Frontier Investment Consulting, which advises on $117 billion in assets, will sell its proprietary research of investment managers through an online database called Mercury. Melbourne-based Frontier will offer Mercury to clients and non-clients seeking information and ratings on 1600 managed funds run by 1467 investment managers. The subscription database, available from October, will also contain … Read more
John Oliphant, head of actuarial and investments at South Africa’s $130-billion Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), says the fund considers high-impact investments that develop the domestic economy as being in the long-term interests of its members. “We [GEPF] are effectively a third of South Africa’s GDP so what we think is that if the country does … Read more
The super industry – one of the biggest generators of paper cheques in Australia – is about to get on board the e-commerce train. If all goes to plan, reforms are likely to require businesses to ditch their cheque books in favour of a new electronic superannuation payment system, named SuperStream. The reforms are part of … Read more
The imminent departure of Andrew Landman from Ascalon Capital Management is not expected to lead to any significant change in strategy by the Westpac-owned boutique-asset-manager holding company. Ascalon has stakes in nine boutique managers and remains a key component in Westpac’s asset management operations, sitting alongside Advance Asset Management (which offers multi-manager products), BT Investment … Read more
Link Group has acquired PSI Superannuation Management in a private transaction that makes Nationwide Superannuation Fund a new client of its administration business, Australian Administration Services (AAS). The eight shareholders in PSI, which are based in New South Wales’ Hunter region and have owned the superannuation administrator since 1987, sold instead of improving the business … Read more
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
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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.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land upon which Conexus Financial sits, the Cadigal of the Eora Nation. We recognise their continuing connection and unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and community. We pay our deepest respects to them and their culture, and to Elders both past and present.
