets. Rob Coombe was affirmed as chief executive of BT Financial Group (BTFG) following the Westpac- St.George merger, while former St George wealth head Geoff Lloyd became general manager of advice and private banking at BTFG.