Investment News

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has laid out five options for treating ‘intermediaries’ under imminent new financial institution conduct legislation including creating separate duties for regulated advisers. In one of two consultation documents published last week, MBIE is looking to resolve the conflict between the demands of the looming Financial Markets (Conduct… [Read More…]

Annual investment returns, as noted last week by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), skewed upwards over the 12 months to March 31 during a statistically unusual period. The FMA move to limit fund managers from exploiting the lucky numbers for marketing purposes may have divided opinion but the “base effect” has distorted a wide range… [Read More…]

First Sentier Investors has opened up its long-established global listed infrastructure fund to the NZ retail market with the launch of a new regulated product last week. The Australian-headquartered manager, previously known as Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM), has offered the listed infrastructure strategy in the NZ institutional market in various forms for… [Read More…]

Mercer has increased the environmental, social and governance (ESG) ingredients across its $2.4 billion KiwiSaver following a similar recipe change in the manager’s conservative fund late last year. In a release, Mercer says as well as including the usual range of ‘sin stock’ exclusions, the enhanced ESG approach would give more weight to companies driving… [Read More…]

Research Affiliates has taken the study of factor timing to a user-friendly new level through a paper which argues that the market’s momentum and valuation are good predictors of economic influences. The paper, by Mike Aked, director of research for Australia, shows that a strategy based on a factor’s discount to historical averages of value… [Read More…]

About a third of securities trading firms on both sides of the deal experienced operational stresses during the peak COVID-19 volatility last year, according to a new Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) white paper. The study carried out by global back-office behemoth DTCC and consultancy firm McKinsey & Company found some weak links in… [Read More…]

The three largest global custodian banks have enjoyed hefty increases in the total assets under custody and administration in the March quarter as markets continued to rebound. BNY Mellon is still the biggest. BNY Mellon remained the largest in the world, by a whisker, ahead of State Street, but third-placed J.P. Morgan Chase, America’s largest… [Read More…]

AMP has axed efforts to sell part of its fund business to US firm Ares Management, opting instead for a ‘demerger’ that will split private markets and the remaining components into two entities by the middle of next year. At the same time, the group revealed controversial AMP Capital head of infrastructure and – briefly… [Read More…]

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has cracked down on fund managers advertising post-COVID boom-time annual returns. In a note issued this week, the regulator has warned managers that advertising any “phenomenal” returns garnered over the 12 months to March 31 could “mislead investors”. Global share markets bounced back spectacularly from the brief COVID-induced shock early… [Read More…]

ANZ is recruiting for the newly created role of funds management managing director following the split of its wealth and private bank division that will see the departure of long-time head, Craig Mulholland, in June. Under the restructure announced last week, the ANZ wealth arm (to be renamed as ‘funds management’) – primarily the $33… [Read More…]