CEO of AIST, Fiona Reynolds, says efficiently implementing TFN identification and agreeing on universal data standards are the first steps in demonstrating to the Government the super industry is ready for, and able to implement, change. Finally the wait is over. After 18 months of looking at the super system, we now know what the Federal Government has planned for the industry and when it is going to be delivered. We might whinge about the amount of work that is ahead of us, but we can’t complain that the Government is not listening to us. Jeremy Cooper has reason to be pleased with the extent to which the Government listened to his panel, with 139 of his 177 recommendations picked up – including many of the key (but thankfully not all) recommendations on SuperStream and MySuper.
Europeans eye Australia for Asia exposure
Australian hedge funds returned 0.95 per cent in November 2010, taking the year to date performance to 5.72 per cent.
TOFA: it wasn’t all for nothing
Some in the financial services industry still wonder how they ever got caught up in the Taxation of Financial Arrangements (TOFA) legislation. Some lament that the Australian Custodial Services Association was not more successful in its lobbying for exclusion from obligations seen as primarily aimed at corporate finance. However now that TOFA has been live for more than six months, some indirect benefits are being hailed by practitioners. MICHAEL BAILEY reports.
Broadened and fragmented Custody in 2011
The Australian custody and investment administration market will increasingly become one of global platforms and unbundled services. MICHAEL BAILEY reports. The days of selling funds managers the ‘securities services’ concept – which bundles investment administration and custody – could be numbered in Australia, according to the chief of a major domestic custodian. The business Andrew Bastow runs in Australia might be called HSBC Securities Services (HSBC SS), but unlike competitors with a similar moniker, HSBC SS offers domestic custody only in Australia, leaving it to others to run middleand front-office services. There is a good reason why HSBC SS has not entered the administration fray here – it is the Australian sub-custodian for a number of global custodians, most notably State Street, which is also in the investment administration and master custody businesses.
Hedge FoFs adapt to the new world
There has been a lot of speculation recently about whether the hedge funds of funds (hedge FoFs) business model will survive the wash-up of the financial crisis. But many FoFs are changing what they offer investors – not just better transparency and lower fees. GREG BRIGHT spoke to Richard Keary, chief executive of the Australian arm of international FoF manager FRM about the trends.
What drives Australia’s lower-return future
Australia’s powerful investment returns have been driven by the rising terms of trade throughout the commodities boom and generally low rate of inflation. But have the good times gone? Robert Hogg, senior consultant at Frontier Investment Consulting, assesses how major forces determining the performance of domestic asset classes will influence returns in the years to come.
Changing Tracks – the future of equity investing
Equity investments are the largest made by superannuation funds, and for good reasons. The equity risk premium, believed to be an ongoing phenomenon in listed markets, suits the needs of accumulation funds and – even better – active management promises to beat this embedded return. Or so we thought. Something has gone wrong in the last decade as markets boomed, crashed and in the end went nowhere. Does this mark the death of the great equity cult? SIMON MUMME and GREG BRIGHT report. 
