Investment News

Jarden has hired ASB investment strategy manager, Chris Wilson, as part of a pre-Christmas recruitment bonanza at the broking house. Following a long career at ASB, Wilson joins Jarden as head of portfolio strategy for the wealth management team. He was a among five senior Jarden appointments announced on Christmas Eve. “Chris will be assisting… [Read More…]

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has put wholesale investment managers on notice, slating a review this quarter that may close access to one disclosure exemption avenue. In its end-of-year wrap-up, the FMA says it plans to investigate the current let-out for product offerors from issuing “warning and investor acknowledgement requirements” to wholesale clients with at… [Read More…]

Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham has called bubble on the longest bull market in history. In a searing newsletter post titled ‘Waiting for the last dance’ published last week, Grantham, founder of value shop GMO, says current market conditions that feature “extreme overvaluation, explosive price increases, frenzied issuance, and hysterically speculative investor behavior” bear all the… [Read More…]

FNZ has won a last-ditch bid to relitigate the looming forced sale of Australian software firm GBST after the UK competition authority flagged possible mistakes in figures underpinning its earlier decision. In a notice published late last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would refer the case back for a rethink after… [Read More…]

Climate change investment strategies based only on exclusions are unlikely to be effective, according to a new Russell Investments NZ client note. In a brief paper sent out late last year, Russell NZ argues climate change, unlike more easily identified ‘sin’ sectors such as tobacco or nuclear weapons, does not “lend itself to simple implementation… [Read More…]

Most of the world’s largest institutional investors – 438 sovereign wealth and public pension funds – had a tough time last year. They had to cope with government capital drawdowns alongside market volatility and other problems due to the pandemic. According to the annual report of Global SWF, a private organisation headed by Diego Lopez… [Read More…]

Fund managers expect to double their technology spend from about 10 per cent of their operating expenses in 2019 to 20 per cent by 2023, according to a new study by Casey Quirk. The increase is driven by wanting to have broader and deeper ties to clients. The study, ‘Technology for the C-Suite: Driving Competitive… [Read More…]

The NZX most-followed share benchmark rounded out its ninth-straight year of positive returns with a 15 per cent return, according to the latest data from index provider, S&P Dow Jones. Since 2015 the S&P/NZX 50 Portfolio Index has more than doubled while growing over four-times in the nine-year period ending December 2020. During the 2020… [Read More…]

Investors need to watch for a surge in poor governance practices by company boards and management under the veil of responding to the impact of COVID-19. The latest sustainability report of a major global manager, Dimensional Fund Advisors, warns of an increase in questionable corporate activity this year. Dimensional managed US$527 billion ($A685 billion), as… [Read More…]

In a slight break from tradition, Investment News NZ (IN NZ) winds up the decade-opening (this claim is disputed) 2020 by doubling down on the usual annual top 10 hits list. But with 20 popular vote-winning stories vying for attention (lawsuits pending), the 2020 version follows a themed approach rather than the standard countdown method… [Read More…]

The Consilium KiwiSaver scheme has squeaked into the 2020 launch zone after gaining formal approval from the regulator in December. In documents lodged with Disclose last week, a letter from the Financial Markets Authority says that regulator “certifies that it is satisfied that the KiwiWRAP KiwiSaver Scheme, as constituted by the trust deed dated 4… [Read More…]

The regulator looks set to face significant industry resistance on key items in its proposed KiwiSaver fees and ‘value for money’ guidance. Released early in November for feedback, the draft KiwiSaver fees guidance note attracted 27 responses by close of the submission period last Monday (December 14), according to a spokesperson for the Financial Markets… [Read More…]

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) reported a worse-than-budgeted deficit in the 2019/20 fiscal year, falling $5.6 million into the red largely on ballooning employment costs and a shortfall in adviser licensing revenue. According to the FMA annual report released last week, the latest deficit was about $850,000 above budget forecasts of $4.7 million. Employee expenses… [Read More…]

The NZ fund industry lags the world in disclosing transaction costs, research house Morningstar says in part three of its ‘Global Investor Experience’ report. Under a plain-pack labeling system that eschews the traditional letter- or star-based gauges, Morningstar rates the NZ managed fund market as ‘average’ overall for disclosure across a scale that spans ‘top’… [Read More…]

Select Wealth Management will remain on the platform formerly known as Aegis under a deal inked with MMC last week. MMC bought Aegis from ASB last year, fully integrating the platform into its existing investment administration business earlier in 2020. Now rebranded as MMC Wealth Administration, the platform hosts “over 70 advisory groups across New… [Read More…]

State Street has tapped into the growing demand for investment data analytics with a new service targeting the institutional market. The State Street AlphaSM Data Platform allows “clients to seamlessly assemble and access investment data spanning internal and third-party services across their investment processes”, the group says in a release. “It provides access to front… [Read More…]

AMP NZ chief, Blair Vernon, will make the trek back across the Tasman after his fill-in gig in Australia ends in January next year. Scott Hartley will take up the reins at the embattled Australian wealth management giant on January 11, according to an AMP statement released last Friday. Most recently, Hartley served as chief… [Read More…]

Social media could be looming as the next battleground for market manipulation as the retail rush to online share trading platforms ramps up. Last week the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) fired its first shot at small-time share-price fiddlers after censuring an anonymous trader for market manipulation. While the case in question did not involve social… [Read More…]

Hastings-based financial advisory services firm, Finzo, has called time on “tick box renewal applications” for adviser professional indemnity (PI) insurance as the major provider in NZ backed away from covering small firms. In a note to members last week, Finzo says the PI market for advisers in NZ is following the Australian experience with “insurers… [Read More…]

MMC has partnered with Auckland-based firm Data Insight to produce a range of digital tools for its fund and wealth administration clients. According to a release, the new service – dubbed MMC Digital & Insights – will be operational by the second quarter of next year, offering clients access to sophisticated data analytics and reporting… [Read More…]