David Chaplin

Veteran Mercer NZ chief, Martin Lewington, is to leave the multi-manager and consulting business next month after almost 20 years with the firm including 16 in the top job. In a LinkedIn post Lewington said he would “hang up my boots” on June 27. Mercer reported about $11.4 billion of retail assets under management at… [Read More…]

A new Investment News NZ study has analysed official data for the first time, providing new details on the layout of the Financial Advice Provider (FAP) world. The free report published today, uses Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) figures to identify the largest FAPs across several categories. As at January 2025, the official… [Read More…]

ANZ has lost its crown as the largest retail funds manager in the country, according to revised figures in a long-running sector survey. The Plan for Life (PFL) December 2024 quarterly NZ retail fund report shows ANZ fell to second on the table behind ASB for the first time during the period as the Australian… [Read More…]

The KiwiSaver growth/income split hit the exact 60/40 level of an idealised balanced portfolio during a slightly risk-off start to 2025 that saw assets tracked by Morningstar decline by about $700 million quarter-on-quarter. Total KiwiSaver funds under management in the Morningstar March quarterly report amounted to about $121.2 billion, down from the almost $121.9 billion… [Read More…]

Kady Buchanan has departed Nikko Asset Management just two years after joining the business in a senior sales role. In a note to clients, Nikko says Buchanan resigned the group to “take up a role with a competitor” – understood to be Milford. She joined Nikko in March 2023 to replace Sam Bryden, who was… [Read More…]

Climate-reporters and small DIMS-issuers have been formally granted some compliance relief in notices stamped by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) last week. Under a well-signalled move, the 200 or so entities captured by the climate-reporting legislation won’t have to provide assurance on downstream ‘scope 3’ carbon emissions until the 2026 financial year. The one-year relief… [Read More…]

Kernel has selected challenger online broker, Alpaca, to back its just-released US share-trading service launched to existing investors in the manager’s products last week. The win is likely a NZ-first for the US-domiciled Alpaca, which raised US$52 million at the end of April in a ‘series-C’ investor round. Founded by Hitoshi Harada and Yoshi Yokokawa… [Read More…]

Investors appear to have under-priced the risk to equity markets of tariffs as the President Trump show wraps up a non-stop 100-day program marked by “volatility and confusion”, according to a new Salt Funds Management paper. The Salt report says even after the recent correction, US share index levels still imply an “unwise assumption” that… [Read More…]

Auckland-based funds management shop, Generate, has bowed to KiwiSaver member demand for aggressive investment options with the launch of three almost 100 per cent pure growth funds. While the flagship Generate Focused Growth fund already offers a high-octane 95 per cent exposure to equities (including a 15 per cent target tilt to listed property), the… [Read More…]

Storied Australian global equities fund manager, Platinum Asset Management, recorded a milestone moment last week as founder, Kerr Neilson, sold most of his remaining stake in the business to hedge fund operator, L1 Capital, ahead of a potential merger. In a release, L1 Capital confirmed it had acquired “a 9.6% shareholding in Platinum by way… [Read More…]