Investment News NZ

Charity-focused fund house, Trust Management, has launched a new suite of portfolio investment entity (PIE) products that mirror its existing range. Currently, Trust Management has about $450 million held through six group investment funds (GIF) - an older legal structure established as tax-effective vehicles for charities, trustee companies et … [Read More...] about Goodbye GIFs: charitable investment firm to open PIEs

As KiwiSaver providers brace for some horror March quarter statistics they can, at least, reminisce about a solid end to 2019 that saw a few schemes break through milestones. According to figures released by Australian research house Plan for Life (PFL) last week, Smartshares, Booster, Milford Asset Management and ANZ all clicked higher on the … [Read More...] about It’s always sunny in December: KiwiSaver peaks above $66bn

NZ fund administrators are humming despite a large spike in transaction volumes, fast-approaching end-of-tax-year duties and a workforce largely confined at home. MMC and Trustees Executors (TE), which collectively handle a large chunk of third-party fund admin in NZ, both reported systems were coping well in the face of a huge increase in … [Read More...] about Clean transition as back-office heads home

Mercer has hired Australian Unity head of wealth, David Bryant, to replace Ben Walsh as Pacific Zone leader. Walsh left Mercer mid-March for a new job as chief life insurance officer at AIA Australia. According to a statement, Bryant, who was also chief investment officer for the wider Australian Unity group, would work with the Pacific … [Read More...] about New Pacific head floats to Mercer; Jolly for iShares; Maple-Brown Abbott goes global

Research Affiliates, the company which some folks think invented smart beta, even though they didn’t call it that back then, is expanding in Australasia. But its founder, Rob Arnott, is pre-occupied at the moment. Research Affiliates (RA) spends a lot of time looking at risks. And there’s a big one happening at the moment. Arnott, who, like a … [Read More...] about Research Affiliates rolls out Australasian expansion

Exchange-traded funds (ETF) trading volumes were up almost 40 per cent in the US as virus-induced volatility spooked markets over late February through March, new data from the BlackRock-owned iShares shows. In a release last week, iShares said ETF trades constituted 37 per cent of all US exchange trading from February 24 to March 23 or “nearly … [Read More...] about Bond ETFs see record trades, price dislocations

Low volatility US stocks have beat the broader benchmark during six of the largest market crashes since 1972, according to a recent S&P Dow Jones study, outperforming by almost 50 per cent in one period. The analysis, published this January, found that a low volatility version of the S&P 500 index recorded better peak-to-trough returns … [Read More...] about Crash protection: how low volatility stocks have cushioned against downturns

A total of about 260 global asset owners, including 30-odd Australian fiduciary investors, completed a survey instituted by research and asset manager allocation firm bfinance late last week on how they are responding to the current COVID-9 crisis. We are more pessimistic than most other big investors. The survey also asked whether they were … [Read More...] about Australian investors among most pessimistic about COVID-19