Investment News

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has identified six key themes among the 26 submissions lodged on its draft fund fee guidance, rebuffing claims of regulatory over-reach. After publishing the final fund fee guidance last week, the FMA released the previous submissions plus its summary response, distilling the underlying thematics as: guidance or intervention is unnecessary;… [Read More…]

Auckland-based investment administration firm MMC has bolstered its senior leadership team with two new hires. In a release, MMC named Joshua Arnold and Renee Tourell as chief product officer and chief operating officer (COO), respectively. While Tourell assumes the COO mantle from Chris Watson (now MMC chief transformation officer), Arnold steps into a freshly created… [Read More…]

The NZ retail fund market rocketed to an all-time high above $128 billion during the December quarter in a period that saw Milford Asset Management join the 11-figure club. According to the just-released quarterly survey from Australian researcher Plan for Life (PFL), Milford piled on almost $1.3 billion in net retail funds under management (FUM)… [Read More…]

After years of consolidation in the member administration space for big super funds, smaller and newer competitors appear to be gaining ground. FNZ and Grow have won their first clients. GROW Inc (formerly Grow Super) was selected by Vanguard as the administrator for the manager’s proposed new superannuation business, against most industry predictions, and FNZ… [Read More…]

Sovereign bond specialist Colchester Global Investors has launched a stand-alone NZ-domiciled fund offering the local market direct access to a strategy previously only available in multi-manager format. Fronted by Wellington-headquartered fund-hosting firm Implemented Investment Solutions (IIS), the new Colchester Global Government Bond product comes wrapped as a portfolio investment entity (PIE). IIS chief, Anthony Edmonds,… [Read More…]

ESG investing continues to polarise institutional investors around the world, with a surprisingly large number considered ‘contrarians’ who tend to buck the trend to ESG’s adoption and integration. This is one of the outcomes from research by Nuveen, the global funds management arm of big US-based TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF), a profit-for-members financial services organisation. With… [Read More…]

Parliament kicked off new legislation last week that will introduce new climate reporting standards for NZ banks, insurers, listed companies and ‘large’ fund managers. About 200 entities, including licensed investment schemes with $1 billion or more under management, will fall under the law, requiring regular, consistent public reporting on to-be-determined climate metrics. As well as… [Read More…]

A Hong Kong-based manager is tapping wholesale investors in Australia and NZ for a new closed-end real estate debt fund targeting assets in the Asia-Pacific region. The Sun Hung Kai & Co (SHK) fund is looking to raise between US$200 million to US$300 million for the new real estate strategy that will invest in first… [Read More…]

Salt Funds Management has secured the trifecta of AMP Capital ex-pats after naming Greg Fleming as head of global diversified funds today. Fleming resigned as AMP Capital NZ head of investment strategy last week along with senior portfolio manager, Daniel Mead. While Mead shifted to a similar position with sister firm AMP wealth, Fleming joins… [Read More…]

KiwiSaver providers and fund managers will have to review fee settings at least once a year under new provisions confirmed by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) this morning but the regulator has eased its previous hard line on embedded advice fees. The FMA ‘Managed fund fees and value for money’ final guidance released today puts… [Read More…]