Investment News

A group of financial advisers have seeded a new Pathfinder Asset Management global property fund launched this week. According to director, John Berry, the advisers have committed substantial support to the Pathfinder Global Property Fund with “good growth” in the product likely over the next six months at least. Berry said the new fund, Pathfinder’s… [Read More…]

The importance of new products and investment strategies for fund manager inflows has jumped to record levels in the past two years, according to a white paper by Casey, Quirk & Associates. But the product development track record of most managers is “mediocre”. New active strategies are getting most of the inflows. Casey, Quirk, the… [Read More…]

Australasia’s superannuation industry will require more people on the front desk and less clogging up the back-office over the next decade, according to a new survey carried out by BNP Paribas Securities Services and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST). The survey of trustees, CEOs and senior management in about 100 superannuation funds across… [Read More…]

The growth in ‘smart beta’, or factor-based, investment strategies could disrupt traditional institutional funds management risk exposures, according to a new Russell Investments paper. In the article published in the Winter 2015 ‘Russell Communiqué’, authors James Barber and Evgenia Gvozdeva point out new factor exposure techniques and tools “allow equity portfolio managers to capture strategic… [Read More…]

Research house Morningstar has taken the Milford Trans-Tasman Fund off review, reinstating it as a three-star, bronze-medaling product. Morningstar put the Milford product ‘under review’ late in June after the mysterious departure of portfolio manager, Mark Warminger, and his replacement in the NZ shares component of the fund by Brian Gaynor, the company’s founder and… [Read More…]

Treasury has begun a review of the collective risk exposure of all Crown Financial Institutions (CFIs) as part of a government-wide review, according to a just-published ministerial ‘letter of expectation’ originally delivered to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) this March. In the letter, Finance Minister Bill English, says the government is increasingly concerned at… [Read More…]

The Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) will aim to boost investment staff during the current financial year, according to its recently-released ‘Service agreement’. While the ACC fund has already made two senior investment hires to newly-created positions this year, the ‘Service agreement’ – an annual document that sets out the organisation’s plans for the 12 months… [Read More…]

The Invercargill-based meat processing firm, Alliance Group, will roll its almost $60 million staff super scheme into a Mercer master trust, according to industry sources. It is understood Mercer, which replaced Forsyth Barr as the Alliance scheme investment adviser in the last year or so, battled it out with AMP for the gig. The 2014… [Read More…]

The Aon Master Trust (Aon MT) will transfer IOOF NZ clients (formerly known as Plan B) to other yet-to-be-revealed options after closing a range of underlying funds this month. According to an amended prospectus published earlier in July, Aon closed the ‘Global Pre-set Investment Strategies’ to new investors as at June 24 with members to… [Read More…]

Global investments in alternative assets grew by more than 10.5 per cent over the 2014 calendar year, according to a new report. The latest ‘Global Alternatives Survey’, produced by actuarial and consulting firm Towers Watson in association with the Financial Times, found assets under management in the sector reached US$6.3 trillion in 2014, up from… [Read More…]