Archives for 2019

Wells Fargo Asset Management, a US-based fund manager with a long history in quantitative and index-like low-fee strategies, is making inroads into the Asian Pacific region. Wells Fargo AM, a subsidiary of the venerable US retail bank which started life in the mid-19th Century carrying gold, other goods and people across America in its famous… [Read More…]

Just a handful of NZ fund managers have earned top grades for environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice from the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA). The latest annual RIAA report on the NZ sector says only eight local fund managers scored the minimum 80 per cent in the industry body’s bespoke ESG scoring system… [Read More…]

Investors have long worried about ‘bubbles’ and ‘busts’. But there also stocks which could be termed ‘anti bubble’. In its latest client note, Research Affiliates, the US-based smart-beta specialist, which opened an office in Melbourne last year, the authors, including the firm’s famous founder, Rob Arnott, define the landscape. In the current environment, after a… [Read More…]

The European alternative assets market is thriving despite a general air of gloom descending on the increasingly fractured continent, according to a new report from research house, Preqin. Mark O’Hare, Preqin CEO, says in the report that “economic growth is not the same thing as activity and opportunities in alternative assets”. “Europe’s alternative assets industry… [Read More…]

AMP suffered a horror annual run in the NZ retail funds market as year-on-year gross inflows fell 16 per cent during the 12 months ending March 31, new data from Australian research house Strategic Insight (SI) reveals. Unsurprisingly, the AMP NZ financial services arm (not to be confused with AMP Capital) was bottom of the… [Read More…]

Behavioural finance could give human advisers the edge in the age of automation, according to a NZ robo-advice provider. Clive Fernandes, founder of robo KiwiSaver-advice firm National Capital, said advisers can use behavioural finance principles – first articulated by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in the 1970s – to build ‘financial coaching’ businesses that should be… [Read More…]

The government has tipped an almost $5 million deficit for the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) in the current financial year despite an expected quadrupling in fee revenue. In a just-released Statement of Performance Expectations (SOPE), the FMA forecasts a financial shortfall of more than $4.7 million over the 2019/20 fiscal year compared to an $803,000… [Read More…]

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is keeping a watching brief on the Woodford Investment Management fund freeze fiasco unfolding in the UK but sees little flow-over effects for NZ. Woodford shuttered its flagship £3.7 billion Equity Income Fund in May citing liquidity concerns as a flurry of investors head for the exit. The fund freeze… [Read More…]

Both local and offshore venture capital (VC) fund managers are already queuing up ahead of the new $300 million NZ government seeding initiative tabled in this year’s budget. In a release last week, the NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) – which will provide governance, administration and $240 million to the project – says “several local and… [Read More…]

The recently-updated NZ managed fund and KiwiSaver disclosure rules remain woefully inadequate and need a member-centric makeover, according to a refurbished report published last week by retirement policy provocateurs, Michael Chamberlain and Michael Littlewood. Chamberlain said the wide-ranging 119-page paper was about 90 per cent identical to the duo’s 2017 effort ‘The Missing 2016 Review… [Read More…]