Preqin analysed its database of over 5,300 PE funds, identifying 2,500 buyout and venture capital funds with enough maturity to form part of the analysis. It then analysed the quartile position of funds during their fourth year, and then viewed the quartile rankings of these same funds at maturity. It found that 50 per cent of buyout funds ranked in the top quartile in year four go on to be top quartile at maturity, with 75 per cent beating the median, while 60 per cent of VC funds in top quartile at year four maintain top quartile position at maturity with 76 per cent beating the median. Similarly, poor relative performance early on in a fund’s life proved to be extremely difficult to turn around. Just over half (51 per cent) of buyout funds in the bottom quartile in year four remain there at maturity, while 60 per cent of VC funds in the bottom quartile at year four maintain this position at maturity. Vanguard Investments announced the expense ratio for the Vanguard All-World Ex-US Shares Index exchange-trade fund (VEU) had declined from 0.25 per cent a year to 0.22 per cent a year.
The VEU is a cross-listed ETF which debuted in the US in 2007, and on the ASX in 2009. SyncSoft, the software supplier to member administrators, said the March upgrade of its flagship system Capital 10 would include integrated defined-benefit servicing capability for the first time. Quadrant Super announced it had reached $500 million under management, and took the opportunity to thumb its nose at Jeremy Cooper’s call for bigger, fewer super funds. The entire Hobartbased fund might be half the size of the typical mandate awarded by AustralianSuper, but CEO Wayne Davy said its personalised service depended on staying small. Quadrant has outsourced heavily, adopting Vision Super’s investment platform and foreshadowing a financial planning joint venture with another fund.
Access Capital Advisers appointed Don Conway as managing director-infrastructure, based in the firm’s Sydney office. Prior to joining Access, Conway was global head of direct investments at CP2 (formerly Capital Partners) where he was involved in key infrastructure investments including Transurban, ConnectEast and Sydney’s Airport Rail Link. Conway’s experience also includes a five-year period as executive director for Allco Equity Partners (now called Oceania Capital Partners) and over 17 years at Brierley Investments, working directly with famed corporate raider Sir Ron Brierley. After the loss of many of its minor-shareholder partners over the previous two years, Access CA’s CEO, Alex Austin, said the consultancy and dealmaker was back to “growing bench-strength and experience”: Geoffrey Di Felice, Luke Grabda (both formerly of CP2), Nirav Shah (formerly from Rothschild) and David Elizondo (from Highstar Capital) have joined the Access team in the past four months.
