Archives for 2019

Ethical is back. After decades spent morphing through terms such as sustainable or responsible or environmental, social and governance (ESG), the original ‘ethical investing’ label has returned to vogue. In NZ, for example, the Pathfinder-run KiwiSaver scheme, CareSaver, launched this month under the ethical banner rather than the more modern descriptors. And last week AMP… [Read More…]

The Financial Services Council (FSC) is in the middle of a “significant growth spurt”, according to chief executive, Richard Klipin. Klipin said the FSC should hit just under 100 members following its formal merger with Workplace Savings NZ (WSNZ) earlier this year. The newly-conjoined industry body reported about 80 members after inking the merger deal,… [Read More…]

Australian exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm BetaShares has registered three more products in NZ under the trans-Tasman mutual recognition regime. The latest batch of NZ-ready BetaShares ETFs covers the Australian government bond and FTSE 100 indices as well as the actively-managed Legg Mason Emerging Markets Fund. Following the most recent trio of product registrations, BetaShares has… [Read More…]

The world’s largest fund managers shone a spotlight on the difficulties the industry faced as two of them reported their second-quarter earnings results to US brokers and investors earlier this month. Both BlackRock and State Street suffered further revenue declines in fee revenues as highlighted in respective investor presentations published here and there. But BlackRock… [Read More…]

Mercer has released a starting line-up for its annual conference in October, which will deliver the house view on resilience, responsibility and risk in the late-cycle era. The Mercer forum, a standard fixture in the NZ conference circuit, kicks off with a climate change portfolio primer from the group’s Australian-based senior responsible investment specialist, Jillian… [Read More…]

ASB has lined up at least four bidders for the Aegis investment platform, according to industry sources, with Australian firms dominating the buyer list. However, it is understood one NZ-based offer – from a new platform player – was also on the table as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia-owned ASB seeks to offload the pioneering… [Read More…]

The NZX has hired AMP NZ head of customer service, Helen McDowall, as chief operating officer (COO) funds management. McDowall, an eight-year AMP NZ veteran, replaces NZX funds COO, Stephen Upton, who resigned last month. She was head of operations for AMP before taking up the customer service role in 2015. Prior to joining AMP… [Read More…]

Former NZX and AMP corporate superannuation guru, Ian Miller, has rejoined Simplicity in a full-time head of sales role starting this week. Miller served as Simplicity’s sales director in a short-term contract role in 2017 before taking up the head of corporate super position at the NZX-owned SuperLife in July of that year. Previously, he… [Read More…]

Recently-enlarged financial advisory group, Milestone, has signed on MyFiduciary as its new research provider. Peter Coltman, Auckland-based director of the national Milestone business, said MyFiduciary would replace Morningstar as the group’s primary research provider. Coltman said Milestone previously used Morningstar along with a mix of research sources to build its model portfolios and approved product… [Read More…]

NZ investors have retreated from alternative asset classes with most funds in that category shrinking over the last year, according to the latest Melville Jessup Weaver (MJW) quarterly investment survey. Of the dozen or so alternative products captured in both the 2018 and 2019 June 30 MJW figures, total funds under management (FUM) fell from… [Read More…]