Shoddy practices have come back to haunt AMP again after the Australian regulator filed civil charges last week in relation to insurance and advice fees charged to dead clients. In a release, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says the legal action alleges five AMP entities “were involved in charging life insurance premiums and… [Read More…]
Investment News
Committee rejects early access for sex-change, sackings
Parliament has knocked back a swag of citizen petitions calling for early access to KiwiSaver funds on non-standard grounds ranging from redundancy to gender-reassignment surgery. The Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) also last week rejected pleas to permit easier withdrawals of Australian superannuation money transferred to KiwiSaver accounts. Six of the seven KiwiSaver petitions reviewed… [Read More…]
Cracks show in cap-weighted passive popularity
Global pension funds are sticking with passive investment styles despite rising concerns about concentration risk, a new survey has found. About 90 per cent of respondents in the study by UK research firm Create had exposure to index-based share strategies while one in two invested in passive bond funds. Most respondents have favoured market capitalisation-based… [Read More…]
Offshore shares top ETF flows, ethical enthusiasm grows
Investors in ASX-listed ETFs have continued to pile into global equities in 2021 with ‘ethical’ labeled products on the up, according to a new BetaShares analysis. The BetaShares report published last week shows international share funds captured A$2.8 billion of the total A$6 billion or so of net ETF flows on the ASX over the… [Read More…]
Tough love for LIBOR: why benchmark unaware issuers could wreak market havoc
Asia-Pacific financial markets could experience some turbulence as bond issuers globally switch to new pricing mechanisms later this year. According to a new report published by Bloomberg and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), up to US$190 billion of bonds issued in the APAC region could remain linked to the traditional LIBOR benchmark due to… [Read More…]
Return of the real: why not negative is not positive
MFS global investment strategist, Robert Almeida, has joined a growing chorus of market participants calling the end of the negative rates era with a “day of reckoning” ahead for risk assets. In a note penned last week, Almeida says while the widely expected impending burst of inflation is likely to prove “transitory”, real interest rates… [Read More…]
Ashok Bhatia: fixed income strategies made for the times
With records still being set by both equities and bond markets, investor uncertainty abounds. It would seem these times are made for both active management and experience. With bond markets, the possibility of higher inflation, especially in the US, prompts fears of rising interest rates and therefore falling prices, with investors looking further into the… [Read More…]
A cautious note on real estate debt
Bfinance, the fund management search and research firm, has sounded a word of warning for big investors looking to select a manager for the burgeoning asset class of real estate debt. In a note to clients published last week (May 26), Trevor Castledine, bfinance senior director, private markets, says funds are using five key levers… [Read More…]
State Street wins Vanguard gig as BNZ overhauls managers, registry
BNZ has appointed State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) to replace Vanguard as its core international assets index manager among a raft of other mandate changes in the bank’s investment line-up. In disclosure documents filed last week, BNZ named SSGA to take over passive management duties from Vanguard in global equities and fixed income covering its… [Read More…]
Retail prognosis for medical KiwiSaver as MAS gets a MIS
The Medical Assurance Society (MAS) is poised to open up its close to $1 billion KiwiSaver scheme to the wider retail market after earning a managed investment scheme (MIS) licence this month. Mike Davey, MAS chief member advocacy officer, said the mutual organisation planned to “begin public promotion of our retail KiwiSaver scheme from mid-June”…. [Read More…]