In a week of contrasts for Russell Investments, the first client for its post-IBM fund administration model was secured, Michael Triguboff’s former deputy was hired, but the 22-year veteran running the superannuation business resigned to join Mercer.
The name remains the same
The name remains the same Back in 2008, everyone’s favourite Gold Coast property investor, MFS Limited, had plenty of reasons to change its name. It was floundering in debt on its way to drowning entirely. But as it turned out, it wasn’t shame which prompted the name-change to Octaviar, but court action by another MFS … Read more
Funds perform but discount fee hype spoils choice
Australian hedge funds (including offshore funds sold in Australia) returned 2.64 per cent in September, taking the year-to-date performance to 2.54 per cent. Fixed income and market-neutral strategies led the pack with returns of 7.83 per cent and 5.09 per cent respectively for the nine months to September 2010. Perpetual unit registry changes key to Sonata
Perpetual Investments had a major technology problem: three separate unit registry applications, increasing costs, and growing dissatisfaction from clients and staff. The first system was based on an unscaleable, proprietary legacy platform called VAX/COBOL/ RDB, which stored about 3 million transaction histories. The second was a Bravura Solutions application supporting Perpetual’s Select multi-manager offering. The third was the underlying platform for all of its other products. In the end, there were more than 260 users of these platforms and 200,000 active accounts, and staff had to be trained to use all three disparate applications.
Australia trails region on same-day affirmation
Australian funds managers have emerged as regional laggards when it comes to affirming trades on the day they are made, a practice which a major study by a central trade matcher, Omgeo, has found to be a pre-requisite for lowering operational risk and increasing settlement efficiency. MICHAEL BAILEY reports.
Put retirement benefits on statements
Retirement benefit projections are set to be on members’ statements within six months, following Provisio’s upgrade to its rapid advice delivery software for clients’ super funds. PHILIPPA YELLAND reports.
Gone to the Dark Side
For good reasons, institutional investors in Australia are tapping into dark liquidity. But as more dark pools appear, new regulatory proposals to protect price formation on the open market and define which trades can be executed in the dark have been made. SIMON MUMME talks to dark liquidity vendors about the state of play in block trading.
