Swiss-based funds manager Vontobel Asset Management has exceeded $1 billion in Australian assets under management, driven by local institutions’ increasing need for diversification strategies. Vontobel offers one of its six boutiques, the actively managed Quality Growth Fund, to Australian investors. The fund currently has just under $29 billion under management across all countries, with investments … Read more
United States fund manager MFS Investments has unwound its decade-long partnership with BNP Paribas in Australia and is going it alone in the local market. President and chief investment officer of MFS, Michael Roberge, was in Australia last week to meet with local clients, for whom the company manages just over US$14 billion. “The BNP link … Read more
There’s no question that the industry-fund sector has been leaking members to the self-managed world for some time, but now the industry funds are increasingly striking back. One of the key reasons people have been drifting to the self-managed superannuation fund sector over the last few years has been a need for control. It has been … Read more
The Australian exchange-traded fund industry continues to grow, with assets under management reaching a high of $5.7 billion at the end of September, according to BetaShares ETF Review. The growth represented a 3.9-per-cent increase over the course of September, attributable rather to a rise in underlying asset prices rather than fund inflows. The most popular products … Read more
Regular readers of this column would be well aware of the ongoing debate about the governance of superannuation. However, amid all the claims and counter claims about the merits of the various governance models that exist in our industry and the hysteria about unions “controlling” superannuation, some of the really important issues around board independence … Read more
The New South Wales government is attempting to ramp up interest in its stalled Waratah Annuity Bond by announcing an exclusive distribution deal with Colonial First State’s FirstWrap investment platform. The move comes after the first instalments of the bonds, aimed at “Mum and Dad” retail investors, failed to find traction in the market and … Read more
Nicholas Allen, founder of Allen, Allen and Partners, has been working on an informal level with Eaton Vance in Australia but will now step away from his own firm to take on the role of country head. “Three or four years ago when Eaton Vance came to the market, my role was to navigate this … Read more
Towers Watson has launched a software integration product which enables life insurers to run their financial models on the Towers Watson cloud, giving them an outsourced-services alternative to spending on in-house infrastructure. Towers Watson has launched MoSes Azure, a Microsoft-based cloud product which gives insurers the ability to model their financial models against an on-demand, cloud-based grid … Read more
Research house Lonsec has retained its “highly recommended” rating on the Hyperion Australian Growth Companies Fund for the third consecutive year. In its report, Lonsec notes that the fund returned an excess return of 1.92 per cent and 2.9 per cent over the five- and seven-year periods to June 2012, outperforming the Lonsec peer average … Read more
Over-the-counter (OTC) start-up, the Money Market and Debt Exchange (MMADX), has announced the appointment of former ABN AMRO executive, Mark McCarthy, as head of sales. MMADX is a start-up establishing a secure electronic communication network between banks and institutional asset managers, enabling trade in money-market securities, repurchase agreements and interest-rate derivatives in real time through … Read more
A majority of global institutional investors believes the world economy will be hit by a significant tail-risk event in the next 12 months, and list Europe and China as the likely sources. A survey of 310 institutional investors in Western Europe and the US, commissioned by State Street Global Advisors and conducted by the Economist … Read more
AMP Capital managing director Stephen Dunne told a media lunch in Sydney this week that he was frustrated by the “short-termism” of performance benchmarking and that AMP increasingly preferred an approach that looks at “what the client really wants from us.” “This is very much a move away from benchmark plus management,” said Dunne. “I … Read more
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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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