Investment News

Over 90 per cent of RaboDirect assets representing more than $100 million will transfer to successor direct fund platform, InvestNow, following an agreement inked last October. Under the deal RaboDirect investors had until the end of the current tax year to agree to the transfer terms or cash out their holdings. Mike Heath, InvestNow general… [Read More…]

Morningstar aims to provide carbon-risk reporting on managed funds later this year, the firm’s Asia Pacific head of manager research ratings, Chris Douglas, told a NZ conference last week. Douglas told the Heathcote Investment Partners ‘Meet the managers’ symposium that the carbon scoring system – based on data supplied by partner firm, Sustainalytics – would… [Read More…]

An alliance of large firms, fund managers and asset owners is mulling over metrics to measure the time horizon of global capital allocation. Sarah Williamson, head of the Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT), said the not-for-profit organisation was developing “some sort of scorecard” that would show whether the world was shifting its gaze… [Read More…]

Investors, including fund managers, can “overdo” their performance measurement assessments, according to a new paper by Research Affiliates. This may skew thinking and reactions towards short-term “noise”. US-based Research Affiliates, says in ‘Performance Measurement – How to Do it if We Must’ that technology is making performance measurement a lot easier and, because it is… [Read More…]

Factor-investing has not been the same since the global financial crisis (GFC), a new analysis by index provider FTSE Russell shows, as the flight to low-volatility and quality stocks intensified. According to the FTSE Russell study published last week, low-volatility and quality shares generated the highest returns with the least risk compared to the four… [Read More…]

This may be the most “conservative” generation – that is, the millennials – since the Great Depression, according to Sabrina Bailey, Northern Trust Investments’ head of retirement solutions. And the repercussions could be profound. Chicago-based Bailey said in an interview prior to addressing last week’s CMSF conference that behavioural factors impacting people’s investment choices tended… [Read More…]

Auckland-based fund administration firm MMC has replaced Trustees Executors (TE) as registry provider for the Milford Asset Management range of KiwiSaver and portfolio investment entity (PIE) funds. In a statement, MMC chief, Tom Reiher, said the Milford registry business would shift across from TE by June this year. “We are excited at the opportunity to… [Read More…]

A rebooted trustee company is trying it luck in the NZ market after gaining a regulatory licence to operate late last year. The Heritage Trustee Company, originally formed in 1998 by parties associated with the colourful Money Managers financial advisory group, hired former Public Trust head of client services, Lloyd Wong, as senior supervisory manager…. [Read More…]

Australian exchange-traded fund (ETF) operator, BetaShares, plans to establish a beach-head in NZ with a yet-to-be-appointed local sales manager. BetaShares is targeting a broad NZ client base with the potential sales recruit required to liaise with stockbrokers, financial advisers (independent and aligned), iwi, charitable and community funds, discretionary investment management services (DIMS) providers and institutions…. [Read More…]

The country’s fourth-largest KiwiSaver scheme could be among the prize assets up for grabs in a reported impending sale of the AMP NZ business. Last week The Australian cited sources claiming AMP “could be starting a sales process for its New Zealand wealth management arm imminently” with private equity firms touted as interested parties. The… [Read More…]