Schroders has announced the appointment of David Heard and Ray David as equity analysts within the Australian equities team. Both will report to Justin Halliwell, head of research and commence their roles in late July 2012. The appointments restore the size of the Schroders Australian equities team to 13 portfolio managers, analysts and traders. The … Read more
Towers Watson has bolstered its research ranks, adding Ben Trollip to its Australian fixed-income team. Trollip will join the Australian team as an investment-research consultant focusing on manager research. He was previously with Towers Watson-affiliate in New Zealand, actuarial consultancy Melville Jessup Weaver, where he has worked since 2004. Graeme Miller, Towers Watson’s director of … Read more
The push by industry funds into the advice space continues to gain pace with the $630-million Health Industry Plan (HIP) announcing a strategic partnership with Bridges Financial Services. HIP’s more than 23,000 members will now have access to financial planners who charge on a fee-for-service basis. Members will receive flexible and scalable, single or multi-issue … Read more
While effective product functions may seem commonsensical, my observation is that investment organisations often struggle with this. Products are generally developed to exploit a perceived market and/or investment opportunity and, while attractive to the business in isolation, when measured against other comparable opportunities may not represent the optimal use of an organisation’s capital. In addition, due primarily … Read more
While it’s difficult to find evidence of a direct relationship between economic growth and equity returns, it is possible to explain how news stories – such as those about economic growth – affect market sentiment. The importance of sentiment Market sentiment is the biggest driver of investment returns in the short-to-medium term. As investors, we usually … Read more
Bryan Gray, in charge of JPMorgan’s custody sales and customer relationships in Australia and New Zealand, has three women working flexible hours for him as relationship managers. By lore, relationship managers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But Gray seems remarkably liberal about working hours. “They have great relationships with … Read more
JPMorgan is seeking to do away with faxes. The bank’s asset-management clients are being encouraged to adopt computer-based automated fund-transaction technology called fund order routing and settlement services. Since March 12, JPMorgan clients with 400 investment accounts have been using the technology instead of writing a fax to the bank’s custodial department to buy or … Read more
ASX, the owner and operator of the Australian stock market, expects 100 exchange traded funds (ETFs) by June 2013. “I’d be surprised if we weren’t at 100 by this time next year,” says Richard Murphy, general manager of capital markets at ASX. “There is not one big Australian fund manager not looking at ETFs.” Still, … Read more
Access Capital Advisers, the US$3.2-billion infrastructure investor, has bought a 70-per-cent stake in LBC Terminals Jersey from Australia’s Challenger Infrastructure Fund and Challenger Life. Canberra-based Access Capital will own about 2.7 million cubic meters of tank storage facilities for bulk liquid-chemical products that have an enterprise value of US$1 billion. The 11 terminals are located … Read more
Last month Andrew Day, chief executive of Hastings Funds Management, brought most of his 100 colleagues, who work as far afield as London and San Antonio, Texas, to Melbourne to think about the infrastructure investor’s goals. For two days Hastings staff discussed how to transform the $6.5-billion fund manager into a more international company. “As … Read more
In the Sydney offices of Zeptonics near Circular Quay, books by the Dalai Lama sit alongside those by Isaac Asimov. Like the famed science-fiction writer, Zeptonics’s staff is dreaming of new technology that will revolutionise trading on Wall Street, hoping it is seamlessly adopted by asset managers, brokers and high-frequency traders. Today Zeptonics unveils its … 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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