Federated Hermes appoints investment director

Federated Hermes has appointed Sian Long as investment director of impact and sustainable equity strategies. Long has 15 years of investment experience, and has presented and delivered long-term asset growth in impact and sustainable equity strategies across institutional and wholesale clients. Before joining Federated Hermes, Long worked as a senior equity investment specialist for AXA … Read more

Nuveen launches RE strategy for private wealth clients

Global asset manager Nuveen has launched the Global Cities Real Estate Fund, its first locally-domiciled unit trust for Australian private wealth clients. Nuveen partnered with Commonwealth Private as an anchor investor to launch the strategy, with CBA seeding the vehicle. The strategy forms part of the real estate portion of Commonwealth Private’s model portfolios for its … Read more

Rest invests in ARCHIMED

Profit-to-member superannuation fund Rest has taken another step towards its impact investment target with an investment in specialist private equity firm ARCHIMED. The European-based company invests exclusively in healthcare industries to drive sustainable development and improve people’s health and economic status. ARCHIMED finds, supports, and scales up companies that have a mission to improve health … Read more

ASIC warns super trustees to boost efforts to consolidate duplicate member accounts

ASIC is warning superannuation trustees to effectively consolidate duplicate member accounts after a recent review of nine trustees identified poor practices that led to consumer harm. Of the nine trustees reviewed, three did not have documented business rules for identifying and consolidating multiple accounts on an annual basis across some or all of their funds. … Read more

BlackRock raises over $500m for development of NSW battery

BlackRock Alternatives has raised over $500 million to aid in the development of the NSW Waratah Super Battery. Funds managed by BlackRock’s infrastructure team will also help finance the construction of the WSB, which is a significant component of the project, a System Integrity Protection Scheme designed to act as a ‘shock absorber’ in the … Read more

Spark Financial to launch legacy program

National dealer group Spark Financial will begin operating as a profit-for-purpose organisation when it launches its Spark Legacy Program in the upcoming financial year. The operating model aims to improve financial literacy among young Australians, and Spark will be donating 100 per cent of its profits to nominated charity partners, the first of which will … Read more

AGILE receives ‘approved’ rating from Lonsec

Allianz Retire+ has received an ‘approved’ rating for its longevity solution AGILE from Lonsec Research. Lonsec determined AGILE to be a thoughtfully-considered and well-designed product that can assist retirees in overcoming the longevity risk by providing a steady or rising income stream over an investor’s lifetime. The solution was developed in consultation with the adviser … Read more