Investment News

Launching a bitcoin fund amid a crypto-crash might seem like a case of bad timing but Kōura Wealth KiwiSaver founder, Rupert Carlyon, is unfazed. “I would feel far more comfortable buying bitcoin at $30,000 than when it’s $60,000,” Carlyon said. Bitcoin slumped to a low of about US$25,000 last week during a broad market sell-off…. [Read More…]

The NZ Superannuation Fund (NZS) has confirmed a trio of senior appointments, luring two overseas candidates to assume the plum positions. In an update last week, the NZS named Kathryn Kerner, Kevin Wong and Rachael Le Mesurier as respective head of data analytics, senior investment strategist and head of diversity, equity and inclusion. Both Kerner… [Read More…]

The employer superannuation master trust sector bled almost $500 million during the volatile March quarter, according to the latest EriksensGlobal survey, for an average fall of 5.6 per cent. By contrast the much larger, and more conservatively invested, KiwiSaver market dropped 3.7 per cent over the three months to the end of March based on… [Read More…]

More than five years after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushed for a custody-licensing regime in NZ, the issue appears to have sunk even deeper into regulatory back-office obscurity. But institutional-grade custody providers in NZ continue to favour licensing as a prudent risk-control measure despite the lack of urgency among regulators and policy-makers. For example,… [Read More…]

Dean Hegarty has parachuted into Queenstown as the first official paid person-on-the-ground for the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA) in NZ. The ex-pat Hegarty returns to NZ after a 12-year offshore jaunt that saw him serve in several commercial partnership roles in Australia, most recently as head of membership and engagement for the Australia… [Read More…]

BlackRock has flagged an ESG-lite agenda ahead of the 2022 corporate proxy-voting season. In a note published last week, the BlackRock Investment Stewardship (BIS) group says the US$10 trillion manager – the world’s largest – will direct its considerable proxy power in favour of fewer shareholder proposals this year as companies face votes on more… [Read More…]

NZ retail investors may soon have access to a new ‘dark green’ investment vehicle launched by Australian multi-affiliate firm, Apostle Funds Management. According to an Apostle spokesperson, the hardcore ‘People and Planet Diversified Fund’, which has a zero-tolerance approach to exclusions based on several criteria, should soon be available in retail format in NZ after… [Read More…]

Inflation is back in fashion but money influencers have yet to settle on a defining look for the recently returned financial fad. Opinions range from the austere 1930s depression stylings of hyper-inflationistas to deflation doomsayers now relegated to the outskirts of hipness. But, according to T Rowe Price chief international economist, Nikolaj Schmidt, investors are… [Read More…]

A survey of 50 global pension funds shows that many are losing hope of achieving their net-zero goals, and the sector is still “in the foothills” of the transition. The report, carried out by CREATE-Research – founded by Amin Rajan – and backed by DWS Group, was based on a telephone survey of 50 large… [Read More…]

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is likely to tighten up rules around embedded advice fees and use of cash-based performance indices in the wake of its recent ‘value-for-money’ pilot program. According to industry sources, the FMA has earmarked both in-built investment product advice fees (or commissions) and fund reference benchmarks linked to the cash-rate as… [Read More…]