A package of proposals designed to improve governance of APRA-regulated entities sets lifetime tenure limit of 10 years for super fund trustee directors. It also aims to substantially beef up monitoring and enforcement of director competence, skills and propriety, and challenge board appointments when it believes individuals aren’t fit to serve.
Australia’s superannuation system is set for major changes in the lead up to 2062 when assets in accumulation are forecast to be eclipsed by decumulation. Speaking at CFA Society Australia’s Investment Leaders Forum, a panel of industry experts predicted that themes including heightened competition, mass customisation and financial advice will determine the winners and losers.
A Hong Kong-based conglomerate has sold its stake in a number of ports around the Panama Canal to a consortium of investors including BlackRock.
The global CEO of the US$10.4 trillion ($16.7 trillion) Vanguard Group says investors and regulators are right to be cautious on private markets but that the index giant would consider partnering with managers to bring the asset class to its customers for a lower price tag. The comments follow ASIC’s landmark report into how super funds are investing in private assets.
Entireti will rebrand the former AMP licensees it acquired last year to Akumin. Entireti acquired AMP’s financial advice businesses, including AMP Financial Planning, Hillross and Charter Financial Planning, which had been temporarily operating as NewCo. Akumin houses those offers including AMP Financial Planning, which will be rebranded to Akumin Financial Planning. Late last year, Entireti … Read more
Australia’s sovereign wealth fund has thrown its weight behind one of the most influential activist investors in Japan as it builds out its exposure to active equities.
The delegation of super fund leaders and lobbyists that headed to Washington DC and New York last week was a milestone moment for the industry’s global influence and may have even aided Australia’s economic relationship with the US. But some funds say the trip failed to meet their best financial interests duty assessment, and attendees are now being asked by the Senate to justify the costs.
The prudential regulator’s latest fund-level expenditure data shows funds’ advice costs totalled $1.7 billion in FY24, including $1.52 billion paid to external advisers. Funds spent just $82 million on intrafund advice, and $99 million on their own advisers.
The superannuation industry should develop its own customer code prescribing minimum service standards for fund members before government fills the gap and imposes ill-fitting regulation on it, the Investment Magazine Chair Forum has heard. This will only become more important as member demands for service increase, and the sector becomes a higher profile target for fraud and scams.
Investors have plenty of reasons to be bullish about China’s financial markets in 2025, according to Peking University professor and one of the country’s top economists, Yao Yang. The optimism stems from tech stocks’ continued rally and expectations that the central government will soon shift to a looser macroeconomic policy stance.
As superannuation funds grapple with their obligations under the Retirement Income Covenant, Brighter Super is creating advice capacity by building on expertise it inherited when it merged with Suncorp Super. Chief executive Kate Farrar says there’s been “a lot of learning” on how to work with advisers, but already more than a quarter of the fund’s members have received advice.
Conexus Financial is pleased to announce the appointment of leading financial services reporter Lachlan Maddock as senior journalist at Investment Magazine following the relocation of Darcy Song to Singapore as Asia-Pacific correspondent. The new line-up underscores the growing and global influence of Australia’s institutional asset owners.
The investment intelligence behind Australia’s largest asset owners and their teams
In-depth interviews with leaders, experts and visionaries in the institutional investment community
Updates on the latest industry policy developments and regulation
The challenges and innovations of custody, technology and operational due diligence
Investment Magazine provides in-depth, monthly analysis of trends and developments for all the businesses in which superannuation funds engage‚ including asset allocation, investment manager selection, custody and fund accounting, member administration, group insurance and compliance.
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