Guy Eliffe: ACC corporate governance manager investments
Renowned NZ equities manager Guy Eliffe, has resurfaced in a top institutional job just three months after being ditched by AMP Capital.
Eliffe, made redundant this January by AMP Capital NZ after almost a decade heading the manager’s local equities team, joined the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) as corporate governance manager investments last week.
An ACC spokesperson said Eliffe started the job on April 14.
He will work alongside the Wellington-based ACC investment unit headed by Nicholas Bagnall with other team members including Paul Robertshawe, Blair Tallott, Blair Cooper, Jason Familton and Tore Hayward.
According to the most New Zealand government accounts, the ACC investment portfolio topped $33 billion as at February 28 this year – an increase of more than $4 billion compared to the same date 12 months previously.
At the same time, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) managed about $29.6 billion, the government accounts show.
The ACC is the country’s single-largest local equities manager with about $2.8 billion invested in the New Zealand sharemarket as at June 2014. According to the 2014 ACC annual report, the fund’s NZ shares portfolio – all of which is managed in-house – represented 3 per cent of the total NZX market cap or 4.5 per cent of all local equities available to trade.
As well as managing NZ equities internally, the ACC fund also manages most Australian and a “small portion” of global shares in-house. The 2014 annual report shows the ACC had roughly $4.5 billion invested in international equities.
Over the 2013/14 annual reporting period the ACC fund returned 6.33 per cent, beating its benchmark for the “19th consecutive year” – albeit by just 0.10 per cent.
“However, this was the first time in that period that ACC’s outperformance did not exceed the costs of managing investments,” the 2014 report says.
“Most of ACC’s investment portfolios outperformed their benchmarks during the year (particularly ACC’s bond portfolios and internally managed equity portfolios), but this outperformance was offset by a negative contribution from our asset allocation decisions.
“For much of the year, ACC held a lower-than-benchmark weighting in equity markets and a higher-than-benchmark level of exposure to unhedged foreign exchange, and both of these positions detracted value in the financial year.”